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.
Tim Foecke
Beginning in 1996, Foecke has been involved in the forensic examination of the structure and mechanical properties of metals recovered from the wreck of the RMS Titanic, and has been involved in expeditions in 1996, 1998 and 2004. He performed experiments on a number of hull fragments and definitively disproved the theory that the steel used to construct the hull of the Titanic was inferior and brittle. He was the originator of the "rivet theory" to explain the rapid sinking of the Titanic. His initial report on the hull steel and rivets was published in 1998. This study was greatly expanded in collaboration with Dr. Jennifer Hooper McCarty in her PhD thesis work at Johns Hopkins University and was published in 2008 in the book "What Really Sank the Titanic - New Forensic Discoveries" (Citadel Press) and has been published as a German translation "Warum sank die Titanic wirklich?: Neue forensische Erkenntnisse (Springer Vieweg) (2012)".