Olympic-class ocean liner
When "Titanic" sank in 1912 and "Britannic" sank in 1916, their sinkings did not receive the same attention, due to the death toll (1,517 on "Titanic" and 30 on "Britannic"). Because the exact position of the sinking of the "Britannic" is known and the location is shallow, the wreck was discovered relatively easily in 1975. "Titanic", however, drew everyone's attention in 1912. After several attempts, the wreck was finally located by Jean-Louis Michel of Ifremer and Robert Ballard following a top secret mission for the US Navy to investigate the wreckage of two nuclear submarines, USS Thresher (SSN-593) and the USS Scorpion (SSN-589), that sank in the North Atlantic in the 1960s. The discovery of the wreck occurred on 1 September 1985, at 25 kilometres from the position given of the sinking. The wreck lies about 4,000 metres deep, broken in two. The bow is relatively well preserved, but the stern partially imploded, and to a large extent disintegrated during the descent and impact on the seabed.
Sinking of the RMS Titanic
After they went under, the bow and stern took only about 5–6 minutes to sink , spilling a trail of heavy machinery, tons of coal and large quantities of debris from "Titanic"s interior. The two parts of the ship landed about apart on a gently undulating area of the seabed. The streamlined bow section continued to descend at about the angle it had taken on the surface, striking the seabed prow-first at a shallow angle at an estimated speed of . Its momentum caused it to dig a deep gouge into the seabed and buried the section up to deep in sediment before it came to an abrupt halt. The sudden deceleration caused the bow's structure to buckle downwards by several degrees just forward of the bridge. The decks at the rear end of the bow section, which had already been weakened during the break-up, collapsed one atop another.