The 990-foot ocean liner that still holds the transatlantic speed record for a passenger ship went down Wednesday night off Destin. Divers could get their first look as soon as Friday.
The SS United States is on the bottom of the Gulf now. The old ocean liner slipped under the water off Destin, Florida, around 10 p.m. ET on Wednesday, Nov. 11.
Okaloosa County ran the operation, which weather had pushed up a day. The county says the ship settled upright in roughly 180 feet of water, about 22 nautical miles southwest of Destin.
So yes, America’s flagship is officially a fish condo.
How did the SS United States sink?
Slowly, and on purpose. Federal rules ruled out explosives, so crews flooded her. They had already cut holes in the deck and pulled more than 400 portholes, according to CBS News.
Flooding started about three hours late, WEAR-TV reported, because crews first had to fill some extra-large tanks. Trapped air slowed things down too. The whole job took about five hours.
“She was designed to be unsinkable, and that fact has definitely given our crews some challenges today,” county spokesman Nick Tomecek said, according to the Associated Press.
He was blunter with WEAR the next day. “Nothing ever happens the way you want it to,” Tomecek said.
Video shows the ship leaning hard to one side as she went down, but the county says early sonar checks found her sitting upright. Here’s the moment she slipped under, from WEAR Channel 3 News:
When can divers visit the SS United States reef?
Pretty much right away. After a 24-hour safety wait, the first dives could happen as soon as Friday, Nov. 13.
“As soon as she goes down, she’ll be ready to dive in the next day or so,” Okaloosa County tourism director Jennifer Adams told Fox News.
The top of the ship sits about 60 feet below the surface, the AP reported. The upper decks are in reach for recreational divers. The deep parts of the hull are a job for the pros.
One local dive shop boss thinks this one will be the headliner. “I think it’s going to be like Disney World,” Jocelyn Collins of Emerald Coast Scuba told CBS News.
Is the SS United States the world’s largest artificial reef?
That’s how the county and most outlets are billing it. The ship is 990 feet long, more than 100 feet longer than the Titanic. A few reports hedge with “one of” the largest, so treat the crown as the county’s claim for now.
The project cost about $13 million to $13.5 million, depending on the report. CBS News says tourist-tax money paid for it. The county bought the ship for about $1 million in 2024.
Why was the SS United States so famous?
Nothing has crossed the Atlantic faster with paying passengers aboard. On her maiden voyage in July 1952, she made the eastbound trip in 3 days, 10 hours and 40 minutes. That’s still the record for a passenger liner.
She carried presidents, movie stars and regular families until she retired in 1969. Walt Disney sailed on her, too, and the ship shows up in Disney’s 1962 comedy “Bon Voyage!”
Then things got sad. The liner sat rusting at a Philadelphia pier from 1996 on. Norwegian Cruise Line bought her in 2003, and the SS United States Conservancy took over in 2011.
What happened before the SS United States sinking?
A rent fight with the pier owner landed in court, and a federal judge ruled in 2024 that the ship had to move. Okaloosa County stepped in with its reef plan.
She was towed out of Philadelphia in February 2025 and spent about a year in Mobile, Alabama, getting cleaned up. Crews pulled her two famous funnels and a propeller for a planned museum on land near Destin. So you’ll still be able to see part of her without a wetsuit.
What do SS United States fans say now?
Plenty of people wanted her saved as a museum ship. Others see a reef as a fair way out after decades of rust.
“It was a solid ship. It still is,” Warren Jones of the SS United States Conservancy told the AP. “It may be a fitting end in a way.”
For a ship that never stopped being fast, she sure took her time on the way down.
Article compiled and written by Kambrea Pratt (editor-in-chief), Derek Gibbs (beat editor) and the Pirates & Princesses newsroom. Pirates & Princesses is part of WebReef Media.
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Hat Tips:
WEAR-TV (Nov. 12), the valve delay, depth, location, upright landing and the sinking video
Associated Press via ABC7 (Nov. 11), the Tomecek and Jones quotes and the depth to the top deck
CBS News (Nov. 11-12), cost, funding, portholes and the Emerald Coast Scuba quote
Fox News (Nov. 12), the Jennifer Adams quote and diver timing
Cruise Industry News (Nov. 12), the first report of the sinking
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