FILE – In this July 26, 1956 file photo, the Italian luxury liner Andrea Doria keels far over to starboard before sinking 225 feet to the bottom of the Atlantic 45 miles off Nantucket Island, Mass. Nearly six decades after the Andrea Doria slammed into another ocean liner, killing 46 people, explorers are preparing to do what 16 others have lost their lives attempting: get a fresh glimpse of the wreckage on the sea floor. Everett, Washington-based OceanGate will use a five-person submarine in June 2016 to get high-definition video and 3-D sonar images of the shipwreck. (AP Photo/John Rooney, File)
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
It’s been nearly 60 years since 46 passengers and crew members died when the Andrea Doria sank to the sea floor following a violent collision with another ocean liner south of Nantucket, Massachusetts. The New York-bound Italian luxury liner sank after a collision on the foggy night of July 25, 1956, with the Swedish ship Stockholm. The Stockholm had been heading back to Europe at the time. It ripped a gash in the Andrea Doria’s hull, causing it to list and making some of its lifeboats unusable. Five people on the Stockholm died. More than 1,600 others were rescued. It took 11 hours for the ship to sink.
In June,explorer once again will head out to the wreckage site to get a look at the ship below. A Washington state-based ocean exploration company will be using a five- manned submersible called the Cyclops to get to the ship expedition to the wreck in 20 years.
The wreck is about 240 feet down 50 miles south of Nantucket. Sixteen divers have lost their lives over the years looking for money, china and other artifacts from a bygone era.
