ABOARD XIANGYANGHONG 09, June 15 (Xinhua) -- China's manned deep-sea submersible Jiaolong dived a national record depth in Mariana Trench, which meant it went deeper than 5,188 meters it reached last July, at about 11:39 a.m. local time (0139 GMT) Friday.

The dive, which began at 9 a.m. (2300 GMT Thursday), is the first of a series of six scheduled ones to attempt the country's deepest-ever 7,000-meter manned dive.