Rare footage shows ‘haunting’ dives to Titanic wreck after discovery in Atlantic Ocean

Published

2 years ago

February 16, 2023

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Rare footage has been released showing the Titanic on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean.

The video, most of which has not been seen by the public before, was shot just months after explorers found the wreckage in September 1985.

More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic, which was on its way from Southampton to New York during its maiden voyage, sank in the North Atlantic on 15 April 1912 after hitting an iceberg.

The liner – the largest afloat at the time it entered service – was discovered by a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the French National Institute of Oceanography.

During 11 dives in July 1986, footage was shot from a manned submersible and a small remotely operated vessel able to manoeuvre through tight spaces.

Now, 80 minutes of uncut footage is being posted on the WHOI’s YouTube channel.

The grainy black and white images show the bow of the liner and some railings along one of its decks, among other aspects of the famous passenger ship.

Oceanographer Robert Ballard said the first thing he saw when he descended 2.5 miles under the sea was a “giant wall of riveted steel that rose over 100 and some feet above us”.

He added: “I never looked down at the Titanic. I looked up at the Titanic. Nothing was small.”

‘It was pretty haunting’

There was no human flesh or bones left, but Mr Ballard saw shoes, including the footwear of what appeared to be a mother and a baby.

“After the Titanic sank, those that went into the water that didn’t have life jackets died of hypothermia,” he said.

The three-man submersible had to surface when its batteries started taking on water.

As it rose, Mr Ballard recalls seeing the Titanic’s portholes.

“It was like people looking back at us. It was pretty haunting actually,” he said.

WHOI engineer Andy Bowen said the biggest challenge was the “remoteness of the location”, adding that the “water is near freezing”.

The footage’s publication has been coordinated with the 25th anniversary re-release of the 1997 James Cameron movie, Titanic.

Starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, it won 11 Academy Awards including best picture.

“The human stories embodied in the great ship continue to resonate,” Cameron said in a statement.

“By releasing this footage, WHOI is helping tell an important part of a story that spans generations and circles the globe.”

World

Israel’s PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Published

5 hours ago

August 11, 2025

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Israel's PM tries to get on front foot in propaganda war he knows he is losing

Israel’s prime minister added more detail to his deeply controversial plans for military escalation in Gaza at a news conference with foreign media yesterday – despite the condemnation of the UN Security Council, which met in an emergency session and urged him to rethink.

Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of a “fairly short timetable” to establish designated “safe zones” for the one million or so set to be displaced from Gaza City.

He also vowed to seize and dismantle Hamas’s final strongholds there – in the central refugee camps, and in al Mawasi, along Gaza’s southwestern coast.

This, per Netanyahu, is the only way to destroy the terror group, which he claimed “subjugates Gazans, steals their food and shoots them when they try to move to safety”.

Al Mawasi is already home to a significant displaced population, most of whom live in tents cramped up against the Mediterranean Sea, in what is already a designated humanitarian zone.

If members of Hamas live among them, rooting them out will be hugely complicated and will involve significant civilian casualties. If the residents of Gaza City can’t evacuate south to al Mawasi, where will they go?

Netanyahu’s plan is to set up more aid distribution sites through the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) and to flood Gaza with food.

He claimed his policy was not one of forced starvation – describing particular photos of starving babies as “fake news”, and accusing the media of painting a false picture.

“The only ones who are being deliberately starved in Gaza are our hostages,” the prime minister claimed.

I asked Netanyahu how he would go about preventing the kinds of daily killings taking place at aid distribution points in the months since GHF has been operating.

Doctors Without Borders has described these incidents as deliberately orchestrated.

The prime minister said increasing the amount of aid heading into the Strip was the answer.

“And by the way, a lot of the firing was done by Hamas seeking to have a response by our forces,” he added. “And very often they didn’t, they held back. They stayed their own fire even though their own lives were on the line.”

This was Israel’s prime minister trying to get on the front foot in a propaganda war he acknowledged he was losing. He was loath to admit the presence of famine in Gaza.

It took two questions before he acknowledged there was “deprivation”, even if he would not be drawn on whether his 11-week total blockade of the strip earlier this year had played any role.

He recognises that the appalled response of the international community to the human cost of this war, and the accusations of war crimes and genocide which Israel so vehemently rejects, are a terrible look.

This was his attempt to reclaim the narrative.

World

Defiant Netanyahu sets out plan for military escalation in Gaza – and describes photographs of starving babies as ‘fake news’

Published

12 hours ago

August 10, 2025