The U.S. government is trying to block a planned expedition to salvage historic items from the sunken Titanic, citing a federal law and an international agreement that considers the wreck a sacred burial ground.
The expedition was organized by RMS Titanic, the Georgia-based company that holds the rights to the world’s most famous shipwreck. The company exhibits artifacts salvaged from shipwreck sites under the North Atlantic Ocean, ranging from silverware to fragments of the Titanic’s hull.
The government’s challenge comes just over two months later Titan Submersible Implosion Near the sunken ocean liner, kill five.But this legal battle has nothing to do with the June tragedy, which involved another company and Unconventional Design Vessels.
The fight in U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees the Titanic’s salvage, hinges on federal law and an agreement with Britain to make the sinking Titanic a memorial to more than 1,500 people who died . In 1912, the ship hit an iceberg and sank.
The US argues that access to the Titanic’s severed hull – or physically altering or disturbing the wreck – is governed by federal law and its agreement with Britain.One of the government’s concerns is the possible disturbance of heritage and any human remains This may still exist.
“The RMST is not free to disregard this effectively enacted federal law, but that is its express intent,” U.S. attorneys argued in court papers filed on Friday. They added that the wreck “will be denied the protections granted by Congress.”
RMST’s expedition is tentatively scheduled for May 2024, according to a report filed with the court in June.
The company said it plans to capture images of the entire wreck. This includes that “inside the wreck, deterioration has opened cracks sufficient to allow remotely operated vehicles to penetrate the hull without disturbing the current structure.”
The RMST said it would recover artefacts from the wreck and “possibly separate objects within the wreck”. These could include “objects in Marconi’s chambers, provided they are not secured to the wreck itself.”
The Marconi room contained the ship’s radio — a Marconi wireless telegraph — that would broadcast the Titanic’s increasingly frantic distress calls after it struck an iceberg. The Morse code messages were picked up by other ships and by receiving stations ashore, helping to save the lives of some 700 people who escaped in lifeboats. The Titanic carried 2,208 passengers and crew on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York.
“At this time, the company does not intend to cut into the wreckage or separate any part of the wreckage,” RMST said.
The company said it would “cooperate” with NOAA, which represents the public’s interest in the wreck. But RMST said it does not intend to seek permission.
U.S. government lawyers said the company couldn’t do its work without a document, arguing that the RMST needs approval from the U.S. Commerce Secretary, who oversees NOAA.
The company has yet to respond to the courts, but has previously challenged the constitutionality of the U.S.’s “violation” of its right to salvage wrecks in international waters. The company argues that only Norfolk’s courts have jurisdiction, pointing to centuries of maritime law precedent.
In 2020, the US government and RMST conducted a a nearly identical legal battle above proposed expedition This could cut into the wreckage. But the proceedings were cut short by the coronavirus pandemic and never fully unfolded.
The company’s plan at the time was to retrieve the radio in the deckhouse near the grand staircase. An unmanned submersible will slide through a skylight or slice through a badly corroded roof. A “suction dredge” removes loose silt, while a robotic arm cuts wires.
The company said it would show the radios and the stories of those who sent out the distress signal “until the water literally laps at their feet”.
May 2020, U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith Grant RMST permission, writes that radio is historically and culturally important, but will soon disappear. Smith wrote that retrieving the telegrams would “contribute to the indelible loss of the Titanic, the legacy of the survivors and those who gave their lives in the wreck.”
A few weeks later, the U.S. government raise a formal legal challenge Against the 2020 expedition, but that expedition never happened.The company postpone its plans indefinitely Early 2021 due to complications from the pandemic.
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