Pioneering Deep Sea Explorer Don Walsh Dies at 92

Walsh, alongside Jacques Piccard, made a historic dive of nearly seven miles into the ocean’s deepest spot in 1960, a feat cloaked in secrecy due to its high-risk nature.

• Don Walsh, a pioneering U.S. Navy explorer who, along with the scientist Jacques Piccard, broke the record for human deep submergence by descending nearly seven miles to the ocean’s deepest spot, died on Nov. 12 at his home in Myrtle Point, Ore. He was 92.
• The two men’s historic dive, on Jan. 23, 1960, was cloaked in secrecy in case it failed — which seemed quite possible, given that the towering waves in the Western Pacific had battered or carried away essential gear.
• After nearly five hours, the craft landed on the bottom, stirring up silt and ooze and clouding the small porthole. The men nonetheless spotted a flatfish, which instantly answered an old question: Did the sea’s greatest depths harbor life or a bare desert?
• After a total of nine hours under the waves, two men with chattering teeth were able to emerge from their frigid craft into bright sunshine, blue skies and tropic heat. Out of nowhere, two Navy jets screamed overhead, dipping their wings in salute.
• Late in life, Dr. Walsh began to revisit his pioneering dive site. In 2012, at age 80, he advised the filmmaker James Cameron when he became the first person since Dr. Walsh and Mr. Piccard to make a dive into the Challenger Deep.

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