Haunting new footage of the wreck of the RMS Titanic was set to be released on Wednesday, taken during the pioneering 1986 expedition that gave the first glimpses of the doomed ocean liner since its notorious sinking on its maiden voyage more than seven decades before.
The cache of more than 80 minutes of the rare and mostly unseen video comes from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI) of Massachusetts, which partnered with French explorers in the discovery of the ship’s remains.
The release commemorates the 25th anniversary and re-release of the blockbuster movie Titanic, whose director and writer, James Cameron, continues to support Titanic research.
The Titanic sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives in April 1912 after striking an iceberg, in one of the deadliest and most significant maritime disasters in history.
A Woods Hole oceanographer, Robert Ballard, and the French explorer Jean-Louis Michel located large chunks of debris in 1985 almost 2.5 miles below the surface of the Atlantic, about 400 miles from Newfoundland.
Ballard led the expedition the following year, recording video inside the ship, using a deep-ocean submersible named Alvin and a smaller, more maneuverable remote camera called Jason Jr that could pass through narrow openings.
“More than a century after the loss of Titanic, the human stories embodied in the great ship continue to resonate,” Cameron said in a statement this week.
“Like many, I was transfixed when Alvin and Jason Jr ventured down to and inside the wreck. By releasing this footage, WHOI is helping tell an important part of a story that spans generations and circles the globe.”
A 96-second teaser for the footage, which was scheduled to post in full on Woods Hole’s YouTube channel at 7.30pm ET on Wednesday, showed images taken from above the bow and inside the wreck, set to an atmospheric piano soundtrack.
The trailer said the footage “chronicles some of the remarkable achievements of the dive” led by Ballard.
More recent visits to the depths have revealed signs of decay in the wreckage of the Titanic, which split into two main chunks while sinking.
A 2019 series of dives by Eyos Expeditions, guided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), was the first in 14 years, and showed the wreck had been “heavily impacted by strong and ever-changing ocean currents, metal-eating bacteria and natural salt corrosion”.
“Diving on the Titanic is a complex and difficult undertaking. The logistics of working at 12,500ft while 370 miles offshore are challenging,” said Rob McCallum, the Eyos founder and expedition leader.
McCallum said the wreck remained “one of the most iconic and exclusive destinations on Earth”.
Cameron’s largely fictional 1997 movie based on the Titanic story, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, is one of only three films to have won 11 Oscars, including best picture and best director.
The Canadian film-maker was also behind the celebrated 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, which captured some of the most stunning images ever recorded of the Titanic during an expedition two years previously. Cameron funded and co-piloted a submersible built specifically for the adventure.
