They called her the “Pride of the American Side.” At over 700 feet long, this steel behemoth was considered almost unsinkable when she sailed the Great Lakes.

The Fateful Journey - Great Lakes Shipwreck Historical Society

But on a stormy November night in 1975, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald vanished in the dark waters of Lake Superior, sparking a decades-long mystery over what went wrong. Now, a new claim is circulating: an underwater drone, equipped with 4K cameras and AI scanners, has completed the most detailed survey of the wreck in history—and the findings reportedly reveal a fatal design secret that turned the mighty freighter into a death trap from the inside out.

The Legend of the Fitzgerald

Constructed in 1958, the Fitzgerald was the largest ship on the North American Great Lakes when launched.

Her length and capacity made her a marvel of Great Lakes ship-engineering and shipping circles.

She carried iron ore from Minnesota and Wisconsin mines, and quickly earned a reputation for record hauls.

On November 10, 1975, loaded with taconite pellets and bound for a steel mill near Detroit, she encountered a ferocious storm. By nightfall, the message came: “We are holding our own.” Then—silence. All 29 crew members were lost.

The wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, which sunk in Lake Superior on November 10th, 1975. The cold water preserves the bodies of the fallen crew members. : r/submechanophobia

To this day, the Fitzgerald’s disappearance haunts the Great Lakes and maritime history.

Over the years, many theories have been proposed: rogue waves (often called the “Three Sisters”), structural failure, grounding on shoals, poor hatch cover sealing.

For example, one engineering study concluded that flooding of ballast tanks plus cargo-hold openings could cause capsize within minutes—but their analysis also showed the wreckage indicates a structural failure before bottom impact.

Underwater surveys in 1976 using the unmanned submersible CURV‑III revealed the ship lies in two large pieces at ~530 feet deep. But despite decades of research, no definitive “smoking gun” explanation emerged.

The New Drone Survey: What’s Being Claimed

Now a video on YouTube titled “Underwater Drone Reached the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, It Captured Something No One Expected” purports that a modern drone, fitted with 4K cameras and AI-scanners, has finally delivered incontrovertible evidence.