Miami: A majestic and all-but-indestructible 20th-century ocean liner that once ferried royal leaders, movie stars and even the "Mona Lisa" to the United States was being deliberately sunk Wednesday to become the world's largest artificial reef. Experts were conducting a controlled flooding of the 990-foot (302-meter) vessel, a veteran of more than 800 transatlantic crossings in the 1950s and 60s, that is set to send it to its final resting place on the Gulf of Mexico's sandy floor, some 25 miles (40 kilometres) southwest of Destin-Fort Walton Beach, Florida."Two of the valves have been opened. The deployment process has started," said an official on the livestream operated by the city. Florida's Okaloosa County, gambling that such a huge new reef would be a local tourism boom and attract dive and fishing enthusiasts, bought the long-decommissioned SS United States from a conservancy group for $1 million in 2024.The vessel -- longer than the Titanic and the transatlantic speed record holder -- will become the centrepiece of Okaloosa's undersea garden of sunken ships, including World War II vessels, tugboats, and even a casino boat.
