Woman Who Survived The Titanic Had To Answer For Her Behavior The Night Of The Sinking

Today, there are some names that will forever be associated with the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic: John Jacob Astor, Captain Edward John Smith, the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown. But it was renowned fashion designer Lady Duff-Gordon and her husband, Cosmo, who dominated headlines in the immediate aftermath of the disaster. 

As women and children piled into lifeboats — and men gallantly went down with the ship — the actions of some of the Titanic’s richest passengers were called into question. But what really happened in the early hours of April 15, 1912? And were the Duff-Gordons truly guilty of the accusations that were slung their way? 

Born in June 1863 in London, England, Lucy Christiana Sutherland, later Lady Duff-Gordon, had an eventful early life — although nothing could have prepared her for the drama she would later encounter. Tragically, her father died when she was just an infant, prompting her mother to cross the Atlantic and settle in the Canadian province of Ontario. 

Then in 1871 Lucy’s mother remarried, and she and her sister Elinor returned to Europe, this time moving to Jersey in the Channel Islands. A few years later, a ship in which the girls were traveling ran aground in the English Channel. And although both of them survived, it was perhaps an omen of what was to come.

After an unhappy marriage marred by a string of affairs, Lucy separated from her first husband, James Stuart Wallace, in 1890. But by that time she had a daughter, Esme, and needed to find a way to support them both. And so she turned to something that had been a passion for most of her life.

As it turned out, Lucy was a talented dressmaker with an eye for the latest fashions. And in 1893 she opened her own store, Maison Lucile, in London’s West End. Soon, she was designing clothing for the upper echelons of British society — not to mention catching the eye of one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors.

A sportsman descended from Scottish aristocracy, Cosmo Duff-Gordon had recently inherited the title of 5th Baronet of Halkin. And as such, the divorced Lucy wasn’t exactly considered a perfect match. But the pair defied convention and married in 1900. By that time, the career of the self-styled Madame Lucile was really taking off.

While her husband shied away from the spotlight, Lucy thrived in her new role as a high-society figure. Meanwhile, her business went from strength to strength. And in 1910 she opened a store in New York City, followed by another in Paris the following year. In fact, it was while working at her studio in the French capital that she received the telegram that would change her life. 

On April 7, 1912, Lucy was contacted by the managers of her American store. Apparently, her presence was urgently required to oversee the business back in New York. Keen to make the crossing as quickly as possible, she headed to the offices of the White Star Line to book passage across the Atlantic.

According to her memoir Discretions and Indiscretions, which was published in 1932, Lucy was apprehensive about the journey from the start. She wrote, “To this day I cannot explain my reluctance when the clerk at the White Star offices said, ‘The only berths we have are on the Titanic, which will be making her maiden voyage.’” 

At more than 880 feet long, the Titanic was the biggest ship in the world at the time — and the pride of the White Star Line. Inside, the vessel was equipped with every luxury imaginable, from a swimming pool and Turkish baths to opulent lounges and a Parisian-themed cafe. Meanwhile, newspapers touted it as unsinkable, thanks to a clever system of watertight compartments.

Surely, then, Lucy should have jumped at the chance to travel on the Titanic? After all, there were plenty of illustrious passengers already signed up for the maiden voyage, and the Duff-Gordons would certainly have been among friends. But despite the reassurances of her husband, she felt inexplicably nervous at the prospect of boarding the great liner.

Eventually, Sir Cosmo agreed to accompany his wife on the ill-fated Titanic. But unlike some of the celebrities traveling on the liner, the couple bought their tickets under an alias — probably hoping to escape the attention of the press. Unfortunately, though, they would soon find themselves under more scrutiny than ever before.

As Mr and Mrs Morgan, the Duff-Gordons boarded the Titanic, accompanied by Lucy’s friend and secretary Laura Francatelli, known as Franks. Was their choice of alias perhaps a dig at J.P. Morgan, then the owner of the White Star Line? According to high-society rumors, he had forsaken the maiden voyage in favor of an illicit encounter with his mistress in the south of France.

Whatever the inspiration behind their pseudonym, the Duff-Gordons would not remain anonymous for long. In fact, they would soon have been recognized by many people on board. Despite this, though, the couple seemed to enjoy the crossing at first, with Lucy particularly impressed by the standards on board the Titanic.

“Like everyone else I was entranced with the beauty of the liner,” wrote Lucy. “I had never dreamt of traveling in such luxury. I remember being childishly pleased at finding strawberries on my breakfast table. ‘Fancy strawberries in April and in mid-ocean,’ I said to my husband. ‘You would think you were at the Ritz.’”

Even Lucy’s stateroom, it seems, was a source of great comfort, despite her initial misgivings about the voyage. Equipped with an electric heater and decked out in pink curtains and cushions, it would have provided a cozy retreat amidst the often-chill Atlantic air. Meanwhile, Cosmo occupied a separate cabin on the other side of the hallway.

Were the Duff-Gordons in the middle of some argument that had left them unable to even share a room? Or was there another reason for this strange arrangement? More than a century later, the answer to this riddle remains unknown. But before long, there would be no shortage of rumors surrounding the apparently estranged couple.

For four days, the Titanic glided steadily towards New York, setting such a pace that some speculated a new record would be broken. And on the morning of April 14, there was nothing to indicate the trouble that lay ahead. According to reports, the sea was like glass, although the temperature plummeted as the day progressed.

“I have never felt so cold,” Lucy recalled telling her husband as they strolled the decks. “There must be icebergs about.” But apparently Cosmo dismissed her concerns. Still struggling against the chill, Lady Duff-Gordon retreated to her cabin with Francatelli, refusing to change out of her warm clothing for dinner. 

After a lively evening in the dining saloon, the small party retired. And while Lucy and Cosmo headed to their separate staterooms on the promenade deck, Francatelli returned to her own cabin on E Deck far below. But they had not been in bed for long before a terrible noise tore through the ship.

Alone in her stateroom, Lucy was woken by a strange rumbling sound and went to alert her husband of the situation. By this time, she recalled, there were several other people milling around the deck. But officers assured them that there was nothing to worry about, and the majority returned to bed.

Soon, though, it became clear that there was plenty to worry about indeed. Alerted by the sound of the ship’s engines stopping, Lucy roused Cosmo once more and pleaded with him to find out more about their situation. Reluctantly, he went — and returned with a grave face. At that, the Duff-Gordons dressed in their warmest clothes and headed out to meet their fate.

Even now, more than 100 years after the disaster, what happened next is a matter of some debate. What we do know is that the Titanic had hit an iceberg, tearing a great gash in its hull. And even though the liner could float with four of its compartments flooded, the water would soon breach six.

For those in the know, it became a certainty that the Titanic would sink. But for the passengers wandering the decks of the liner, it took a while for reality to set in. And even when Captain Smith gave the order to launch the lifeboats, many were reluctant to leave the ship and be cast out into the gloomy ocean.

According to Lucy’s memoir — and the testimony that she would give at the official inquiry — most of the lifeboats had already been dispatched by the time that she and her husband reached them. But just as she began to despair, she claimed, they spotted another, empty, vessel still suspended from the ship’s davits. 

Allegedly, the Duff-Gordons, along with Francatelli, were ushered into the remaining boat, along with two American passengers who were standing nearby. And despite the captain’s orders of “women and children first,” the vessel was put to sea with three male passengers and a crew of seven men on board.

Shockingly, that made for a total of 12 passengers in a boat that was built to carry 40. To make matters worse, the Titanic was woefully short on lifeboats. And out of the 2,240 people on board, only about 700 were able to escape the sinking ship. To this day, it remains one of the worst and most infamous maritime disasters in history.

Eventually, the Duff-Gordons’ lifeboat was picked up by the Carpathia, a Cunard Line vessel that had steamed through the night to reach the ailing Titanic. And on April 18, one day after their scheduled arrival, the surviving passengers sailed into New York. There, they were met by a huge crowd of onlookers waiting desperately for news of their loved ones.

But it wasn’t just friends and family who were waiting anxiously as the Carpathia made its way to shore. In New York, the world’s press had assembled, desperate for the latest take on a tragedy that had shocked the world. And in the days and weeks that followed, the lines between fact and fiction would become blurred.

As it emerged that many women and children from second and third class had perished — while 57 men from first class had been saved — the public turned against the survivors. In fact, even the men who had gone down with the ship were initially tarnished by media reports. And in early stories, both John Jacob Astor and Captain Smith were accused of unchivalrous behavior as the scene on board the Titanic had descended into chaos.

Today, of course, it is generally accepted that both men died heroic deaths. But what of the male passengers who somehow made it onto a lifeboat despite the fact that women and children were still on board? For many of them, their survival became a stigma that would dog them for the rest of their lives. 

Even the female survivors, it turned out, were not safe from the ire of tabloid journalism, known at the time as the “yellow press.” And Lucy would soon find this out first-hand. Within days of the sinking, you see, stories had begun to emerge of a so-called “Millionaire’s Boat” — an emergency vessel commandeered by some of the Titanic’s wealthiest passengers.

Before long, Lucy realized that the rumors concerned their own lifeboat — and that wasn’t the worst part. According to the stories making the rounds, the Duff-Gordons had begged the crewmen not to return to the shipwreck and search for survivors, afraid that their boat would be overwhelmed. In fact, people said, Cosmo had even bribed them with $5 a piece to ensure their compliance.

According to the Duff-Gordons, these claims were little more than fantasy, invented to titillate the readers of the yellow press. In both her memoirs and her official testimony, Lucy denied that she had ever told the crewmen not to return to the Titanic. And the alleged bribe, she said, was a goodwill gesture on Cosmo’s behalf, intended to help the crewmen get back on their feet after the disaster.

But the Duff-Gordons’ denials did little to stop the scandalous stories from spreading. And to make matters worse, a comment that Lucy made during the sinking had also made its way to the yellow press. Apparently, while watching the Titanic disappear, she had said to Francatelli, “There is your beautiful nightdress gone.”

In the light of such a tragic disaster, this comment must have seemed outrageously materialistic — and it did little to improve the Duff-Gordons’ standing in the public eye. And by the time that the couple arrived in London on board the Lusitania, they were met with placards and headlines decrying their behavior on the Titanic. 

On May 17, 1912, Cosmo took the stand at the official inquiry into the disaster, followed by Lucy three days later. In front of an audience of eager spectators, they refuted the claim that they had used bribery to prevent the crew from returning to the wreck. And eventually, the court agreed, exonerating them of any wrongdoing. 

For Lucy, that was largely the end of the ordeal. Her career flourished, and even today her garments can be seen in museums around the world. But sadly, Cosmo was never quite the same, his reputation forever sullied by the rumors of the yellow press. And three years after the sinking, the Duff-Gordons parted ways, never to reconcile.

In stark contrast to the Duff-Gordons, two other survivors found on the deck of the Carpathia were a pair of somberly unaccompanied toddlers. And when the authorities tried to determine who the boys belonged to, every bit of information they uncovered revealed an even stranger tale. It turns out that surviving a sinking ship wasn't even the darkest moment of the little boy's journey on the forsaken RMS Titanic.

And it may have been a miracle that they survived. As one of the boys opened his eyes to the bright daylight of the morning, he stirred and looked around. First, he registered the rocking of the boat beneath him. Then the memories of the previous hours fluttered back. 

The next thing the boy knew, he and his little brother were being tossed into a burlap bag and carried onto another big ship. But this one didn’t look familiar. It wasn't the one he had been on with his dad.

There wasn't much time to linger on that, though. As the boy remembered once he'd grown up, “I thought it was extremely incorrect to be in a burlap bag!” Only a three-year-old would have such a reaction hours after surviving the sinking of the Titanic... But who were he and his brother?

No family members were awaiting the boys in New York. Because they spoke French, however, they were suspected to have relatives overseas. In the meantime, fellow French-speaking first-class passenger Margaret Hays volunteered to care for the two temporarily. 

And after newspapers published a photo of the boys, the response was overwhelming. For many families searching for answers, the pair were a final glimmer of hope that their loved ones had survived the Titanic.

Iowa resident Frank Lefebvre went all the way to New York in hopes that the “Titanic orphans” were two of his kids. Ultimately, he would only end up confirming the terrible truth: his wife and four children had died on the ship.

In fact, none of the people searching for their loved ones stateside knew the little boys. Then, finally, word reached a mother named Marcelle Caretto in France. She was frantic over her missing sons, and she boarded a ship to New York at once.

On May 16, 1912, Marcelle hugged her sons at long last. It was a tremendous relief to find them alive considering the circumstances of their departure. You see, the boys had vanished as a result of a kidnapping.

The pair's real names were Michel and Edmond Navratil. They lived in Nice, France, with their mother and had spent the weekends with their father, Michel Sr. In the lead-up to the Titanic voyage, the kids had also passed the Easter holiday with their dad.

But Michel Sr. took the extra time with his sons as an opportunity to wreak his revenge against his ex-wife. He'd purchased three second-class tickets on the Titanic and escaped with the boys to Monte Carlo, then on to England.

When the holiday ended and her children and ex-husband were nowhere to be found, Marcelle was devastated. In the meantime, Michel Sr., Michel Jr., and Edmond successfully boarded the Titanic under false names at Southampton.

There's some discrepancy over which fake identities Michel Sr. originally invented for his sons. Some photos are marked Louis and Lola, but there's also mention of a Momon, Loto, and the rather amusing Lump. All three used the fake surname Hoffman.

But little Michel was completely unaware of his father's ruse. He was preoccupied with the grand ship. “One morning, my father, my brother, and I were eating eggs in the second-class dining room. The sea was stunning. My feeling was one of a total and utter well-being,” he later recalled as an adult.

This sense of magic disappeared on the night of April 14, 1912. Michel later claimed that he had sensed the shift in the tone of the adults around him. He also said that he remembered his father gently waking him and his brother. Apparently, Michel Sr. and another passenger had tenderly bundled the boys in layers before taking them onto the deck.

“When I think of it now, I am very moved. They knew they were going to die,” Michel later recalled. Michel Sr. and his sons joined the rest of the panicked passengers on deck, where the father looked for an opportunity to save the boys.

In a desperate final act, Michel Sr. managed to secure his sons' seats together on the very last lifeboat, Collapsible D. And those final moments with his father deeply impacted Michel. In fact, he claimed to have never forgotten his dad's parting words.

Apparently, Michel Sr. had said to his son, “When your mother comes for you, as she surely will, tell her that I loved her dearly and still do. Tell her I expected her to follow us so that we might all live happily together in the peace and freedom of the New World.”

Through a toddler's lens, the historical tragedy sounds even more surreal. While Michel Sr.'s traumatizing final moments unfolded, his namesake son drifted away in the lifeboat, eating biscuits from a stranger. Michel also remembered sitting near a little girl and her dog.

But the boys didn't escape entirely unscathed. While Michel’s memories of the Titanic may have often been pleasant ones, there’s no doubt the disaster left a profound and serious impact on his and Edmond’s lives. 

The younger of the boys, Edmond, went on to serve in WWII but eventually passed away at just 43 years old. Michel, on the other hand, pursued a life in academia as a philosophy professor. He would also participate in several Titanic survivor reunions and memorial events. 

As for Michel Sr.? While his body was ultimately recovered, he was misidentified and assumed to be Jewish. That ultimately meant he was buried with the Jewish victims of the Titanic in the Baron de Hirsch Cemetery in Canada.

Even a century after her sinking, the Titanic still has the power to shock and move. But the doomed vessel was once more than just a wreck. The Titanic was actually launched to considerable fanfare when she set off from Southampton, England, on April 10, 1912. She was a masterpiece of engineering, and tickets for that maiden voyage were highly sought after.

The ship’s first port of call was Cherbourg on the northern coast of France – a short hop across the English Channel. From there, she sailed on to what was then Queenstown – now Cobh – in Ireland before setting off on a westward course to New York City. But as midnight approached three days later, tragedy struck. An iceberg ripped along the starboard of the ship – putting the Titanic and all of her passengers in real peril.

That impact didn’t actually breach the hull, but it did bend the ship’s steel plates out of shape. Gaps appeared, then, and icy Atlantic water began to pour in. If only four of the Titanic’s compartments had been flooded, then the captain and crew would have been able to cope. When five sections became filled with water, though, that was the beginning of the end for the so-called “unsinkable” boat.

So, just a couple of hours after the collision with the iceberg, the Titanic plunged below the waves. There were 2,224 souls aboard, and over 1,500 of those men, women and children ultimately lost their lives in the freezing sea. Around 1,000 people were still aboard the liner as she dropped 12,500 feet to the bottom of the Atlantic.

But more than a century later, the Limiting Factor mini-sub traveled almost two and a half miles to the wreck of the Titanic. And what the crew discovered down in the depths brought the tragedy into even sharper focus.

The divers’ find is even sadder when you consider how magnificent the Titanic had been. The Titanic was the second of three Olympic liners to be constructed. She had arrived before the not very originally named Olympic and was followed by the Britannic. All were part of the White Star Line’s fleet. And the reason why they were built? Well, good old-fashioned business rivalry.

White Star Line’s competitors had been stealing a march on the company, and boss J. Bruce Ismay had to find a way to keep up. He decided, then, that the firm’s future lay not in faster ships – but bigger ones. And the Olympic-class behemoths would not only be the largest passenger ships on the planet, but they’d also be the most extravagantly opulent – for the first-class passengers, anyway.

Construction of the Titanic herself started in March 1909 at the Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast. But it wasn’t an overnight job in the least! From beginning to end, the whole process took two years. Even though Harland and Wolf had been building ships for the White Star Line for more than four decades, the Olympic vessels were the largest ever made at that point. That meant required massive feats of engineering.

The hull of the Titanic alone had 2,000 steel plates, for instance. These were each up to six feet across, 30 feet long – and as much as three tons apiece. Shocked? Well, you will be by this next fact. An astonishing three million rivets held those steel plates in place. And building the ship was also very dangerous. Eight workers lost their lives during her construction, while another 246 ended up injured.

What awaited the first-class passengers, though, was nothing short of sheer luxury. Those lucky folks could enjoy the gym or take a dip in a swimming pool or a Turkish bath. In the Café Parisien, they could also dine on roast duckling, pâté de foie gras and peaches in Chartreuse jelly. Swanky.

And while third-class passengers obviously didn’t get to indulge in these pleasures, conditions were still better for them on the Titanic than on other shipping lines of the day. There were common rooms for leisure, for example, and children could play on the poop deck. Third-class cabins accommodating two to six passengers were also equipped with electricity, heating and running water. We may take those things for granted on a cruise now, but back then they were relative novelties.

Mind you, the Titanic was no ordinary boat. She was over 880 feet from bow to stern, 175 feet from her bottom to the highest points of her funnels and over 90 feet across her beam. She also possessed a displacement of an astonishing 52,310 tons, with 29 boilers powering the engines that drove the four propellers. Ominously, though, the Titanic held only 20 lifeboats with a total capacity of 1,178 people. And as we’ve previously mentioned, there were 2,224 on board when the ship hit the iceberg.

Even worse, the Titanic actually had enough launching gear for 64 wooden lifeboats. These could have carried 4,000 people in total – more than the maximum number of passengers and crew, which came in at 3,547. But the White Star Line made the fateful decision that 20 lifeboats were enough.

Did the Titanic break the rules? Well, no! British maritime rules were that any ship of over 10,000 tons – such as the Titanic – needed only carry 16 lifeboats with a total capacity of 990. Naturally, inquiries after the disaster would focus on the shortcomings of this number.

In any case, RMS Titanic was up to code when her launch came on May 31, 1911. That grand event was watched by a crowd of 100,000, who witnessed the huge vessel travel down a slipway that had been lubricated with 22 tons of animal fat and soap. And in just 62 seconds, the great ship slid into the River Lagan. From that moment, the Titanic became the largest constructed object floating on water anywhere in the world. Over a century later, a 2019 dive would find the chilling sight of the ship disintegrating between the waves – hauntingly turning to rust and then to dust.

Although the ship’s launch was cause for great celebration, tragedy haunted the event. Shipwright James Dobbin was one of the men knocking away the huge timbers that supported the ship before she entered the water. And in the process, one of the massive planks fell on Dobbin. He sadly died of his injuries two days later, and with hindsight, it’s all too easy to interpret this as an extremely bad omen.

Even once the hull of the Titanic was in the water, however, there was still much work to do. The next year was spent in finishing the interior and attaching various bits of the superstructure, including fitting the ship’s distinctive set of four funnels. Only three of those emitted fumes from the engines, though; the other helped provide ventilation for the kitchens.

Then, following the fitting out, the Titanic went through a series of sea trials that began on April 2, 1912. At this point, there were only eight days to go before the liner was due to embark on her maiden voyage from Southampton. And thankfully for all concerned, the ship was judged to be fully ocean-worthy after she had been put through her paces in the Irish Sea.

So, the Titanic set sail from Southampton, stopping briefly at Cherbourg and Queenstown on her first voyage to America’s east coast. The White Star Line’s most senior captain, Edward Smith, took charge of the new ship and her crew of 885 – only 23 of whom were women. Sixty-six of the employees worked on deck, while 325 toiled below as engineers and stokers.

And a total of 494 crew were aboard to serve the passengers in one way or another – almost enough to run a small city! There were fishmongers, chefs, butchers, bakers and waiters to feed the passengers. Elsewhere, dishwashers, laundrymen, bed-makers and cleaners kept everything spick and span, while a printer published a daily newspaper, the Atlantic Daily Bulletin. There were eight musicians on board, too.

As for the passengers, 709 traveled third class – also known as steerage – while 284 were in second class and 324 enjoyed the opulence of first class. There were 896 men among the passengers along with 447 women and 107 children – most of whom were in steerage. But while the Titanic could carry up to 2,453 people, only 1,317 were aboard for that maiden voyage.

Really? Those low numbers seem strange – especially as the ship had enjoyed a huge amount of publicity. And in normal circumstances, the White Star Line would have expected to fill such a vessel – especially on her first crossing. But there’s a good explanation. There had been a major coal strike in the U.K., you see. This had played havoc with travel arrangements and caused many to reschedule their plans.

Among those who did climb on board the Titanic, though, were some extremely well-to-do individuals. For starters, there was the super-rich American businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, who came with his butler, chauffeur, mistress Léontine Aubart and her maid. Then there was the fabulously wealthy John Jacob Astor IV and his wife, Madeleine. Sadly, Guggenheim, his butler and his chauffeur all perished after the iceberg strike, as did Astor.

Isidor Straus, owner of Macy’s department store, and his wife, Ida, were also both aboard, with neither surviving the disaster. Canadian entrepreneur and politician Harry Molson lost his life, too, as a result of the ship’s fate. However, Ismay – who presumably had some say in the numbers of lifeboats aboard the liner – ultimately survived the sinking.

Yes, Ismay boarded the last lifeboat to be launched from the vessel’s starboard side. Later, many accused him of cowardice. The ship’s designer, Thomas Andrews, was definitely not so lucky. After helping others escape, he, too, perished in the sinking. But perhaps the most fortunate was J.P. Morgan – the ultimate owner of White Star. He was set to be one of the passengers on the Titanic’s maiden voyage, but he had changed his plans at the last minute.

Of course, most of those who died were neither rich nor famous, as the fatal iceberg had no concern for social class or money. That frozen menace had first been spotted by crewman Frederick Fleet at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, 1912. And while there were desperate attempts to steer the ship away, there was too little time to change course – meaning the Titanic would plow straight into the ice.

The first sign that the ship was doomed came with the lowering of the bows. This put the Titanic at an angle, which worsened the flow of water through her hull. Chaos then erupted on the stricken liner, with poorly trained crewmen launching lifeboats when they had only been partially loaded. To make matters even worse, many of the steerage passengers were trapped below deck.

And at around 2:10 a.m. on April 15, the Titanic had started to sink increasingly quickly. Within just ten minutes, the stern – the last part of the vessel above the surface – plunged beneath the waves. Those poor people who had been clinging to the rear end were cast into the icy waters, leaving them to die from exposure.

But while this disaster spelled the end of the “unsinkable” Titanic, that was far from the end of her story. Understandably, the horrified public demanded answers as to how this unthinkable tragedy could have happened, and inquiries in both Britain and the U.S. came up with some conclusions. There had been too few lifeboats, for example. It was also claimed that Captain Smith – who had died in the sinking – had paid too little attention to iceberg warnings. Oh, and the liner herself? She’d apparently been cruising too quickly.

Whatever the reason, though, the Titanic herself was completely lost. Yes, her location beneath the waves was a mystery. Soon after she had sunk, relatives of some of the rich casualties raised money to look for the wreck. This plan was doomed to fail, as the diving technology of the day could not reach anywhere near the depths where the vessel lay. Another gruesome suggestion was to drop dynamite on the ship, forcing bodies to rise to the surface.

This idea was entirely impractical, of course, as no one actually knew where the remains of the Titanic were! Other hare-brained schemes included raising the wreck with huge magnets or bringing her to the surface with balloons. But perhaps the maddest plan was proposed in the 1970s. This suggestion was to cram the hull with ping-pong balls to float the broken vessel up to the surface. Yes, you read that right.

In the end, more than 70 years passed before a French-American team found the wreck using a remotely controlled sub called Argo. Further manned subs visited the Titanic in the years that followed, too, although the last such expedition came in 2005.

And that brings us back to the crew of the mini-submarine Limiting Factor. You’ll remember that we last encountered them at a depth of 12,500 feet, where they were gazing at the mangled remains of the Titanic. The men were able to take some stunning images, too, using the high-tech 4K cameras aboard their vessel.

Victor Vescovo, diver and boss of Caladan Oceanic, led this August 2019 expedition – the first of its kind for nearly a decade and a half. Vescovo was also one of the folks that took part in the five dives that Limiting Factor made. Other team members included Titanic history expert Parks Stephenson and lead planner Rob McCallum. And what the intrepid voyagers ultimately found at the wreck was deeply shocking.

You see, the Titanic is disappearing all too quickly. And Patrick Lahey – expedition member and president of Limiting Factor owner Triton Submarines – revealed as much in a press release from Triton. Lahey explained, “The most fascinating aspect [of the expedition] was seeing how the Titanic is being consumed by the ocean and returning to its elemental form while providing refuge for a remarkably diverse number of animals.”

Much has vanished, too. One famous artifact known as the “captain’s bathtub” is no longer to be seen at the site. But what is left of the ship – as well as the thriving undersea wildlife that lives on the wreck – has been stunningly captured in the 4K footage the divers were able to shoot.

Stephenson also emphasized the state of the vessel when he told the BBC in 2019, “[The] Titanic is returning to nature.” Powerful ocean currents, the corrosive action of saltwater and bacteria that eat metal are all contributing to the disappearance of the ship’s wreck.

But as the Titanic has sat in the ocean for over a century, her disintegration should come as no surprise. Expedition scientist Clare Fitzsimmons added, “There are microbes on the shipwreck that are eating away the iron of the wreck itself [and] creating ‘rusticle’ structures, which is a much weaker form of the metal.”

Sadly, rusticles turn to dust when disturbed, putting the Titanic in danger of eventually disappearing. It appears, then, that the ship – along with those who lost their lives – is gradually breaking up into the sea she sank in over a century ago.