“New Titanic 3D Scan Reveals Complete Wreck and Clues to Disaster Mystery”

The Titanic sank 111 years ago. A huge iceberg was the culprit of one of the greatest shipping disasters in history. Researchers do not yet know what other factors, such as construction defects or the use of bad steel, played a role. With new scans they hope to get clarity about this soon.

Using innovative techniques, a detailed digital scan of the Titanic has been made for the first time, which has produced special 3D images. The shipwreck is located 3,800 meters deep in the Atlantic Ocean and the images were taken by a company that specializes in mapping the ocean floor, writes BBC News.

An animation clearly shows how the Titanic is now:

The Titanic was on its maiden voyage from England to New York on the night of April 14-15, 1912, when it collided with an iceberg and sank within three hours. More than 1500 of the more than 2200 people on board died.

The ship received an iceberg warning, but it was not relayed to the control bridge by the radio officer. Two hours after the warning, a crew member saw the iceberg and tried to steer the Titanic in another direction, but in vain. The ship hit the rock and within ten minutes there was already more than four meters of water in the front part.

Investigators are still not exactly sure why the ship went down. “There are still fundamental questions that need to be answered,” Titanic analyst Parks Stephenson said BBC News. According to him, so far it has been mostly speculation and this model is “one of the first steps towards doing actual research”.

The wreck of the Titanic was discovered in 1985 and since then it has often been (partly) imaged. In 2019, for example, a team descended to the seabed several times to take images of the legendary passenger ship. However, it has never been possible to map the entire wreck and thus provide a complete picture.

This new scan shows the Titanic in its entirety. The two parts of the broken ship are 800 meters apart surrounded by a huge pile of rubble. Some details are clearly visible. Those who look at the images clearly see the anchor, a gangway and a huge propeller. Even the serial number on the propeller is still legible.

In photos only BBC News is allowed to sharethe details are clearly visible:

BBC journalist Rebecca Morelle also shares images on Twitter that clearly show the size of the Titanic. By placing the 3D scan in London’s Olympic Stadium, it becomes clear how huge the ship was.

The scan was made last summer by Atlantic Productions, which is making a documentary about the project, and Magellan, a company specializing in making deep-sea maps. A remote-controlled submarine took more than 700,000 photos from every conceivable angle and spent more than 200 hours at the bottom of the sea studying the ship.

Researchers now hope to finally unravel the secrets of the mysterious ship. For example, they do not yet know exactly how intense the collision with the iceberg was. There are also theories about a fire in the coal chambers, which had already weakened the ship. It is also being investigated whether errors were made during the construction of the ship.

In 2019, researchers said that time is running out for the Titanic. The salty sea water slowly eats up the wreck and details are less and less visible. This was also apparent when making these 3D images. By now capturing the ship in this way, the researchers buy more time.