The Hunt For The Arctic Ghost Ship

In 1845, maverick Royal Navy captain Sir John Franklin sailed off the map of the known world with 128 men, to chart the elusive Northwest Passage – a sea route to the Pacific Ocean through the Arctic Ocean.

No trace of them was ever seen again. Until now.

This documentary sets out to retrace the footsteps of Franklin’s expedition and ultimately find his sunken ships.

Sir John Franklin and his crew of 128 men sailed on the Royal Navy ships HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, to chart the Northwest Passage.

Venturing into uncharted Arctic waters, they were sailing off the map of the known world. Their state-of-the-art mission was equipped to survive for up to three years, but they were never heard from again.

A century and a half of searching revealed only scant and tantalising clues, suggesting a descent into madness, starvation and even cannibalism. But no trace of the ships was found, until, 170 years later, a multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art expedition astonishingly found HMS Erebus, intact and upright on the Arctic sea floor.

The Hunt For The Arctic Ghost Ship has exclusive access behind the scenes of that momentous expedition, revealing the dramatic chain of events that led to their historic discovery.