Wreck of Mighty Titanic was discovered on September, 1985

In 1985, after 73 years of sleep on the bottom of a deep dark sea, the wreckage of the RMS Titanic was discovered by a US-French rescue team led by Robert Baller. This process was funded by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

The Titanic hit an iceberg 375 miles south of Newfoundland on 15 April 1912, sinking on its first voyage, resulting in the loss of more than 1,500 passengers and crew, including the ship's captain. It does not have enough lifeboats for everyone on board. Of the 2224 passengers, only 705 escaped from RMS Carpathia.

The Titanic was the greatest ship in coasting conditions and had numerous security highlights like waterproof compartments and radios. Sinking in just 2 hours and 40 minutes, not all rafts were topped off and not all could be propelled appropriately due to the posting vessel. Survivors' records of the boat's sinking show that the Titanic had incompletely or totally split in two and that the gigantic boat was thought to have gone unnoticed for quite a long time after the sinking.

Lying in 2 main pieces 12,415 feet below sea level, the wreck was found more than 13 miles from the incorrect location provided by the radio operators of Titanic, adding to the difficulty of locating the wreck. Besides, the ship's 2 main parts rest more than a third of a mile apart, suggesting that she broke upon or very close to the shore. The debris field occupies an expansive seabed of 5 by 3 miles.

The depth, rough water, expectations that the ship was in one piece, and limitations of the sonar used to search (mostly the wrong) area hindered attempts to locate the wreck. To find the Titanic, the Ballard team used an advanced towed unmanned submersible called Argo fitted with cameras. 

The extreme pressure at that depth of 6500 pounds per square inch makes manned exploration extremely problematic, but there have been subsequent manned trips to see the site since.

Before the wreck was found and mapped, common reports had been made in various media about attempts to raise the ship. The pace at which the wreck reached the bottom caused much too much damage for any idea of elevating the ship's destroyed halves.

Several other expeditions have visited the site since the discovery of the wreck, some of those collecting objects for sale and display, a highly debated practice. The wreck site was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2012 for the 100th anniversary of the sinking, with plans to repaint the ship to avoid the rust with metal-eating bacteria that ruins the remains.

Many of the artifacts recovered were exhibited in museums and traveling displays are seen by over 20 million people.

On January 6, 2009, the Titanic's last surviving passenger, Millvina Dean, died in England at the age of 98. At the time of the accident, she had been too young to recall any of the events.

With various cultural references in books, movies, plays, and television, the public maintains a profound appetite for all things Titanic has. There's something about the "unsinkable ship" that has sunk and that won't die.

ARJUN