"Strengthens our mission to preserve and document what we can before it is too late."
Just Dropped
A large piece of the Titanic has, per new footage from a recent robotic expedition, fallen off as the wreckage of the more than 110-year-old ship decays in the deep.
In a statement about the new expedition, the shipping company RMS Titanic Inc has announced that during its latest voyage to the ship's ruins in the North Atlantic Ocean, its two submersibles — which thankfully had no humans aboard — discovered that a large portion of the ship's iconic bow railing was missing.
Memorialized by the "King of the World" scene in James Cameron's 1997 epic "Titanic" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the missing piece of the ship's railing was subsequently found directly below the wreckage site on the ocean floor.
"We are saddened by this loss and the inevitable decay of the Ship and the debris," the company, which controls the rights to the famous ship's wreckage and salvage, said in its statement.
The latest scans and images of #TITANIC reveal many changes to the wrecksite and provide insight into how the great liner is deteriorating. A notable change is the loss of a 15-foot section of railing from the port side bow. pic.twitter.com/HxbLQ2S5R8
— RMS Titanic, Inc. (@RMSTitanic_Inc) September 2, 2024
Dirty Diana
Though the loss of the famous railing is indeed tragic, RMS Titanic noted on its website that among the new revelations from its summer 2024 expedition was the rediscovery of the "Diana of Versailles," a once-missing statuette.
Standing just two feet tall, the demure recreation of the original Louvre statue previously adorned the ship's first-class lounge, which was veritably "torn open," as the company puts it, when the ship sank after hitting that notorious iceberg.
You’ve seen the latest images and re-discovery of the elusive “Diana of Versailles” statuette made by #RMST on #TITANICExpedition2024. Now, let’s look at who she is. 🔎
Thank you to João Gonçalves for providing the image of the RMS OLYMPIC First Class Lounge. pic.twitter.com/81iB1LyDQw
— RMS Titanic, Inc. (@RMSTitanic_Inc) September 3, 2024
Though "Diana" was photographed once in 1986 during a secretive dive that wasn't revealed to the public until last year, the "TITANIC: HONOR AND GLORY" project that aims to release a complete 3D recreation walkthrough of the ship spotted part of it while sifting through old footage. When RMST's camera-equipped robot divers went down to check out the status of the wreckage, they discovered that it was indeed the missing statuette.
In sum, RMST said that its uncrewed submersibles captured more than two million photos of the wreckage and its otherworldly decay.
"Although Titanic’s collapse is inevitable," the company notes, "this evidence strengthens our mission to preserve and document what we can before it is too late."
More on sea-bound disasters: The Name of the Superyacht That Killed That Billionaire Will Make You Facepalm So Hard
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