The wreck of the RMS Titanic The ship has lost a significant portion of its bow rail, said the company with exclusive salvage rights to the wreck, which carried out the final survey of the iconic vessel in July.

The bow rail collapsed sometime between 2022 and this summer as the wreck slowly succumbed to enormous pressure at a depth of about 12,500 feet (3,810 meters) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, according to a company statement.

Titanic disappeared in the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg several hundred miles southeast of Newfoundland. The disaster resulted in the deaths of more than 1,500 people; many of those who did not drown suffered cardiac arrest shortly after exposure to the icy waters.

When the ship sank, it broke into two pieces that landed mostly intact on the bottom of the Atlantic. The wreck was discovered in 1985, and in 1994 a U.S. federal court awarded salvage rights to RMS Titanic, Inc., which occasionally recovers artifacts from the disaster site. Titanic and comprehensively presents photos of the wreck.

In their latest study, the team rediscovered Diana of Versaillesa bronze statue that sat in TitanicFirst Class Lounge. The statue was dislodged during the disaster and landed in a large debris field where it was discovered during an expedition in 1986. However, the location of the statue was lost, and the team only rediscovered it (and photographed the statue) during a recent expedition.

Although part of the bow rail remained, the release said a “significant portion” had fallen “from the port side of the bow,” which “irreversibly changes one of the TitanicThe most recognizable and iconic visuals.” Indeed, the bow rail is the site of some of the most uplifting scenes in the 1997 film, charged with a sobering familiarity regarding the fate of the ship.

A 3D scan of the wreck in 2023 compiled more than 700,000 images to create a photorealistic model of the wreck. A recent research team has done a better job, capturing more than two million high-resolution images and videos, as well as mapping the wreck and its debris field using LiDAR, sonar, and a hypermagnetometer, which collects magnetic data.

TitanicProgressive deterioration of the wreck is inevitable; the wreck is being eaten away by underwater microbes and is being exposed to the extreme pressures at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.

But with this inevitable process comes opportunity: as the RMS Titanic, Inc. website notes, collapse sites on the wreck can provide opportunities for “unobstructed access to the interior of the ship.” One of the most surreal (and indeed serene) images of the shipwreck is the bathtub belonging to TitanicCaptain Edward Smith, who survived the voyage to the bottom of the ocean. More views TitanicThe plane’s interior may shed a similarly human light on the wreckage, which remains the final resting place of hundreds of people who lost their lives 112 years ago.