- [Voiceover] The Bermuda Triangle. One of the most deadly
stretches of ocean on earth. But what if there were
an even deadlier one? In the Pacific there may be. Why was this massive state
of the art ship suddenly lost with all hands? - Nothing could be done to save them. - [Voiceover] What
happened to this aircraft that vanished without a clue? - I think an entrance to another dimension opened in this area. - [Voiceover] What deadly forces
sent sailors to their doom? - It's really a terrifying experience for those that were on board. - [Voiceover] The world's
most powerful navy knows the dangers well. - The moment you stop
respecting, interfering is when things go wrong. - [Voiceover] Join the search
to fathom the Pacific Ocean's deadliest enigma. A quest that takes us over, on, and deep into the depths of the
deep blue graveyard called the Devil's Sea. September 8th, 1980. Carrying 150,000 tons of iron ore, the bulk carrier Derbyshire is 230 miles off the east coast of Okinawa. The Derbyshire is a gigantic ship, longer than three football fields, twice the size of the
Titanic, only four years old, from stem to stern, her
design is state of the art. Anyone should have felt perfectly
safe sailing aboard her. But some, like able seaman
Peter Lambert didn't. - Whenever he came home on
leave, he'd love to talk about the ship he was on, about
the people he'd met, the seafarers, the friends he'd made. And of course he'd wrote letters home. And, as I say, he just
didn't like the Derbyshire, there was just something about it. A lot of people said the same thing. - [Voiceover] Reluctantly, Peter signed on for one more voyage to earn enough money to get married. He was 19 years old. But his wedding would never take place. On September 9th, the
Derbyshire and her entire crew disappeared. (dramatic music) It was the largest British
ship ever lost at sea and no one could explain why. How could this giant ship,
crewed by experienced mariners, simply vanish without a distress call and without leaving any trace? Could she be another victim
of one of the Pacific Ocean's most enduring and frightening enigmas? To the south of Japan lies a
vast expanse of empty ocean. Since the 1940s, scores of
gigantic ships have mysteriously vanished in these cruel seas. Many of them were lost
without even sending an SOS, leaving no clues to their fate. But these waters have been
claiming victims for centuries. Long ago, Japanese
sailors gave this region a chilling name, Ma no Umi, the Devil's Sea. (thunder) Japanese legends tell of unknown forces that overpower the strongest of ships and great sea monsters that
drag sailors to their death. (dramatic music) (roaring) Today the legend of sea
monsters may have faded, but Japanese fishermen
still fear the Devil's Sea. Even as its rich bounty draws
them to risk their lives. A Devil's Sea is also an abundant sea. Fish always cluster here. These seas are very
different from other places. Waves change quickly and unpredictably. So if you're relaxed on
a boat in these places, you will get into trouble. - [Voiceover] Intrigued
by persistent reports of mysterious disappearances, some have searched for
patterns that might solve the enigma of the Devil's Sea. Some claim that when plotted on a map, the modern disappearances
form a triangle of doom. But that's only the beginning. The triangle in the Devil's Sea lies on the same lines of latitude as another infamous stretch of ocean on the other side of the
world, the Bermuda Triangle. Could this be more than coincidence? Could the Devil's Sea be
another Bermuda Triangle? Or even deadlier than
the Bermuda Triangle? There are those who think it might be. Author and expert in paranormal phenomena, Professor Junichi Yaoi has controversial theories
about why so many ships have disappeared in the Devil's Sea. - There are many possible
answers for this. Basically, i think some
of the tankers sank because of the conditions of the sea. Because these incidents happened in seas which could be rough or because of storms. However, if these tankers
had just disappeared, I would say they might have
gone to another dimension. I think there was an entrance
to this other dimension opened from that area. - [Voiceover] Most scientists dismiss Professor Yaoi's theories
as science fiction. But in the Devil's Sea,
ships keep disappearing. - [Voiceover] January 2002. The MV Lin-je, a Chinese
freighter with 19 crew on board fails to arrive at the
Japanese port of Kagoshima. As months go by, authorities are at a loss to explain what has
happened to the Lin-Je. (alarms sounding) She has disappeared
without a distress call and without leaving any signs of her fate. Professor Yaoi has his
own theories on what may have happened. - Let me explain it with an easy example. Imagine a radio wave. TV programs such as a
drama, a documentary, and news are made in the studio. When these programs are broadcast, their mode is changed to a radio wave, which we can't see nor touch. So what I'm telling you is
maybe the different dimension is here and the place we live, but we just can't see nor touch it. - [Voiceover] While some find
Professor Yaoi's theories a comporting way to
explain the unexplainable, maritime experts remain skeptical. - I am a disbeliever, probably
a fairly strong disbeliever of anything like that. - [Voiceover] David Mearns
is a shipwreck hunter with an impressive record
of locating lost ships and a pragmatic attitude
to the paranormal. - I'm hired by people
to come up with answers in a purely scientific
and technical manner. So to actually come back and say, you know, I just can't explain it. It must be that Bermuda Triangle thing or the Pacific Triangle and, you know, I don't think I'd have much credibility any longer. - [Voiceover] In 1994,
David and his team faced one of their biggest challenges to date. Solve the mystery of the
lost ship Derbyshire. It would be a mission that
would push even these experts to their very limits. This time, they faced a formidable foe, perhaps the toughest
ever, the Devil's Sea. (thunder) The crews of Patrol Squadron
47 know how hard it is to find anything on
this featureless ocean. The U.S. Navy's eyes
in the sky are charged with anti-submarine warfare, surveillance, and search and resuce. - There's really nowhere in this theater that we can't get to within
a certain amount of time. We've always got a ready plane that'll launch within one
hour that's always available, so if there's any kind of
search and rescue mission needs to be done, any
kind of piracy activity, anything that has to be done, VP 47 can get on station as soon as possible. - [Voiceover] The airmen know this region like the back of their
hands, but even they can't explain everything
they experience out here. - There have been some
stories, there have been some rumors about strange things
happening on the aircraft. I'm sure stick lee we'll pick things up that sometimes don't get recorded. You know, we'll hear something
that sounds kind of funny. We'll get back we'll play
it on the recordings, it's just not there. Yeah, there's a lot of stories about seatbelts coming uncrossed, hatches opening and closing by themselves in different areas you fly around. - [Voiceover] In a high tech,
high risk job like this, it pays to be on your guard. The men and women who fly
these unfriendly skies know it isn't just ships
that disappear out here. The skies over the
Devil's Sea have claimed their share of planes. One mysterious disappearance
more than any other haunts the crews that fly here everyday. March 22, 1957, 4:48 a.m. A USAF C-97 Stratofreighter
departs Wake Island bound for Tokyo International Airport with 67 international
military personnel on board. The flight is scheduled to
take nine and a half hours and sufficient fuel for 13
and a half hours is on board. For eight hours, the
flight progresses normally. At 2:30 p.m., the pilot radios
an estimated arrival time of five p.m. and adds that all equipment is functioning normally. Weather in the region is good. Flying conditions are nearly perfect. An hour and 15 minutes
later, the pilot radios that he's 200 miles from Tokyo. Air traffic controllers
expected the aircraft to arrive within two hours. But the C-97 never touches
down at the airfield. Search and rescue flights scour thousands of square miles of ocean
surface, retracing the plane's flight path. They find nothing. The giant stratofreighter
has vanished into thin air. Something in or over the
Devil's Sea was powerful enough to wipe the massive
aircraft from existence. What could have happened to
this formidable aircraft, built for combat, flying
in perfect conditions? To this day, no one knows. It remains a mystery and an unknown hazard that many men and women in
the military must accept in the line of duty. - [Voiceover] Normal
radar altitude in 1,500. - [Voiceover] The Devil's
Sea hides its secrets well. But daring expeditions and
ground-breaking research are beginning to reveal
some startling answers to age-old questions. Just like the Bermuda Triangle,
nothing is ever as it seems in the Devil's Sea. - [Voiceover] The Devil's
Sea, south of Japan, has earned a reputation
as a Bermuda Triangle of the Pacific. Giant ships sailing through these waters have disappeared suddenly
and without a trace. The Japanese Coast Guard report over 2,500 shipping accidents in the waters around Japan every year. These deadly waters are
vast and unforgiving. The chances of finding
a ship lost out here makes finding a needle
in a haystack look easy. That's why 14 years after
the giant ship Derbyshire was lost without a trace
in the Devil's Sea, most believe she would never be found. An official report blamed
the forces of nature and the case was closed. But the families of the Derbyshire's crew weren't willing to let them
go quietly into the night. The wanted answers. - All we wanted, really
was the answer of exactly what happened to that ship. Why 44 people had lost their lives. We were told the only way we'd get a real form of investigation was
if we had new evidence, and the new evidence would
only be the Derbyshire. And everyone was confident, from the shipping industry, that is, that we'd never find that ship. - [Voiceover] But the
families refused to give up. (ship horn blowing) In July, 1994, an expedition team led by David Mearns of
Oceaneering Technologies headed into the Devil's
Sea, convinced that they could crack the case. Their hopes were pinned on one slim lead. At that time that the Derbyshire was lost, search and rescue planes
reported an oil slick not far from her last know position. - No one else had really used oil as the primary clue to actually
go out and find a ship. So there was some uncertainty at the time about how big could the area be. Is the oil directly above the ship or is the oil being set down current? 10 miles, 50 miles, 100 miles? Nobody really knew. But my gut feeling was that
it was an excellent marker and that that would lead us
to the wreck of Derbyshire. - [Voiceover] On this clue alone, David Mearns and his team would try to achieve the impossible. Find the Derbyshire and
lay the mystery to rest. It was one thing to mount a search, but on this vast and violent ocean, the odds of finding
Derbyshire were astronomical. The ocean floor lay miles below and even if Derbyshire was down there, there was no telling
what wreckage may remain 14 years after she was lost. Against these staggering odds, the expedition team placed their faith in a state of the art device. The side-scan sonar Towfish. Towed behind their vessel, it would travel along the ocean floor and send back pictures from
two and a half miles below. But these sonar sweeps would
also be a race against time. Every day of searching
would cost tens of thousands of dollars. The search team had enough money for only eight days at sea. The sonar Towfish descended
beneath the waters of the Devil's Sea and began
transmitting eerie images from the ocean floor. To the untrained eye, they were a jumble of shapes and shades. but to David Mearns, something stood out. - Well, yeah you can see that the high is-- - Down the end of that
line, we actually started seeing some things that
looked a bit suspicious. And as we went on to the next line, we saw even more trace and then finally the third line, we went
right over something, which was a great big dense patch of hard material. Whether it was rock or
wreck, we couldn't tell. - [Voiceover] Could this be
the break they were hoping for? The team knew the success or failure of the expedition hung in the balance. Everything depended on
what they would see next as the ship began its second pass. - As we were approaching, literally, right to the point of the sonar starting to pick up the
images, we lost the Towfish. Just, ping, like that. So this very heavy,
double armored steel cable just snapped. And there goes our $600,000 Towfish off the back of the ship,
and we knew immediately it was lost. - [Voiceover] The sonar
Towfish, their best chance of success, was lying two
and a half miles below on the seabed. Time was running out. Round one to the Devil's Sea. And before a recovery can be attempted, a storm threatens on the horizon, and the team must batten down the hatches and brace for impact. They're painfully aware of what
the weather can do out here. In living memory, a storm devastated the most powerful navy
ever to sail the seas. Today, that same navy is
armed with awesome technology and steeled by the lessons of history. But are these sailors
destined to once again face the wrath of the Devil's Sea? For centuries, the Devil's
Sea has terrified all who sail its treacherous
waters and taken many of them into its deadly depths. This is a place so fearsome,
it spawned ancient legends of demonic forces and modern speculation that it might be another Bermuda Triangle. But since the middle of the 20th century, a powerful human presence has cruised its mysterious waters. At the end of World War II, the U.S. Navy Seventh Fleet based itself in Japan. And has ruled the Pacific ever since. The Seventh Fleet sails Japanese waters without fear, at least
of any human adversary. But these sailors know that
if you drop your guard, the Devil's Sea can turn on you in the blink of an eye. - A lot of times you have fair winds and following seas. That's just as good as you get. You look out here on
the horizon and stuff. We got a nice breeze, sun shining. You know, if I wasn't in the Navy, I'd probably be out here
gettin' a tan right now. But we could walk out
here four hours from now and bam, just like that. It seems like the
Devil's beatin' his wife. So you never know what's gonna happen. - [Voiceover] To survive
in the Devil's Sea, you have to know what it's
about to throw at you. In this danger zone, the top
guns aren't fighter pilots, but a handful of meteorologists who scan the sea and the
sky for any sign of trouble. For these men, failure is not an option. The slightest error could take them into the path of danger, and some of the most murderous weather
the planet could generate will slam into their ships. It seems incredible that
these powerful warships, built to repel the most daunting foes could be so vulnerable to
the assaults of nature. But the Devil's Sea has already shown what it can do to them. A tragedy that still haunts the Navy. - December, 1944. World War II rages in the Pacific. The suicide squadrons
of the Japanese Kamikaze are the most feared enemy of this theater. (bombs exploding) But the terror they inspire
is about to be surpassed. Task Force 38, a U.S.
Navy Carrier Battle Group, pounds Japanese forces in the Philippines, softening them up before
MacArthur's invasion hits the beach. (dramatic music) After three days of bombarding the enemy, they must break off the attack
and steam into formation to refuel. But just over the horizon, a deadly force is gathering strength. A force far more destructive than anything the Japanese could throw at them. As the ships struggle to
refuel in growing seas, they're stopped by the growing fury of a powerful typhoon. There's nowhere to hide
as the storm strikes. Suddenly, the sailors of Taskforce 38 are thrown into the fight of their lives. - The seas were described as mountainous. Very high seas, and of course the ships were rolling and pitching. The wind was between 50 and 75 knots with gusts of as much as 120. So the noise level was terrific, and of course the ships were moving from side to side and up and down. It was really a terrifying experience for those that were on board. In fact, there were some sailors that had faced the Kamikaze menace and found that this typhoon
was probably the worst experience of their lives. - [Voiceover] For the
men of Task Force 38, the next 24 hours were a living hell. Storm force winds and 60
foot waves pounded them, capsizing three destroyers,
badly mauling 16 other ships, sweeping more than 200
planes off the carriers, starting raging fires below decks. When it was over, 765 American sailors were dead. It was the U.S. Navy's
worst natural disaster of the 20th century. The might fleet limped back to port bearing the scars of battle. The murderous typhoon
had caught Task Force 38 by surprise. To prevent a disaster like
this from ever happening again, the Navy set up weather
forecasting stations throughout the Pacific. Today, the U.S. Navy
Meteorological and Oceanographic Command in Yokosuka
Japan is on high alert. There's a powerful typhoon
brewing in the Devil's Sea. This deadly region is a typhoon factory. Its warm waters can generate as many as 30 killer storms in a year. Maelstroms of 200 miles per hour winds and waves up to 60 feet high,
racing at 50 miles per hour across the sea, devastating everything in their path. - Maximum seas associated
with the storm at this time about 28 feet, so we're
keeping ships well clear of that area, we're
keeping ships well clear of the coast of China, and
we're expecting that storm to maintain winds of about 80 knots to gusts of 105 knots
as it progresses west. - [Voiceover] When the
winds surpass 170 knots, or 195 miles per hour, a typhoon becomes a super typhoon. One of nature's most devastating forces. And a naval forecaster's worst nightmare. - In a super typhoon, you can have seas well in excess of 35 feet. Much larger than you ever
wanna see a ship encounter. Very capable of sinking
ships, grounding ships, destroying harbor facilities
and housing on islands. Just absolutely devastating
to anything they encounter. 170 knots will tear down concrete walls and permanent structures. - [Voiceover] A naval
weatherman's job is to ensure that when a meteorological
monster like this churns across the sea, one thing
that it won't encounter is a ship of the U.S. Navy. If they're close enough to land,
they can ride out the storm in the relative safety of a harbor, but ships too far from land have no option but to ride out the fury of the storm. Many of the ships lost in the Devil's Sea have disappeared during
the worst winter months, when storms are most frequent and deadly. But these are giant
ships built to withstand the worst conditions. A typhoon alone shouldn't sink them. When the giant bulk carrier MV Derbyshire sailed into the Devil's
Sea, it was September 1980, the heart of the annual typhoon season. At 10:19 a.m. on September 9th, the captain reported that
Derbyshire was battling 70 mile per hour winds and 30 foot waves. (thunder) But the captain wasn't especially worried. He was confident that a ship as large and as well designed as
his should have no trouble surviving even such severe weather. He radioed that their arrival
in port would be delayed by no more than a few days. Instead, Derbyshire
disappeared without a trace. How could he have been
so tragically wrong? Could the answer lie
buried beneath the waves? Violent forces lurk down here. Forces that modern science
struggle to fathom. Forces that may hold
answers to the mysteries of the Devil's Sea. - [Voiceover] Some call
Japan's Devil's Sea the Bermuda Triangle of the Pacific. Ships and airplanes vanish
here without a trace. Could the answers to
the mysteries lie here, far beneath the stormy surface? Down here lurk powerful, deadly forces. Forces that imperil all who sail on or under the Devil's Sea. The Devil's Sea has been a
watery grave for submariners. It took an especially heavy
toll on the submarine fleets of World War II. One in five U.S. Navy submarines never returned from the
sea, and nearly half of the 52 U.S. submarines
lost during World War II met uncertain fates. Today, researchers are
uncovering the deepest secrets of the Devil's Sea. The Japanese Marine Science
and Technology Center regularly send craft
into these dark depths. The Shinkai 6500 submersible
is the pride of the fleet., built to dive to the bottom
of the world's deepest oceans. Marine scientists spend long
hours in the inky depths, opening up an unseen world on a scale that is scarcely believable. In some places the deep
rifts in the ocean floor drop 37,000 feet beneath the surface. If the highest mountain in
the world, Mount Everest, were to rise from this
abyss, it would still be over a mile below the waves. Researchers have only
scratched the surface of this undersea world. Could this be the final resting place of the World War II submarines lost to unknown causes? There is no telling what these
shadowy depths could hide. Some have even suggested that
there is an alien life force lurking beneath the Devil's Sea. One account, from a
Russian research scientist, was widely reported in
the paranormal press. On August 18th, 1980, the Soviet vessel Vladimir
Volbirov was returning from a research mission
off the coast of Japan. Expedition leader, Professor Platinov, claimed he was on watch when suddenly an unidentified submerged object burst from the sea and circled the ship. According to the professor,
it was cylindrical in shape and scorched the area with
a blinding blue light. The professor reported
that the strange craft was like nothing of this
world, an unidentified object that circled the ship for several minutes and then plunged back into the ocean as suddenly as it had appeared. Over the years, other
have told similar tales and the folklore of the
Devil's Sea has grown. But there are other explanations for strange objects
bursting from the water. Japanese scientists dismissed the notion of an undersea alien life force. - To be honest, almost all
phenomena are explainable through our knowledge,
and I have never seen such a strange phenomenon. - [Voiceover] So what power
of nature could send objects shooting to the surface miles above? One answer can be found
at the Western depths of the Devil's Sea, where
the earth's molten core threatens to break
through the fragile crust. Without warning, violent forces can burst from the ocean floor and then
disappear just as quickly, leaving no evidence of their fury. Except, perhaps, the
mystery of a vanished ship. In the 1950s, a New York Times report on a mysterious
disappearance first brought the world's attention to the Devil's Sea. September 23rd, 1952. The Kaiyo Maru 5, a Japanese
Coast Guard research vessel with 31 crew aboard
heads for the Myogin reef in the Devil's Sea to monitor
strange underwater activity. Making good speed, the crew
expects to reach the reef in less than a day. But after three days of radio silence, the Coast Guard declares
the vessel missing. Ships in the area change
course to search for survivors. None of the Kaiyo Maru's crew is found. The mystery deepens until, by chance, the searchers witness a
violent natural phenomenon. If this had suddenly erupted
under the Kaiyo Maru, she would have gone instantly to her doom, with no time even to signal her distress. Searchers found a few scraps of wreakage, but none of them bore a ship's name, and there were no survivors
to tell their tale. The fate of the Kaiyo
Maru would remain a secret of the Devil's Sea. Grieving relatives were forced to accept that the ship was simply gone, and with it, their
husbands, sons, and fathers. The Japanese Coast Guard warned ships to avoid Myogin Reef because of the danger of an undersea eruption,
and a legend was born. But rumblings in the depths can kill in more ways than one. When an earthquake strikes
Japanese coastal towns, residents run to the hills. An earthquake on the sea floor sends a shock wave racing to the surface. A bulge of water is displaced and moves swiftly through the ocean. This irresistible force is the tsunami, the deadliest of waves. In the open ocean,
tsunami waves can travel at over 500 miles per hour. Anyone caught in its path
on land or in a harbor has no chance. As a child, Takeo Suzuki
was one of the lucky few when a tsunami annihilated his village. - It was terrible. At 12 o'clock, the earthquake struck. A few minutes later, the tsunami came. People tried to escape. The people who died were
not so far away from us, but they were killed. (waves crashing) - [Voiceover] Throughout
history, tsunamis have taken the lives of hundred
of thousands of people. Today, tsunamis still wreak
havoc along the coast of Japan. And all too often, people don't realize the threat they pose until it's too late. No one is more aware of the awesome force of the tsunami than Chip McCreery of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. - Even a 10 foot tsunami
is quite destructive because sea level will rise by 10 feet and it'll stay high for five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, and during that time period,
of course, a lot of water rushes on shore and can rush
on shore with a high velocity. This not only floods areas,
but the force of the water knocks things down and picks up debris, which in turn acts as battering rams. - [Voiceover] It's no wonder
that some have suggested that these monster waves
could be responsible for the ships missing in the Devil's Sea. (alarms blaring) But those who know the tsunami
best say it's unlikely. - A big destructive tsunami
might only be a meter or less in height out on the open ocean, and because these waves
have very long wavelengths, the time it takes for the wave to go up and then go back down is a long time. It might be 20 minutes,
even up to an hour. So this slow rise and fall of the sea out in the middle of the
ocean is quite unnoticed. - [Voiceover] Although they
cause massive destruction on the coast, tsunamis
can't take the blame for a ship missing at sea. Far out to sea, time was
running out on the expedition searching for the lost ship Derbyshire. There had been a promising sonar scan of the sea floor where the
ship was reported missing. But before they could make
a positive identification, the sonar Towfish had been lost, claimed by the Devil's Sea. Now the storm relented and
the mission could go ahead. They would attempt to recover the Towfish and identify the target. But would they be prepared
for what they'd find two and a half miles below? (waves crashing) - [Voiceover] Nothing is
safe in the Devil's Sea, thought by some to be the Bermuda Triangle of the Pacific. Ships disappear from the surface, submarines dive to their doom, aircraft vanish from the skies. Some blame unnatural forces, some the forces of nature. There's no doubt that this
is one of the deadliest and most mysterious stretches
of ocean in the world. And one piece of the puzzle was proving to be frustratingly elusive. (eerie music) The Devil's Sea had foiled one attempt to solve the mystery of
the lost ship Derbyshire. The expedition team had
lost their sonar Towfish just as it was beginning
to transmit images of a suspicious formation
on the ocean floor. Now they would launch a rescue mission. A desperate attempt to recover the Towfish and identify the target below. The team readied their
remote operated vehicle, or ROV. This mission would push it to its limits. Would the ROV"s titanium frame withstand the crushing pressures
that it would encounter as it descended? A few slender cables were all that kept this high tech submersible
tethered to the ship. If anything went wrong
two and a half miles down, there was nothing anyone
on the surface could do. - So the tension was incredibly high. You've got a very expensive
piece of equipment sitting on the sea bed,
and there's a wreck down on the seabed that you
know it's the wreck you want, but without that picture proving it, no one will believe you. So if you had come back without being able to do that, you'd have
failure on every single front. We recovered our Towfish, which is a, technically, a very difficult thing to do, picking up this one ton probe
and bringing it onto the deck. And then we had to dive on the target, and we had about six hours of time left before we actually had to leave. - [Voiceover] The anxiety on board grew as never before seen images
appeared out of the gloom. The ROV picked up a trail
of glittering iron ore. The cargo the Derbyshire was carrying when it disappeared. Twisted metal confirmed that
the target was a shipwreck. And then, the moment they
had all been hoping for. (anticipatory music) Proof at last that the mighty ship had not simply disappeared. That behind this mystery, at
least, there lay an answer. - Finding a shipwreck
is a fantastic feeling. People have predicted
she'd never be found. So, you know, the moment that you actually start seeing wreckage, to
be able to see that image is a great feeling. - [Voiceover] For Paul Lambert of the Derbyshire Family Association, the news brought relief, and a sudden crushing sense of loss. - A lot of families, at
the back of their minds, still did not accept
the Derbyshire had sank. You know, there's a lot of
desert islands in that area, and some of them still
felt that the husbands, the sons and daughters were
actually on a desert island. - We remember those who
lost their lives at sea while sailing on the
merchant vessel Derbyshire. - When you actually find the ship, then that belief is taken away, so there's a lot of
mixed emotions, you know, from this reality, that, you know, the local wasn't coming home, even though it was 14 years
after the ship had sank. They still held onto that belief. - Jeffrey Victor Underhill. - [Voiceover] After 14 painful years, the families of the
disappeared had the answers they'd been searching for. - [Voiceover] Raymond William Taylor. Peter Lambert. Nigel Coates. - [Voiceover] Against the odds
and confounding the critics, David Mearns and his team
had achieved the impossible. They had found the twisted
remains of the Derbyshire. But the question remained. What catastrophic event could
have sent her to the bottom? The findings of the expedition
helped maritime experts piece together the doomed
ship's final moments. The Derbyshire was caught in
a typhoon she couldn't outrun. The storm waves were almost
exactly the same length as the ship, so as Derbyshire
descended down each wave, it pushed her bow into the next one. As wave after wave rolled over her, they tore away her bow fittings and flooded her forward hold. - Now the bow's actually
biting into the waves, and they probably knew at that time they were in real trouble. They could feel it. An experienced master and
crew could actually feel the sluggishness of the
vessel rising to the waves because they know the forward section is now being flooded. - [Voiceover] With her
bow held under water, it was only a matter of time
before the waves stove in cargo hatches one and
two, and the ship began the descent from which
she could never recover. The relentless sea tore
her into three pieces and crushed her as she sank. - The crew had no chance. There was no way for them
to launch a lifeboat, so to be saved in any way, they just had to hope
that the ship somehow rode it out even while she was foundering. But I think there would
have been some minutes there where they knew, possibly
as many as 10 minutes where they knew that, that nothing could be done to save them. - [Voiceover] The last
act of the expedition was to gently place a memorial plaque on the Derbyshire's foredeck, inscribed with a prayer
for her lost souls. Tragically, the Derbyshire
wasn't the only ship lost in this way. Just a few years after
Derbyshire was lost, her two sister ships were also torn apart by storms they ought to have survived because of the same design flaws. The Derbyshire tragedy led
to improved safety features that are now standard on new ships. But many older ships
suffer the very same flaws that led to Derbyshire's demise. For Paul Lambert, the
fight is far from over. The mystery of the
Derbyshire may be solved, but he won't rest until every ship has been made safe. - I don't want me brother Peter and the other, nor the
other 43 people lives to have been lost for nothing. And the only way we can do that is to get the recommendation implemented. I want people to remember Derbyshire and for the lives she's gonna save. - [Voiceover] It may be cold comfort, but there is some comfort in the knowledge that many mysterious disappearances can be accounted for. And every mystery solved improves the odds for the thousands of
seafarers that venture out onto the Devil's Sea every day. Maritime experts are confident eventually, even the most perplexing mysteries will give up their secrets. - When you're at sea in the
ship and you're out there and there's nothing else. There's you and your crew and your vessel, you know, things happen
and nobody knows, you know? And Derbyshire was one
of those ships where, if we hadn't found it,
nobody would ever know. And if you wanted to think
that she was overcome by the forces of some
unexplained phenomenon, people could have believed that as well. But we've proved that that is incorrect. Now we know why she sank. So that's what gives me the confidence that these things are explainable. At least in the case of Derbyshire, it is. - [Voiceover] But for some,
the enigma will always remain. - Many people now realize
that there are many things we can't solve, even though we have witnessed
great progress in science. However, I don't think I can
persuade people who insist that there is nothing
science cannot solve. - [Voiceover] Everyday,
this vast expansive ocean continues to be plied by hundred of ships braving the forces of nature
and the terrors of the unknown. As the Devil's Sea casts a
shroud over its mysteries, the sailors can only pray
that they won't fall victim to the Pacific Ocean's deadliest waters. (eerie music)
