Haunting new footage of Titanic wreckage to be released

Haunting new footage of the wreck of the RMS Titanic was set to be released on Wednesday, taken during the pioneering 1986 expedition that gave the first glimpses of the doomed ocean liner since its notorious sinking on its maiden voyage more than seven decades before.

The release commemorates the 25th anniversary and re-release of the blockbuster movie Titanic, whose director and writer, James Cameron, continues to support Titanic research.

The Titanic sank with the loss of more than 1,500 lives in April 1912 after striking an iceberg, in one of the deadliest and most significant maritime disasters in history.

A Woods Hole oceanographer, Robert Ballard, and the French explorer Jean-Louis Michel located large chunks of debris in 1985 almost 2.5 miles below the surface of the Atlantic, about 400 miles from Newfoundland.

Ballard led the expedition the following year, recording video inside the ship, using a deep-ocean submersible named Alvin and a smaller, more maneuverable remote camera called Jason Jr that could pass through narrow openings.

More recent visits to the depths have revealed signs of decay in the wreckage of the Titanic, which split into two main chunks while sinking.

The Canadian film-maker was also behind the celebrated 2003 documentary Ghosts of the Abyss, which captured some of the most stunning images ever recorded of the Titanic during an expedition two years previously. Cameron funded and co-piloted a submersible built specifically for the adventure.