The RMS Titanic’s tragic sinking on April 15, 1912, continues to captivate the world more than a century later.
On its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, the “unsinkable” ship struck an iceberg, leading to the deaths of over 1,500 passengers and crew.
Despite the catastrophic loss of life, one unsettling mystery has persisted — why were there so few bodies recovered from the wreckage, even though more than 1,500 people perished?
The discovery of Titanic’s wreckage
After decades of searching, the wreckage of the Titanic was discovered on September 1, 1985, more than 12,000 feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean.
After decades of speculation and attempts to locate it, an expedition finally succeeded in uncovering its location at the staggering depth.
It may seem strange that it took so long to find the wreck, but the problem wasn’t that its location was completely unknown — it was more about pinpointing its exact resting place.
Deep-sea explorer Robert Ballard spent eight days searching before successfully locating the R.M.S. Titanic, about 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada. He was able to pinpoint the wreckage using his method of following debris—a technique he had first employed when discovering the Scorpion, a nuclear submarine that sank in 1968.
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