'Titanic' director Cameron plans record ocean dive

LOS ANGELES (AP) — James Cameron has gone two and a half miles (4 kilometers) underwater to the wreck of the Titanic dozens of times. Now the "Avatar" and "Titanic" filmmaker aims to go nearly three times deeper.

Cameron said Thursday he plans to take a submersible craft down seven miles (11 kilometers) to the world's deepest point, in the Mariana Trench of the Pacific Ocean, 200 miles (322 kilometers) southwest of Guam.

The journey later this month reportedly would be the deepest solo dive ever, breaking Cameron's own record set this week, when he descended five miles (eight kilometers) off the coast of Papua, New Guinea, in the South Pacific.

Cameron will be the first person to descend to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, known as the "Challenger Deep," since a two-man U.S. Navy expedition did it in 1960.