Titanic twin reveals secrets in new doc

Using underwater scanning technology, including 715,000 digitally captured images, the most precise model of the Titanic has been created: a full-scale, 1:1 digital twin, accurate down to the rivet.

The story of the recreation is captured in Titanic: The Digital Resurrection, a 90-minute documentary that offers a detailed look at an infamous maritime disaster. 113 years have passed since the RMS Titanic’s sinking – an event that has fuelled global fascination.

The show premiered last Sunday (13 April 2025) on National Geographic (DStv 181 and Startimes 220).

In 2022, award-winning filmmaker Anthony Geffen and his team followed deep-sea mapping company Magellan as they undertook the largest underwater 3D scanning project of its kind, mapping the wreck 12,500 feet below the North Atlantic.

Over a three-week period, the team collected 16 terabytes of data, including 715,000 still images and 4K footage, capturing the Titanic wreck site in high detail.

After nearly two years of analysis, a team of leading historians, engineers, and forensic experts – including Titanic analyst Parks Stephenson, metallurgist Jennifer Hooper, and master mariner Captain Chris Hearn – come together in Titanic: The Digital Resurrection. Their work reconstructs the ship’s final moments, challenging long-held assumptions and revealing new insights into what truly happened on the night of the sinking in 1912.

Stephenson, Hooper and Hearn dissect the wreckage up close on a full-scale colossal LED volume stage, walking around the ship in its final resting place. From the boiler room where engineers worked valiantly to keep the lights on until the bitter end to the first-class cabins where the ship ripped in two, the scan brings them face-to-face with where the tragedy unfolded.

Notable insights include the following:

• Visible open steam valve: The team discovers a steam valve in the open position, validating eyewitness accounts that the ship’s engineers remained at their posts in boiler room two for over two hours after impact, keeping the electricity on and allowing wireless distress signals to be sent. The 35 men may have saved hundreds of lives while sacrificing their own.
• Hull fragments: Sifting through the hull fragments scattered across the wreck site, the team reconstructs them like a puzzle, providing a startling glimpse into the ocean liner’s final moments. The Titanic didn’t split cleanly in two – it was violently torn apart, ripping through first-class cabins where prominent passengers like J.J. Astor and Benjamin Guggenheim may have sought refuge as the ship went down.
• First officer William Murdoch: Further analysis of the digital scans adds to the evidence exonerating first officer Murdoch, long accused of abandoning his post. The position of a lifeboat davit – seen in new hi-res detail – suggests his crew was preparing a launch moments before the starboard side was engulfed, corroborating second officer Charles Lightoller’s testimony that Murdoch was swept away by the sea.

The documentary examines the 15-square-mile debris field, rich with hundreds of personal artifacts, including pocket watches, purses, gold coins, hair combs, shoes and a shark’s tooth charm, offering a glimpse into the lives lost.

Historian Yasmin Khan and the team connect these items to their original owners. Scans reveal the wreck’s alarming deterioration, with iconic areas of the wreck already collapsing.

Titanic: The Digital Resurrection is produced by Atlantic Productions for National Geographic. For Atlantic, Anthony Geffen produces, Lina Zilinskaite is the senior producer, and Fergus Colville is the director. Simon Raikes and Chad Cohen serve as executive producers for National Geographic.