New Titanic expedition images show major decay. But see the team's 'exciting' discovery.
Lying at the bottom of the North Atlantic, the remains of Titanic are showing signs of deterioration. Researchers found in a new expedition that a portion of railing had fallen from the iconic bow of the ship, where characters Jack and Rose "fly" in the 1997 movie "Titanic."
The expedition was the first to venture to the wreck site since the Titan submersible disaster that claimed the lives of five people last summer. RMS Titanic Inc., which holds the legal rights to salvage from the wreckage of the ship, launched a team of videographers, photographers, scientists and historians in July to document the state of the wreckage.
The ship sank after striking an iceberg in the early hours of April 15, 1912, on its very first voyage. More than 1,500 people on board died. Since then, public fascination with the wreck has endured, and researchers have taken several trips to the bottom of the sea to photograph and explore the ship, the last of which was in 2010.
More than 2 million photos taken during the 20-day 2024 expedition revealed new evidence of deterioration of the wreck, the researchers said.
The railing around the bow of the ship was missing a 15-foot section on the port side, the team discovered on July 29. It had been intact in 2010. Photographs from earlier expeditions showed the evolution of "rusticles and sea life" on the railing of the bow. The missing piece is now lying on the sea floor.
"Although Titanic’s collapse is inevitable, this evidence strengthens our mission to preserve and document what we can before it is too late," RMS Titanic Inc. said on its website.
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'Lost' statue rediscovered
The team hoped to find a statue that once "embodied Titanic’s palatial design" as the centerpiece of the ship's first-class lounge. When the ship went down, the lounge was torn apart and the Diana of Versailles was lost in the debris field.
The 2-foot bronze statue depicts the Roman goddess of wild animals, Diana. The statue was spotted in photos taken during a 1986 expedition, "but a tradition of secrecy around the Titanic wreck ensured her location would remain unknown," RMS Titanic Inc. said. After days of searching, the team on its final day of the expedition finally located the statue and was able to photograph it with detail "not seen in 112 years."
"The discovery of the statue of Diana was an exciting moment," RMS Titanic Inc. director of collections Tomasina Ray said in a news release.
The RMS Titanic researchers said ahead of their trip that they were sending remote-operated vehicles, or ROVs, to collect data and take photographs but were not sending any crewed vehicles.
Famous Titanic explorer, lost in submersible disaster, honored
RMS Titanic said it held a memorial service for Paul-Henri Nargeolet and all the lives lost on the Titan submersible and on Titanic. Nargeolet was a famous Titanic expert and deep-water explorer who dived to the wreckage 37 times.
Nargeolet, 73, was on board the submersible when it imploded during a trip to the wreck on June 18, 2023. He would have been part of this summer's expedition as RMS Titanic's director of underwater research.
Titan's disappearance captivated international attention during a frantic four-day search of the waters after a support ship lost contact with the sub. The submersible was set for a two-hour trip 2½ miles down to the wreckage site, but it never resurfaced. On board were Stockton Rush, CEO of OceanGate; Nargeolet, the French explorer; British pilot and adventurer Hamish Harding, 58; Shahzada Dawood, 48, a Pakistani-British businessman; and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.
On June 22, the U.S. Coast Guard announced that it had located a debris field and that the Titan had imploded, killing all its occupants.
Last month, Nargeolet's family filed a wrongful death lawsuit for $50 million against OceanGate, which operated the submersible.