As tempting as it may be, never venture inside a shipwreck until you have advanced wreck-dive training from a certified, qualified dive training professional. This additional training as well as requisite equipment are necessary if you want to explore inside a wreck.
Wreck diving is recreational diving where the wreckage of ships, aircraft and other artificial structures are explored. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites. Diving to crashed aircraft can also be considered wreck diving.
She is very difficult to reach because the logistics of working at 12,500ft while 370 miles offshore are challenging,” added McCallum. “A lot of people would like to do it, but diving on the Titanic is a complex and difficult undertaking, with currents up to 4 knots.
OceanGate Expeditions, a company made up of undersea explorers, scientists, and filmmakers, offers the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. The company says fewer than 250 people have seen the ship — which sits about 2.5 miles below the ocean's surface — since its discovery 37 years ago.
Can I keep pieces or artifacts from a shipwreck? No. The Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, which mostly regulates ocean dumping, also covers archaeological removal of submerged cultural resources. It's illegal to disturb a site or take things from it without a permit.
Although you might think the rules surrounding 'finders keepers' apply to a sunken treasure ship, this is unfortunately not true. Under salvage law, you must at least try to return the treasures to their rightful owner. As a result, upon discovery, you'd need to notify the government which controlled those waters.
Most times, the bodies of shipwrecked sailors are washed away by currents or eaten by fish. While bones have been retrieved from more recent shipwrecks, dating back to the 16th and 17th centuries, only a handful of human remains have ever been found in ancient shipwrecks.
Most of the bodies were never recovered, but some say there are remains near the ship. What could have happened to the bodies? Some Titanic experts say a powerful storm the night of the wreck scattered the life-jacketed passengers in a 50-mile-wide area, so it's likely the bodies scattered across the seafloor.
Oceanographers have pointed out that the hostile sea environment has wreaked havoc on the ship's remains after more than a century beneath the surface. Saltwater acidity has been dissolving the vessel, compromising its integrity to the point where much of it would crumble if tampered with.
The average lifespan of an iceberg in the North Atlantic typically is two to three years from calving to melting. This means the iceberg that sank the Titanic "likely broke off from Greenland in 1910 or 1911, and was gone forever by the end of 1912 or sometime in 1913."
The head baker of the Titanic spent two hours in frigid water and emerged with only swollen feet! It is believed that upwards of 1500 people died in the sinking of the Titanic. However, amongst the survivors was the ship's head baker Charles Joughin.
Third-class passenger Rhoda Abbott jumped from the Titanic deck along with her two sons. The two boys drowned, but Abbott was the only female Titanic survivor to be pulled from the water.
There are some preserved bodies inside the bowels of the wreckage. The engineers that were trapped in the bottom are believed to had been preserved as they're buried underneath all that wreckage and mud. The bodies that were within the debris field are all gone due to marine life.
The USS Samuel B. Roberts was affectionately called the Sammy B. The ship's only captain was a junior officer in the Navy Reserve from Tacoma.
It is just over a year since the WWII destroyer USS Johnston was confirmed to be the world's deepest shipwreck, found lying on the seabed 6,468.6 m (21,222 ft) below the surface.
Henrietta Mann, who discovered the bacteria, has estimated that the Titanic will completely collapse possibly as soon as 2030.
Of the 337 bodies recovered, 119 were buried at sea. 209 were brought back to Halifax. 59 were claimed by relatives and shipped to their home communities. The remaining 150 victims are buried in three cemeteries: Fairview Lawn, Mount Olivet and Baron de Hirsch.
While we cannot know for sure how he spent his final moments, it is known that Captain Edward Smith perished in the North Atlantic along with 1517 others on April 15, 1912. His body was never recovered.
Since no one owns the Titanic, people are free to recover items from the ship if they are able. The United States granted “salvor-in-possession” status to RMST giving them the legal and exclusive rights to retrieve items from the wreck.
It's unlikely the shipwreck of the Titanic will ever be raised.
The USS Destroyer Escort Samuel B. Roberts, sunk by the Japanese Navy in a battle in the Philippine Sea in 1944, was discovered at a depth of 22,523 feet, making it the deepest shipwreck ever found.
The wartime sinking of the German Wilhelm Gustloff in January 1945 in World War II by a Soviet Navy submarine, with an estimated loss of about 9,400 people, remains the deadliest isolated maritime disaster ever, excluding such events as the destruction of entire fleets like the 1274 and 1281 storms that are said to ...
The Dokos shipwreck is the oldest underwater shipwreck discovery known to archeologists. The wreck has been dated to the second Proto-Helladic period, 2700–2200 BC.