In another deep dive to the famed North Atlantic wreckage of the Titanic, Everett, Wash.-based OceanGate captured video with its Titan submersible that shows the ship is “rapidly deteriorating.”
“These changes are distinct and notable, including the missing Gorgonian Hydroid from the rail of the bow,” OceanGate Expeditions reported this week after Titan made its latest dive to the 12,500-foot-deep site.
OceanGate Expeditions made its first dive to the Titanic last month and sent back images showing debris on the ocean floor, such as the frame of a stained-glass window and fragments of floor tile from the ocean liner.
OceanGate is making multiple dives and employing 3-D imaging techniques to document the wreck’s condition in detail. In 2019, a different dive team reported that the Titanic’s deterioration appeared to be accelerating.
The company says it will review all video, sonar, and 3D laser scans with experts to evaluate deterioration and will continue those efforts when the team is back in its home port. No one has ever documented the shipwreck year-over-year for many years running and that’s what OceanGate Expeditions says it has begun this year. The observations so far are primarily from past dive footage that doesn’t match the quality of what OceanGate is now capturing.
Here are three of the latest videos shared this week:
- 16-second video of the Titanic midship facing aft showing part of a first-class balcony:
- 12-second video of the Titanic’s forward mast collapsed several years ago:
- 10-second video of the Titanic telemotor where the ship’s wheel once was:
The Titanic hit an iceberg and sank during its maiden voyage from England to New York in 1912.
The loss of the ship and more than 1,500 of the people who were on board — plus the wreck’s rediscovery in 1985 — made the saga of the Titanic one of history’s best-known sea tragedies.
The latest Titan dive included P.H. Nargeolet as one of the expeditions’ team of experts. OceanGate pointed out that it was nearly 34 years to the day from the date of Nargeolet’s first dive to the Titanic. Called the Titanic’s “greatest explorer,” the former French Navy commander was the leader of six expeditions to the wreck site (1987, 1993, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2010) and was in charge of retrieving more than 5,500 Titanic artifacts.
OceanGate Expeditions is scheduled to wrap up its Titanic Survey Expedition, which began June 28, on Saturday. The missions will continue over the next several years to document the wreckage fully.
Next up, the company is headed to the Hudson Canyon Deep Sea Discovery Expedition in September and The Great Bahama Bank Expedition early in 2022.
