Video | Unseen footage of ‘Titanic’ shipwreck recorded in 1986 emerges

Twenty-five years ago, the story of the Titanic came to the big screen courtesy of director James Cameron. To mark the anniversary and release of a remastered version of the award-winning movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts has published previously unseen footage of the iconic shipwreck recorded in 1986. The video above shows how the ocean liner has become one more element of the marine ecosystem and is undergoing a corrosion process from bacteria that eat away at the metal surfaces.

After the liner sank on April 14, 1912, initial efforts to locate the ship ended without success. It was not until 1985 that advances in deep-sea technology made the discovery possible. After the find, WHOI diving teams returned to the area in July 1986, equipped with cameras. The expedition included a three-person submersible and a remotely operated vehicle.

The Titanic was on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York when it hit an iceberg and sank. Of the 2,787 passengers on board, 1,518 drowned or died of hypothermia. The shipwreck is located 400 miles south of Newfoundland (Canada). In 2019, an expert group in ocean exploration, led by Victor Vescovo, recorded high-definition images at a depth of 3,800 meters. Those recordings were used to create 3D models of the ship and anticipate how the vessel will deteriorate.

The ship was built with the most advanced technology of the age. The abundant studies that have been carried out since them have provided some information about the accident. “No one thing sent the Titanic to the bottom of the North Atlantic. Rather, the ship was ensnared by a perfect storm of circumstances that conspired her to doom,” wrote the science writer Richard Corfield in an article for Physics World.

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