You’ve all probably read, heard or seen this story. Titanic , a supposedly unsinkable ship, was out on her maiden voyage on the night of April 14-15, 1912, when she hit an iceberg and sank. With not enough lifeboats on board, over 1,500 people – passengers and crew members – died in the icy waters.
The ship, which had sent radio distress signal, sank to the bottom within hours, meaning that only 700 or so could be saved, even though help arrived in the form of Carpathia, another ship, within 80 minutes.
What took so long?
Even as passing time sealed its status as the most famous shipwreck of all time, it was decades before Titanic ’s wreck could be discovered. What with countless recollections and retellings of what had happened on that fateful night, there was no dearth in terms of interest. Nor was its last known surface location a secret, as Titanic had sent out those signals before sinking.
The problem, however, was the fact that the Atlantic Ocean is over two miles deep in that area. Add to it the primitive diving technology that was available in those years, the wreck had to wait for its saviour.
Ballard, the saviour
American explorer Robert Ballard, a retired Navy officer and oceanographer, turned out to be that person. He had long wanted to discover the Titanic ’s wreck and made his first attempt in 1977, with little success.
Ballard then devised a way to fund his exploration in 1985 when he approached the U.S. Navy. On condition that he located two Navy submarines – U.S.S. Thresher and U.S.S. Scorpion – that had also sunk in the area, Ballard could use the remaining mission time for his purpose of finding the wreck of Titanic . This aspect of the exploration had remained a secret until 2008, when Ballard revealed it himself.
Search through elimination
Ballard, who was by now the leader of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution’s Deep Submergence Laboratory, was on board a French vessel Le Suroit in the summer of 1985. This vessel had set out to test a new sonar system and by the time they turned back in August, the sonar had eliminated large areas of ocean floor from being possible locations for the Titanic .
As a result, when Ballard set off again weeks later aboard the Woods Hole research vessel Knorr, they had zeroed in on fewer locations to search. Equipped with Argo, a submersible built with cameras, the crew observed the sea floor.
Debris, boiler and the hull
After spotting random debris and craters littered over the seabed, one of the ship’s boilers was finally sighted on September 1, 1985. And then, slowly but surely, the ship’s hull came into view. The wreck of Titanic had finally been discovered in the North Atlantic Ocean, around 600 km off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.
The discovery was one of the highlights of 20th century oceanography as the groundbreaking moment had employed all aspects of the science to locate the ship. The explorers on board, including Ballard, had utilised biological oceanography when they studied the impact of deep-sea organisms; physical oceanography when they broke down wave patterns and ocean currents; geological oceanography when they deciphered the features of the sea floor; and chemical oceanography when they pieced together the chemical composition of both the ocean and the ship.
Even though the discovery enabled experts to reconstruct what had happened to Titanic and thereby better understand the debacle, it has also led to a slew of other expeditions that have scoured for artefacts and relics, causing regular irreparable damage to the wreck. On April 15 2012, 100 years after the accident, Titanic ’s wreck came under the protection of UNESCO as part of our Underwater Cultural Heritage. But the bulk of the damage done to it continues to be from humans and there might be no wreck to preserve if suitable action isn’t taken soon.
Published - September 01, 2018 05:10 pm IST
