The Edmund Fitzgerald hasn’t been explored in 30 years. Will there ever be another dive?

MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) - The Edmund Fitzgerald sank on the Canadian side of Lake Superior on Nov. 10, 1975. There have been six diving expeditions to the wreck site. The most recent dives in 1994 and 1995 produced remarkable images and video of the ship.

The backstory:

There have been six diving expeditions to the Edmund Fitzgerald:

• 1976: U.S. Coast Guard
• 1980: Ocean Explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau
• 1989: Remote operated vehicle conducted 3D imaging
• 1994: Frederick Shannon’s independently financed expedition
• 1994: Great Lakes 1994 Expedition
• 1995: Bell recovery conducted by the Canadian Navy and the Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society.

Dig deeper:

The U.S. Coast Guard conducted the first dives in 1976 as part of its investigation into the ship’s sinking. The Coast Guard used an unmanned Cable-Controlled Underwater Recovery Vehicle (CURV) that provided the first rudimentary images of the shipwreck.

Ocean explorer Jean-Michel Cousteau, the son of Jacque Cousteau, became the person to lay eyes on the ship in 1980.

"The ship was amazingly beautiful because it's deep and cold and nothing's growing on it or very little," Cousteau told a journalist several years later.

Historians believe the ship is likely still well-preserved because it is 535 feet deep in Lake Superior.

"The condition of the ship is really amazing," said Larry Elliott, who dove to the wreckage in 1994 and 1995.

Elliott was also part of the expedition in 1989, which revealed the door to the pilot house was open.

"Now, you may think, ‘OK, the ship sunk. What's the big deal?’ Well, the big deal is that we weren't sure why that pilot house door would be open," Elliott said earlier this year. 

When he dove to ship in 1994, the submarine headed straight for the pilot house to confirm whether the door was in fact open.

"And right away we said, ‘that indicates to us that somebody tried to get out of that pilot house,’" Elliott said.  "I think it's a big indicator of how quickly the ship went down."

What they're saying:

FOX 9 interviewed Elliott and two other divers who explored the Edmund Fitzgerald as part of a documentary called "Gales of November: Diving the Edmund Fitzgerald."

RELATED: Watch the 'Gales of November: Diving the Edmund Fitzgerald' on FOX 9

Ric Mixter dove to the wreck site as part of an independently financed expedition in 1994.

He also recorded video of the dive and the ship itself.

"I remember thinking how deep it was and that if I dropped my camera, it would implode at 300 feet," Mixter said.

Mixter and other historians have varying opinions on how and why the ship broke apart. Mixter and Cousteau believe it broke in two on the surface. Elliott and others believe it sailed to the bottom and only broke apart after hitting the floor of Lake Superior.

But they all agree that diving that deep was complicated and dangerous.

"All of us were lost down there," Mixter said.  "We didn't have any way of triangulating locations or distances."

Mixter said the submarine he was on accidentally ventured into the ship during the 1994 expedition.

"We're going across and all of a sudden I see bottom, bottom, bottom and a giant crack in the ground," Mixter said. " We were actually on the Edmund Fitzgerald and didn't realize it."

Jene Quirin, who explored the wreckage on a separate expedition, described a similar experience while trying to explore the infamous hatch covers.

"The pilot said ‘I think we're in the ship’ and the sonar on the side turned bright red," Quirin said.

The final dive in 1995 was conducted with a Newt Suit that allowed a diver to get close enough to recover the ship’s bell.

"It's essentially a one-man submarine that looks like a space suit," said Elliott. 

What's next:

The Canadian government has not approved another expedition since the bell recovery in 1995. 

Family members of the lost crew objected to additional expeditions after the 1994 expedition led to the unexpected and controversial discovery of a body.

"That was a brand-new chapter in this book, and it could not be ignored," said Mixter, who was part of the expedition.

The families of the crew members lobbied the Canadian government to approve the bell recovery mission under the condition that no video of any bodies would be recorded.

"We had committed that if we had seen any of the crew during our expedition, we would have immediately turned the cameras off, just out of respect for the families," Elliott said. "That's just not something you need to shoot pictures of."

Elliott does not believe the families or the Canadian government will approve another expedition.

"In our lifetimes, we won't see another expedition to the Fitzgerald," he said.

But Mixter said he would dive to the wreckage tomorrow.

"The clues are all down there," he said. "Who wouldn't want to go down there and figure out what happened?"

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