From the archives: Titanic shipwreck's discovery in 1985; survivors react

new exclusive photographs by far the best yet are in from the Titanic for most of this Century that huge passenger liner has been a dead ship resting in an ocean grave that until these past few days no one had seen now scientists have even seen the iceberg damage that doomed the Titanic Terry drinkwater begins our coverage with the new underwater photographs until this photograph for 73 years what happened when the Titanic hit bottom had been a mystery hear her bow as it looks today the railing around it along which millionaires strolled on its maiden voyage is still intact but below there is a giant bulge where the double steel hull considered impregnable by its designers buckled and broke when the ship plunged into the total darkness of a deep ocean Canyon from his research ship two and a half miles above the liner the Expeditions director Robert Ballard described the images historians have waited nearly three quarters of a century to see all the damage that was done to the bow was in the under part of the bow for the iceberg hit it that is a good uh 30 to 50 feet the remote controlled robot Sub with its cameras aboard then moved from the side of the Titanic up to directly above the ship and more pictures are you looking straight down you're seeing the very tip of the uh Titanic bow and a little mask Matthew is the uh Mass where they put a little flag the camera then pointed to the bridge towards the captain's window where the Fateful order to abandon ship was given and the boilers each the size of a two-car garage by the side of the wreck Ballard is now sure what happened when the Titanic hit bottom okay Ken cannot dive and work long at such depths the camera's Subs must be unmanned and piloting them through the wreck is Chansey technicians on the surface aboard the research ship nearly lost a sub when it hit a rigging around one of the Titanic's four towering Smoke Stacks it was trying to locate the huge aft section of the liner and as Ballard told us tonight so far this part of the mission has failed uh we're still searching for the stern uh we can't find it it does appear to be disconnected the search for the rest of the Titanic can continue only until week's end when the research ship leaves for Home Port ahead of the North Atlantic winter storms Terry drinkwater CBS News St John's Newfoundland the Titanic grand powerful confident and soon to be two and a half miles under the sea but it has floated in the world's imagination for 73 years the Titanic was the first liner and the last liner anyone ever called Unsinkable they just could not believe that this magnificent ship which was the most magnificent ship in this day could actually sink completely everyone on board wasn't so sure there were exceptions you see my mother refused to go to bed in that ship because she had this premonition um solely based on the fact that she said that declare a vessel Unsinkable was flying in the face of God if the Titanic were around today it would be doing package tours to the Caribbean the world that went down that starry night featured a jet set that sailed the Seas gentlemen who dressed for dinner and offered women and children their places in the lifeboats imagine in a way it was a premonition of the first world war it was a sign that an era was coming to an end and it made people aware of the consequences of excessive confidence the Titanic taught a civilization that it's a dangerous world we live in that there are icebergs lurking in the night it brought many fears to the surface but what about the Titanic itself with 1500 Souls down there I would agree we should be left where she is look at it dream about it but don't touch the Titanic was the ship that sailed blightly off into the night and was never seen again until this week Bob Simon CBS News New York American scientists who led the team that found the Titanic today released the cream of the crop of thousands of underwater photographs among them haunting and poignant reminders of life on the Great Liner as it crossed the ice cold Atlantic for the first and last time Terry drinkwater reports the most detailed secrets yet of the doomed luxury liner were revealed in a series of photographs released today in Washington Robert Ballard who discovered the Titanic said he almost lost his robot Sub the Argo just after it took this picture of the front smokestack which had collapsed the sub was heading aft towards the second upright stack it's Sarah the Dickens out of me when we bounced Argo off that stacked stacked into a thing a little paint came off we do have some Titanic paint on Argo the video camera later focused down onto the bridge from above there's the bridge right here there's the awning I'm really getting close you can see the heaving action this was very scary because the vehicle comes up and down with the roll of the ship in the center here Windows of the luxury smoking Salon ripped from the hull and the crane arm which held one of the Titanic's lifeboats there were only a third of the number of lifeboats needed some men in life jackets jumped over these railings of the ship to survive only briefly in the freezing Atlantic the ship is now two and a half miles down very little marine life but here's a small fish maybe three feet long swimming quietly over the bow many in the crew were asleep Below in the bow when the ship hit the iceberg but above in the grand salons the formal Galas were still in progress the most elegant here the roof apparently imploded when the Titanic hit bottom before the ship set sail this is the way the room looked and now scattered on the ocean floor amid chunks of the Titanic's coal a silver tray from the private dining room used by the millionaires the Asters and the guggenheims and the rest nearby bottles and bottles of wine French Bordeaux and Spanish ports where they have been for 73 years these shoes were also on the Titanic that night they belonged to Louise Pope who was then for and on her way to America with her mother and father today she looked at the photographs and remembered back we were in bed already when we struck the iceberg so of course she put the shoes on and wrapped me a blanket and up we went we were the second last robot there was one more after we got up Ballard concluded today that many more could have been saved if another ship the Californian which was as close as five miles away had come to the rescue people needn't have died if they'd only responded to those distress flares they should have they should have responded in my mind gone over there and rescued those people Ballard believes the lookout in the Titanic's Crow's Nest atop this now fallen Mast could have seen the Californian on the horizon just before the Titanic and the 1500 aboard went to the bottom Terry drinkwater CBS News Washington

Channel: CBS News

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Keywords: cbs news, news, live news, livestream, breaking news, titanic wreck, robert ballard, the titanic, rms titanic, titanic news, titanic ship, titanic survivors

Id: F0qasc6RHPI

Length: 7min 44sec (464 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 23 2023