Titanic Wreck: From Tragedy to Discovery and Deterioration

No shipwreck is more famous in Western culture than that of the RMS Titanic. The second of three “Olympic” class passenger liners constructed for the White Star Line shipping company in Britain, it was the largest and most luxurious ship ever to be constructed at the time. First-class passengers could enjoy a plethora of amenities with rooms and common spaces designed to mimic luxurious styles from places like the Ritz Hotel, the Palace of Versailles, and Parisian cafes. However, this opulence was only fractionally extended to second-class passengers and completely segregated from those in the cramped and nearamenity-less decks of the third-class. On her maiden voyage, she set sail on April 10, 1912, with approximately 2,224 passengers, including crew, her destination set for New York City. She struck an iceberg on April 14th at 11:40 p.m. local time, and by 2:20 a.m. on the 15th , sank to the floor of the Atlantic, taking an estimated 1,500 souls with her. Less than one-quarter of the dead were physically recovered.

For a short time after her demise, there was interest and ideas on how to locate and raise her from the depths. A few of those interested were families like the Astors and Guggenheims, as well as architects and engineers who thought they could use electromagnets attached to nylon balloons to locate and raise her to the surface, an idea suggested by architect Charles Smith in 1914. As the decades passed, many tried to come up with ideas to retrieve the wreckage. Some of these ideas seemed logical on the surface, but some were outlandish. These ideas included filling her with wax, ping-pong balls, and glass spheres, and turning her into an iceberg with liquid nitrogen. While none of these ideas were ever put into practice due to outrageous costs and the ever-present problem of the immense pressure at 13,000 feet, the Titanic remained lost.

On September 1, 1985, she was finally located by Jean-Louis Michel and Robert Ballard during the tail-end of what would many years later be revealed to be a secret mission with the US Navy. Ballard, through the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, had developed the Argo, an unmanned structure complete with lights and cameras that could be submerged at great depths and towed by a vessel. Initially, Ballard was unsuccessful in convincing the US Navy to support an expedition to locate the Titanic, but they eventually supported one that would prioritize locating the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher. After locating the wreckage of the two nuclear-powered submarines, Ballard and his team hypothesized that the trail of debris that led them to those vessels could also be applied to the hunt for the Titanic. With only days left in their expedition, they diligently swept the area until they discovered a series of anomalies on the ocean floor, eventually leading to a trail of debris and, finally, the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. Without more advanced equipment, the crew of the Knorr could only make topical observations, but on July 12, 1986, Robert Ballard returned to the wreckage. Aboard the Atlantis II, he and his team explored what remained of the Titanic in greater detail using the small manned submersible craft, Alvin, which could survive great depths. Alvin was equipped with a detachable unit that could be controlled remotely called Jason Jr., which was used to get a closer look, taking detailed photos during the exploration as researchers cataloged their findings.

Subsequent underwater submersible expeditions during the 1980s and 1990s returned thousands of photographs, artifacts, and hours of film that would dispel myths associated with the wreck. The most crucial bust was associated with the legend that the Titanic stayed whole as she descended to the bottom of the ocean. Images proved otherwise. When she initially struck the iceberg in 1912 and her compartments flooded with water, she began to sink bow first until the weight of the keel snapped her in half. She descended with such great force (20 knots) that when she struck the sea floor, the decks collapsed in on one another. Because of this great force, the initial damage to the bow from the iceberg cannot be seen as it’s buried an estimated 60 feet into the floor.

In 1995, James Cameron visited the wreck of the Titanic twelve times to prepare for filming the blockbuster movie hit that would take cinemas by storm two years later. The great attention from such dives and feature films fueled the increasing commercialization of the wreck and the associated dives. Shortly after the first localization of the wreck, RMS Titanic Inc. formed and appealed to courts to become the only legal entity to salvage items from the ship. Increasing rumors of the Titanic's opulent wine cellar and vault harboring no less than $300 million in jewelry jumpstarted the interest. Raising no less than 5,000 artifacts and, between 1996 and 1998, a loose section from the hull weighing close to 20 tons, RMS Titanic Inc. marketed the events in television specials and attracted cruise ships with exclusive access to the footage. In addition, the company also created traveling and permanent exhibits associated with the salvaged artifacts, which started to raise accusations that the company resembled little more than “high- tech grave robbers.” Federal judges intervened to throttle the supply of artifacts, which, in conjunction with other questionable exhibits and bad investments, forced the company to file for bankruptcy protection in 2016. Increasingly since the twenty-first century, the Titanic has been visited by high-end tourists who pay six figures for the privilege of seeing the prominent wreck firsthand by using submersibles. The implosion of the Titan in the summer of 2023, instantly killing the six people inside, underscores the risk associated with such a dangerous excursion.

As mentioned, people assumed that the Titanic had sunk in one piece at 12,000 feet (3,700 meters). Surrounded by bitter-cold water and exposed to no light, a common assumption was that the Titanic would rest in a deep freeze. On the contrary, the wreck split in two and disintegrated on its way down, leaving a large, scattered field of debris. Surrounded by deep ocean currents and slowly corroded by salt, recent dives to the final resting place have also revealed several biological organisms that attack the ship. Most importantly, uncovering a new rust-eating bacterium, appropriately named Halomonas titanicae, contributes to further decay. Scientists now estimate that by 1940, most human remains would have vanished. The estimate continues that somewhere between 2030 and 2040, the wreck would have disappeared or mainly become unrecognizable.

FURTHER READING: Ballard, Robert D. 1995. The Discovery of the Titanic. Toronto: Madison Press.

Long, Catherine. 2023. “Dwarf-Tossing, ‘Duck Dynasty’ and Al Capone’s Vault: Inside the Strange Company that Effectively Controls Access to the Titanic.” Business Insider. https://www .businessinsider.com/rms-titanic-inc-controls-access-titanic-history-2023-6. Accessed February 16, 2024

Nesmeyanov, Eugene. 2018. The Titanic Expeditions: Diving to the Queen of the Deep, 19852010. Cheltenham: The History Press.

Stone, Daniel. 2022. Sinkable: Obsession, the Deep Sea, and the Shipwreck of the Titanic. New York: Penguin.