A mystery shipwreck, recently discovered in the Flemish Pass Basin through seismic work conducted for Equinor, remains a mystery.
Neil Burgess of the Newfoundland and Labrador Shipwreck Preservation Society says the sonar images captured by Fugro show what appears to be the bow portion of a tanker that dates to the Second World War era.
Burgess says while enthusiasts have identified a number of possibilities, a positive id has yet to be made.
A promising early possibility was a British oil tanker sunk by German U-boats during WWII.
The U-boat fired five torpedos at the ship known as the Diala, breaking it in two. The bow sank immediately, but the other half of the ship stayed afloat until it was torpedoed by another U-boat two months later and left to sink.
Unfortunately, known photographs of the ship didn’t match images captured by Fugro. Other possibilities offered by enthusiasts, include a German fishing trawler that sank in 1985, and a Russian container ship that sank in 1982, neither of which match the features of the ship 1500 metres below the surface in the Flemish Pass Basin.