Film director to attempt deep diving record

New York Times : Yesterday, when movie director James Cameron took his Deepsea Challenger 8 kilometers down into the New Britain Trench off Papua New Guinea, he broke the world depth record for modern vehicles. The trip was a practice run for a much deeper dive he plans to make later this month to the bottom of the 11-kilometer-deep Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean. If he succeeds, he will break the previous record set in 1960 by two men who were sent down by the US Navy. An explorer-in-residence for the National Geographic Society, Cameron says his explorations are scientific rather than competitive. Once he makes the descent, he hopes to spend some six hours filming rare sea life and collecting samples.