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Discovery of the Wreck Site

Discover how and when the wreck site to the most famous ship was seen for the first time after it sank.

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At 12:48am on Sunday 1st September 1985, Argo (an unmanned deep-towed undersea video camera) picked up pieces of a debris field then just after 1am, a boiler face belonging to 1 of Titanic's 29 boilers was located...

The discovery of Titanic, 73 years after it sank, was used as cover mission for a top secret navy operation in which Dr. Robert Ballard was sent by the navy to look for the USS Scorpion and the USS Thresher, which were two nuclear attack submarines that mysteriously disappeared.

Ballard had agreed to help the Navy with their top secret missions as they had give him funds to create Argo, and looking for the two submarines was in Ballard's eyes seen as a kind of test to see how Argo would operate. He was also given funds so that whatever time he had left after finding the Scorpion and Thresher he could search for Titanic.

While searching for the two navel submarines, Ballard discovered something that would eventually help him to locate Titanic, when they sank, debris had spilled out as they went done and it was then spread all along the seabed due to the current carrying the lighter objects further away from the initial wreck site.

By the time Ballard had finished his mission for the Navy he only had twelve days left to find the Titanic. French research ship Le Suroît, had already spent 38 days searching for Titanic when Ballard joined them. He found that using sonar wasn't going to be successful so instead they looked for Titanic’s debris field by using Argo’s cameras. This meant that they required round-the-clock towing of Argo as the debris field was bigger than the ship itself.

With only 3 days left to find the wreck site, Titanic's boiler came in to view. The time just after 1am on Sunday 1st September 1985.

You now know how the wreck was discovered if you would like to find out more below is a list to help you expand your knowledge of the Discovery Of Titanic.