The Titanic may have survived more than a century at the bottom of the ocean, but time is finally taking its toll. Newly released photos show a fallen chunk of the ship’s iconic bow railing on the ocean floor.
RMS Titanic Inc., the American company that holds the salvage rights to the wreck, recently finished its ninth remote imaging expedition, and a significant discovery was made during the mission in July.
A 15-foot section of the ship’s bow railing, made famous by the 1997 movie Titanic, in the scene where Jack holds Rose over the front of the ship, has now broken away and rests on the ocean floor.
In a statement on its website, the company expressed sadness over the loss. It also mentions that even though Titanic’s collapse is inevitable, this evidence strengthens its mission to preserve and document what it can before it’s too late.
The remote imaging also revealed another find, a bronze statuette of the Roman goddess Diana, known as “Diana of Versailles.” When the ship sank, the lounge was torn open and the statue ended up in the debris field where it remained for over a century.
Just hours before the end of this most recent expedition, the team managed to locate and photograph the statue, which hadn’t been seen in 112 years.
