The mystery surrounding the Titan submarine was lifted on Thursday. The five passengers of the submersible, lost since Sunday in the North Atlantic, near the wreck of the Titanic, died in the “catastrophic implosion” of this small scientific tourist submarine, announced the American Coast Guard and the expedition organizer.
Antoine Resche, historian and president of the French Association of the Titanic, returns for Le Point on the implosion of the submarine and on the fascination which surrounds the wreck of the Titanic since its sinking in 1912.
Le Point: Is there a curse around the Titanic after the Titan submarine implosion?
Antoine Resche: No, I don’t see any curse at all. This site has been diving for almost forty years, and there has never been a serious accident so far. If there was a curse, I think it would have happened sooner. It’s a bit like when you launch fifty rockets in a row: the more you launch, the greater the risk of failure and accident. These dives are dangerous with very difficult conditions. It’s something that all passengers who have been on these kinds of expeditions had in mind.
Did you know Paul-Henri Nargeolet and what did he mean to the Titanic?
I’ve had a passion for the Titanic since I was eight years old and I’ve been hearing about it since that age. He is someone who, since the first expedition he led to the wreck in 1987, has been part of the history of this ship. He is not necessarily the one who has contributed the most to our knowledge of the history of the ship, but to our knowledge of the wreck, he is obviously someone who has done a lot. Last year, Paul-Henri Nargeolet told us about his experience in a very interesting book (In the depths of the Titanic).
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Above all, he is a great professional in underwater exploration. And not only of the Titanic, since he had also conducted research on the crash of the Rio-Paris. I remember seeing him give a lecture on a comparative analysis of these two sites, the wreck of the Titanic and that of the Rio-Paris. He was a passionate and fascinating person.
Why do you think the Titanic is still so exciting?
It is extremely difficult to say. Whenever the media talk about it, people are extremely receptive to it, and have been since 1912. In the 1930s, there were already editorial phenomena in Germany. In the 1950s, many more in the United States and the United Kingdom, where the Titanic gave rise to films. It came up many times, whether in popular culture or in more scientific fields, without me being able to really explain it.
What about the wreck itself?
Several oceanographers have said something very right, which is that wrecks, in general, are fascinating. The Titanic being the most famous ship, its wreck fascinates even more. In addition, there is the pursuit of performance. Going down to that depth is a bit like climbing Everest or going into space. The wreck of the Titanic is still not the most accessible.
Tourist dives are then very rare and very expensive. Compared to sites much more secure and close to the coast, we are on something which, by its price, by its difficulty, has a different intrinsic value. Finally, for scientists, there are very important reasons to dive there: to know the site better, but also to know better all its biology which is quite extraordinary and which we know very little about. Completely unknown species and ways of life have been discovered there, because it is a depth where human life could not exist.