Fifty-five years after it sank, killing 21 people, Australia has found the tragedy of the MV Noongah.
When the 71m ( 233ft ) freighter encountered stormy weather in 1969, it launched one of the largest maritime searches in Australian history while carrying steel off the coast of New South Wales.
Five of the 26 crew members were taken from the ocean shortly after the ship sank, but only one figure was ever recovered from those lost at sea.
Australia’s research firm has now used high quality bottom tracking and video footage to confirm the location of the wreck.
The fleet had sunk in large seas just hours after making a distress signal on August 25.
Royal American Navy ships, submarines, planes, aircraft and a number of other warships launched a massive research, as recovery crews even combed the beach for any sign of survivors.
Over the next 12 days, they found two people at sea in two distinct living boats, and three more clinging to a board of wood, according to local advertising.
Since then, the death of the rest of the team and the ship itself has been a mystery.
Visitors first spotted a catastrophe times ago- in strong waters off the coast of South West Rocks, about 460km ( 286 miles ) northeast of Sydney- and reported its location to authorities.
Although there have long been concerns that the ship may be Noongah, the jumping expertise or technology required to identify the ship was lacking.
However, a high-tech ship owned by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation ( CSIRO ) was sent last month to look into the matter further.
They found the catastrophe, largely unchanged and sitting up on the water surface, 170m below the floor. All its vital aspects matched the Noongah, the CSIRO said.
The Sydney Project, which finds and records lost ship wrecks, is now conducting a search to find more vision in order to learn more about why the ship sank.
” This horror is still very much in the recollection of many in the community”, CSIRO’s Matt Kimber said.
” We hope that knowing where the vessel’s final resting place brings some solace to everyone,” she said.
The crew’s survivors ‘ families have told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that the revelation is a pleasure.
” It’s always been in the back of my mind”, Pamela Hendy- the wife of captain Leo Botsman- said.