Image

The REMUS 6000

July 2, 2018

WHOI Principal Engineer Mike Purcell (foreground) and Research Specialist Mark Dennett work with the REMUS 6000, an autonomous underwater vehicle, on a 2011 cruise that located the wreckage of Air France Flight 447—3,900 meters below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean—which led to the recovery of the plane’s voice and data recorders. REMUS 6000, developed at WHOI, can dive to 6,000 meters and is the vehicle of choice for deep-sea ocean mapping and surveying in difficult terrain. In 2015, the REMUS team also found the wreckage of the San José—a 62-gun, three-masted Spanish galleon that sank with a cargo of gold, silver, and emeralds during a battle with British ships off the coast of Cartagena, Colombia, in 1708. (Photo courtesy of Mike Purcell, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)