The manned submersible Alvin carried explorers to the Titanic wreck in 1986.
Alvin participated in the 1986 expedition that followed the discovery of Titanic by Robert Ballard, Jean-Louis Michel and their teams the previous year. The submersible carried people close to the wreck, allowing scientists to inspect the ship and document its condition with cameras and other instruments.
The expedition also used the remotely operated vehicle Jason Junior, which could enter parts of the wreck that Alvin could not. This distinction matters: the expedition’s remotely operated vehicles supplied much of the detailed interior imagery, while Alvin transported human observers to the seafloor.
Alvin is operated by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and has conducted thousands of dives since entering service in 1964. It is a deep-ocean research submersible, not a military submarine. The Soviet-built Mir submersibles later became especially associated with Titanic exploration and filming.