The U.S. Navy accidentally discovered the wreck of the Titanic while testing new sonar technology and submersibles intended for locating malfunctioning nuclear submarines.
Seventy-three years after the Titanic sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic, a joint expedition by the U.S. and French navies found the wreck approximately 650 kilometers east of Newfoundland (Canada) at a depth of around 3,700 meters underwater.
Efforts to locate and recover the Titanic began shortly after the ship sank in 1912, but were unsuccessful due to technical limitations and the vast suspected area in the North Atlantic. It wasn’t until 1985 that French scientists, in collaboration with the U.S. Navy, finally located the Titanic while testing a sonar system that uses sound waves to detect underwater objects through reflections, along with an unmanned submersible.
Advanced Sonar and Submersibles
The technology used in the search was developed by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in the U.S. and the French National Oceanographic Institute (IFREMER). Jean Louis Michel led the French research team that surveyed the seabed using the sonar system known as System Acoustique Remorqué (SAR), the most advanced of its time, which created black-and-white images of the ocean floor.
In a suspected area covering 160 km2, SAR eliminated over 75%. Subsequently, the IFREMER team, led by Robert D. Ballard, a marine scientist and U.S. Navy officer, used the unmanned submersible Argo and an integrated filming system on board to search for debris that might have dispersed from the Titanic wreck.
Windows on the Titanic wreck captured by the submersible. (Photo: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).
Argo descended near the ocean floor, transmitting captured images back to the research vessel on the surface. On the morning of September 1, 1985, the unmanned submersible discovered one of the Titanic’s massive boilers at a depth of over 3,700 meters, 650 kilometers east of Newfoundland and 1,150 kilometers north of Halifax (Canada). This was one of the 29 boilers weighing 57 tons on the Titanic.
The next day, the wreck was found nearby. The Titanic had split in two, but many features and interiors were well-preserved. Hundreds of thousands of debris scattered within a 3 km2 radius around the ship. The wreck has since been explored using both manned and unmanned submersibles, shedding light on the sinking incident of 1912. The Titanic continues to be explored regularly, and thousands of artifacts have been recovered.
The Real Mission Behind the Titanic Discovery
According to The History Press, Ballard was strictly instructed by the U.S. Navy not to disclose anything related to the true purpose of the search. The search for the Titanic was merely a cover for a campaign to use new submersible technology to locate the wrecks of the U.S. submarines lost in the 1960s, the USS Scorpion and USS Thresher.
Argo, the vessel equipped with cameras and sonar that helped find the Titanic. (Photo: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution).
Ballard met with the Navy in 1982 to seek funding for the submersible technology he wanted to develop for finding the Titanic, according to National Geographic. Ronald Thunman, then the Deputy Commander for Naval Submarine Warfare Operations, informed Ballard that the military was interested in this technology, but for the purpose of investigating the wrecks of the USS Thresher and USS Scorpion. Thunman mentioned that if Ballard completed this mission and had time, he could search for something else, but never explicitly stated that Ballard was allowed to look for the Titanic.
The Thresher and Scorpion sank in the North Atlantic at depths ranging from 3,000 to 4,600 meters. Ballard noted that the military wanted to know the fate of the nuclear reactors powering these vessels. Ballard’s data showed that the nuclear reactors were safe on the ocean floor and had no environmental impact.
For the organizations involved, finding the Titanic demonstrated the capabilities of the new camera and sonar systems. The unmanned submersible Argo was also regarded as a significant advancement for the American ocean research community, but it was overshadowed by the discovery of the Titanic wreck.
