After a two-month search off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, a Franco-American expedition has found and filmed the wreckage of the Titanic, which sank on her maiden voyage 73 years ago after striking an iceberg.

Dr Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, who heads the expedition, told a Toronto television station in a ship to shore interview that they had found the wreck of the 45,000 ton luxury liner on the ocean floor at a depth of more than 10,000ft and about 350 miles south of Newfoundland.

He said the wreckage was scattered over an area about 500 yards long and 300 yards wide. They followed a trail of debris, identifying first a ship's boiler.

'We went smack-dab over a gorgeous boiler,' he told CTV News on Sunday evening, 'I mean it was straight out of all the books. We decided we would pull up and get above it all.'

He did not elaborate on their methods of search, perhaps because the 47-member team aboard the US Navy survey ship Knorr has been operating under tight security.

Dr Joe MacInnis, a Canadian marine scientist, who is a consultant to the expedition, yesterday filled in details.

He said the team, which includes personnel from the US navy, the French Institute of Research for Exploration of the Sea, and the magazine National Geographic has been using an unmanned submersible equipped with five television cameras.

The aim was to get a clear image of the whole wreck by putting together a photomosaic of the film obtained from the remotely operated submersible.

He emphasised that the expedition had no plans to raise the wreck or retrieve any of the gold, diamonds and other jewels which are believed to be in the ship's vaults.

Dr Ballard said the initial excitement at discovering the wreck on Sunday morning was soon replaced by the sobering realisation that 'we had found the ship where 1,500 people had died.'

But, he added, 'finally, to put those souls to rest, was a very nice feeling.' The team plans to ask the United Nations to declare the site an international undersea memorial.

The supposedly unsinkable White Star liner was steaming at 22 knots on the night of April 14-15, 1912, when she hit the iceberg and ruptured five of her 16 watertight compartments. There were only places in lifeboats for about half the 2,224 passengers and crew on board, and although the Cunard liner Carpathia arrived on the scene within 80 minutes, 1,513 people died in the icy waters.

The disaster led to the first International Convention for Safety of Life at Sea which drew up rules requiring that every vessel have lifeboat space for each person embarked and maintain a 24-hour radio watch. Another liner, The Californian, had been within 20 miles of the Titanic all night, but had no radio operator on duty.