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9. The French did preliminary research over the suspected Titanic site in 1985
While Ballard was surveying the wreckage of Scorpion in the summer of 1985, his second mission to the submarine’s resting place, the French research team aboard Le Suroit worked in the area where Titanic was believed to have gone down, using side scan sonar. Ballard had tasked the French with finding and charting large targets, which he would investigate using Argo/Jason after his work was complete at the Scorpion site. The French steamed back and forth over the assigned area for five weeks, finding nothing of interest (when Ballard did finally locate the wreck he realized the closest the French had come was a few hundred yards).
Knorr sailed in a back-and-forth pattern over the area for a week, towing Argo, the cameras on which were monitored 24 hours per day. On the eighth day, and with just four remaining before the mission would be over, large items of debris were found on the ocean floor. On September 2, 1985, Titanic’s bow appeared on the screens, sent back by Argo. After 73 years, the lost Titanic had been found, an event which made headlines across the globe. There was no mention of the expedition’s visits to the sunken submarines, but those had delivered new information as well.