Five Deeps Expedition In 2018, Victor Vescovo launched the Five Deeps Expedition, with the objective of visiting the deepest points of all five of the world's oceans, and mapping the vicinity, by the end of September 2019. Diving for a second time on 1 May, he became the first person to dive the Challenger Deep twice, finding "at least three new species of marine animals" and "some sort of
plastic waste". Among the underwater creatures Vescovo encountered were a snailfish at and a
spoon worm at nearly , the deepest level at which the species had ever been encountered. On 7 May 2019, Vescovo and Jamieson, in
Limiting Factor, made the first human-occupied deep submersible dive to the bottom of the Sirena Deep, the third deepest point in the ocean, about northeast of Challenger Deep. They spent 176 minutes at the bottom, and among the samples they retrieved was a piece of mantle rock from the western slope of the Mariana Trench. On 10 June 2019, Vescovo piloted
Limiting Factor to the bottom of the Horizon Deep in the
Tonga Trench, confirming that it is the second deepest point of the World ocean and the deepest in the
Southern Hemisphere at . In doing so, Vescovo and
Limiting Factor had descended to the first, second, and third deepest points in the ocean. Unlike the Sunda and Mariana Trenches, no signs of human contamination were found at Horizon Deep, which was described by the expedition as "completely pristine". Vescovo completed the Five Deeps Expedition on 24 August 2019 when he piloted
Limiting Factor to a depth of at the bottom of the
Molloy Deep in the Arctic Ocean.
USS Johnston USS
Johnston (DD-557) was a built for the
United States Navy during
World War II. On 25 October 1944, while assigned as part of the escort to six
escort carriers,
Johnston, two other
Fletcher-class destroyers, and four
destroyer escorts were engaged by a large
Imperial Japanese Navy flotilla. In what became known as the
Battle off Samar,
Johnston and the other escort ships charged the Japanese ships to protect nearby US carriers and transport craft. After engaging several Japanese
capital ships and a destroyer squadron,
Johnston was sunk by gunfire, with 187 dead. The wreck was discovered on 30 October 2019 but was not properly identified until March 2021. Lying more than below the surface of the ocean, it was the deepest shipwreck ever surveyed until the discovery of on 22 June 2022. On 30 October 2019, the , a
research vessel belonging to
Vulcan Inc., discovered the remains of what was believed to be
Johnston near the bottom of the
Philippine Trench. The remains consisted of a deck gun, a propeller shaft, and some miscellaneous debris that could not be used to identify the wreck, but additional debris was observed lying deeper than the ship's ROV could go. On 31 March 2021, the
Limiting Factor piloted by Victor Vescovo, surveyed and photographed the deeper wreckage and definitively identified it as
Johnston. The wreck lies upright and is well preserved at a depth of . Until
Samuel B. Roberts was discovered on 22 June 2022,
Johnston was the deepest identified shipwreck in the world.
USS Samuel B. Roberts USS
Samuel B. Roberts (DE-413) was a
destroyer escort of the United States Navy that served in
World War II and was sunk in the Battle off Samar, in which a small force of U.S. warships prevented a superior Imperial Japanese Navy force from attacking the
amphibious invasion fleet off the Philippine island of
Leyte. The ship was part of a relatively light flotilla of
destroyers, destroyer escorts, and
escort carriers called "Taffy 3" which was inadvertently left to fend off a fleet of heavily armed Japanese
battleships,
cruisers, and destroyers off the island of
Samar during the Battle off Samar, one of the engagements making up the larger
Battle of Leyte Gulf of October 1944. Steaming through incoming
shells,
Samuel B. Roberts scored one
torpedo hit and several shell hits on larger enemy warships before she was sunk. As of June 2022, it is the deepest
shipwreck discovered. An exploration team led by Victor Vescovo and made up of personnel of Caladan Oceanic and EYOS Expeditions discovered the wreck of
Samuel B. Roberts in June 2022. The team found, identified, and surveyed the wreck during a series of six dives from 17 to 24 June 2022. The team found that the wreck reached the
seabed in one piece, although it hit the sea floor bow first and with enough force to cause some buckling, and observed that the ship's
stern had separated from the rest of the
hull by about . They reported that they had found evidence of damage to the ship inflicted by a Japanese battleship
shell, including the vessel's fallen
mast. The wreck lies at a depth of , making it the deepest wreck ever identified. It exceeds the previous record of , set in March 2021 when Vescovo's team found and identified the wreck of the destroyer USS
Johnston, which was sunk in the same battle.
French submarine Minerve The French
Daphne-class
diesel–electric submarine was lost with all hands in bad weather while returning to her home port of
Toulon in January 1968.
Minerve was one of four submarines lost to unknown causes in 1968 along with the , the American , and Israeli submarine . The
French government started a new search for
Minerve on 4 July 2019 in deep waters about south of Toulon. The location of the wreck was found on 21 July 2019 by the company
Ocean Infinity using the search ship . The wreck was found at a depth of , broken into three main pieces scattered over along the seabed. Although
Minerves
sail was damaged, it was possible to positively identify the wreckage. as the letters "MINE" and "S" (from
Minerve and S647, respectively) were still readable on the hull. In December 2019, Vescovo proposed a dive on the wreck of the
Minerve in the
Limiting Factor. On the first dive, 1 February 2020, Vescovo dived with retired French Rear Admiral Jean-Louis Barbier, to gather new information on the cause of the loss. On the second dive, 2 February, Vescovo piloted while Hervé Fauve, the son of the submarine's commanding officer, sat in the second seat. At the bottom they placed a granite memorial plaque on a section of
Minerves hull at a depth of over ==Expeditions as DSV
Bakunawa ==