James Cameron begins diving to the bottom of Mariana Trench

James Cameron begins an attempt to become the first person in 50 years to visit the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of Pacific Ocean.

Film director James Cameron is travelling 11km (6.8 miles) down to the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific, where he hopes to spend six hours exploring and filming.

James Cameron, 57, is making the dive in a specially designed and cramped one-man submarine, the Deepsea Challenger.

The journey has been delayed several times by bad weather.

A manned descent to the trench was last attempted in 1960, by US Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard.

They spent about 20 minutes on the ocean floor but their landing kicked up silt, meaning their view was obscured.

“Jim is a remarkable guy who’s never trained as an engineer but has an intuitive grasp of engineering details that far surpass a lot of the professionals I’ve known,” Don Walsh told the Telegraph.

“He hasn’t wasted a lot of time trumpeting to the world, <<We’re going to do this>>. He wants to make sure he’s got it right and then he’ll tell the world. He’s a pretty high-profile person and he doesn’t want to screw up royally.”