Recently, decades after the discovery of the debris and more than a century after the ship struck an iceberg and sank, rare video footage of the ocean liner Titanic on the seabed of the Atlantic was made public.
Just a few months after divers discovered the debris in 1985, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) captured the footage at a depth of around 2 miles (3 km). The majority of the material has never before been made available to the general public. Following the discovery, footage of the disaster site has appeared in several Titanic-related documentaries. A full 80-minute film of the unedited footage will be shown on YouTube. A few brief snippets of the original dives have already been broadcast.
The footage was released, and according to the WHOI, it “marks the first time humans set eyes on the unfortunate ship since 1912 and includes many other iconic scenes.” The Titanic was the largest ocean liner in operation at the time and was considered to be practically impregnable when it was completed.
On April 14, 1912, it encountered an iceberg in the Atlantic while sailing from Southampton, England, to New York. The tragedy, which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people, shocked the world and sparked criticism over the absence of lifeboats on board. On September 1, 1985, a crew from WHOI and the French National Institute of Oceanography discovered the sunken ship, which was split in half, southeast of Canada’s Newfoundland.
The video was captured by cameras on two different types of underwater vehicles: a small remotely operated vessel that could travel through confined places and a human-occupied submersible that made 11 dives in July 1986. The footage’s debut coincides with Titanic, directed by James Cameron, receiving a 25th-anniversary re-release. The film took home 11 Academy Awards, including best picture.
In a statement, Cameron commented that “the human stories embodied in the magnificent ship continue to reverberate.” WHOI is assisting in telling a crucial portion of a tale that spans generations and across the world by making this footage public.
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