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Explorers View Titanic

Iceberg Did Not Gash Hole in Liner.

For the first time in 74 years, the legendary ocean liner Titanic was

viewed by human eyes July 13.

Scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute of Woods Hole, Mass.

explored the ship's wreckage on an expedition sponsored by the U.S.

Navy. The same team of researchers had located the liner in September

1985.

The ship rested 12,500 feet (4,000 m) beneath the surface of the

Atlantic Ocean, about 500 miles (800 km) south of Newfoundland. The

sinking in 1912 of the luxury ocean liner, 882 feet (269 m) in length

and supposedly invulnerable, had almost instantly become the most

famous sea disaster in history. The catastrophe had claimed more than

1,500 lives.

Scientists explored the Titanic from the Atlantis II research shi p.

Their three-man Alvin submarine allowed them to roam the liner a nd its

surroundings for a total of 33 hours over 11 dives, ending July 24. On

the earlier expedition, they had been able to examine the ship only by

means of remote control submarines.

Close prowling was made possible by the Jason Jr., a robot camera t hat

at 28 inches (70 cm) in length was small enough to twice enter the

Titanic and explore below decks. The official purpose of the

expedition was to test the new device on behalf of the Navy. Tethered to

the Alvin by a cable 200 feet (60 m) long, it maneuvered by virtue of

four thrusters and was operated by a control panel in the submarine.

What its camera managed to pick up was flashed back to a television

screen in the Alvin.

In all, the expedition resulted in 57,000 photographs and 140

videotapes, each of these 23 minutes long. Cameras found the wreck to

be in some ways ravaged, but in others strikingly well preserved.

Elaborate ornamental woodwork had been eaten away, but a chandelier

still hung from one room's ceiling and the ship's brass fittings seemed

polished and new. Rust had attacked virtually all the steel in the

ship's makeup, sometimes melting it into stalactites that the

scientists dubbed "rusticles." But the litter of wreckage to the stern

of the vessel contained so many goods still intact that the researchers

compared it to a museum. They found chamberpots, stained glass windows,

the ship's safes and champagne bottles with the corks still in. No

human remains were found, and no clothes except for stray shoes and

socks resting on the ocean floor.

Robert D. Ballard, the leader of the expedition, gave details on the

findings July 30 at a Washington, D.C. news conference. He said the

expedition had discovered the Titanic's stern section, roughly a thi rd

of the ship, resting about 2,000 feet (600 m) from the bow section.

Both faced in the same direction, apparently spun that way by ocean

currents before they touched bottom. Ballard suggested that water

pressure might have squeezed the Titanic into the two sections after it

had sunk beneath the ocean's surface.

The most remarkable discovery was that, contrary to researchers'

assumptions, there was no 300-foot (90 m) gash along the ship's side.

Ballard said it seemed that the Titanic had not been torn open by the

iceberg with which it had collided, but instead had ground against it.

The ship's steel plates had buckled, he suggested, forcing their rivets

to pop and opening seams that allowed the ship's flooding. He said this

would explain why survivors reported feeling no jolt before the ship

sank.

Ballard asked that treasure hunters and would-be salvagers leave the

Titanic to rest in peace. He added that, at any rate, the ship's fr

agile condition meant no salvage effort had much of a chance for

success. "The Titanic will protect itself," he said.