Watch Titanic's famous bow fall apart: Shocking footage reveals just how rapidly the great liner is deteriorating - with a 15ft section of railing lost to the seabed

For more than 100 years, Titanic's famous bow has remained just as recognisable as it was before it sank beneath the waves.

But shocking footage now shows that the iconic front rail of the great liner has collapsed onto the seafloor.

Videos and photos captured by robotic submarines reveal just how fast the Titanic is deteriorating, as it lies 3,800 metres (12,500ft) beneath the surface.

The expedition team who made the discovery now warn that it is only a matter of time before the entire ship collapses for good.

Tomasina Ray, director of collections at RMS Titanic Inc, which led the expedition, said: 'People ask all the time: "How long is Titanic going to be there?" We just don't know but we're watching it in real time.' 

In the early hours of April 15, 1912, the Titanic slipped beneath the waves of the North Atlantic, leading to the deaths of 1,500 passengers and crew.

The ship was then lost to time until a team of explorers captured the first pictures of the wreckage in 1985.

These images revealed the railing, which would be immortalised by the 1998 film Titanic, was still miraculously intact more than 70 years after the crash.

However, during an expedition over July and August this year, two remote-operated vehicles (ROVs) launched by RMS Titanic Inc found that a 4.5m (14 ft) section of the bow railing is now missing.

Later, 3D scans of the area revealed that the section had fallen as a single piece onto the seafloor below.  

On social media, commenters shared their amazement at the discovery and their sadness to see the mighty ship crumbling away.

On X, formerly twitter, one commenter wrote: 'Bittersweet mega discovery. Sad but sensical that half the bow railing is no longer intact. Crazy it lasted structurally miles down beneath the ocean.' 

Another wrote: 'This makes me so sad watching her slowly deteriorate.'

And one added: 'She is so pretty but it makes me cry that she is aging so fast.'

Others remained adament that this was further indication that the wreck of the Titanic should be left alone.

One commenter wrote: 'How about this for an idea.... Leave the d*** wreck alone. It's a graveyard. Just let it be.'

Meanwhile another wrote: 'Leave the d*** boat alone!! More expeditions moves the microbe's to deteriorate the ships decay even faster. Let her rest in peace.'

Ms Ray told the BBC: 'The bow of Titanic is just iconic - you have all these moments in pop culture - and that's what you think of when you think of the shipwreck. And it doesn't look like that anymore.'

Images and 3D scans of the wreckage created by deep-sea mapping company Magellan and documentary makers Atlantic Productions in 2022 found that the rail was still in place.

Based on these findings, the researchers believe that the section must have collapsed sometime in the last two years.

The metal structure of the ship is being consumed by microorganisms, creating large stalactites of rust called rusticles. 

Since the discovery of the wreckage, successive teams of researchers and explorers have watched as the once-grand ship gradually decays.

By 2022, the bow was already beginning to buckle under the force of this erosion and it is now only a matter of time before more of the ship collapses.

'It's just another reminder of the deterioration that's happening every day,' says Ms Ray.

Before the Titanic is totally lost, explorers are making plans to preserve and salvage as much as possible.

RMS Titanic Inc even notes that new areas of deterioration could open 'unobstructed access to the interior of the ship' which would provide new opportunities for discovery.

During their expedition, the two ROVs gathered more than two million still photographs and 24 hours of HD film.

The company is currently reviewing this data and hopes to use it to create a detailed 3D image of the Titanic.

This summer's expedition also uncovered an artefact that was long thought to be lost to time.

When the original 1985 expedition released the first images of the wreck, they showed a bronze statue called the Diana of Versailles lying in the debris field.

However, due to the culture of secrecy around the discovery, the exact location of the statue was never recorded.

Now, the 60cm-tall figure which once adorned the mantle piece of the first-class lounge has once again been found.

James Penca, a Titanic researcher and presenter of the Witness Titanic podcast, says: 'It was like finding a needle in a haystack, and to rediscover this year was momentous.

'The first-class lounge was the most beautiful, and unbelievably detailed, room on the ship. And the centrepiece of that room was the Diana of Versailles

Since 1994 RMS Titanic Inc has had the sole salvage rights to the wreck of the Titanic and is the only company legally allowed to remove items from the site.

The company has since recovered thousands of pieces from the wreckage and now plans to recover Diana of Versailles from the debris field and put it on display.

Ms Ray says: 'To bring Diana back so people can see her with their own eyes - the value in that, to spark a love of history, of diving, of conservation, of shipwrecks, of sculpture, I could never leave that on the ocean floor.'