Associated Press
May 19, 2020
May 19, 2020
A federal judge in Virginia has ruled that a salvage firm can retrieve the Marconi wireless telegraph machine that broadcast distress calls from the sinking Titanic.
The order is a big win for RMS Titanic, Inc., the court-recognized salvor, or steward, of artifacts from the doomed ocean liner.
The Titanic was traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.
RMS Titanic, Inc. which recently emerged from bankruptcy, has said it plans to exhibit the telegraph with stories of the men who tapped out distress calls to nearby ships “until seawater was literally lapping at their feet”.
“The brief transmissions sent among those ships’ wireless operators, staccato bursts of information and emotion, tell the story of Titanic’s desperate fate that night: the confusion, chaos, panic, futility and fear,” the company wrote in court filings.
RMS Titanic submitted a 60-page plan to retrieve the telegraph, which is believed to still sit in a deck house near the doomed ocean liner’s grand staircase.
The company said an unmanned submersible would descend nearly 2.5 miles to the bottom of the North Atlantic, then slip through a skylight or cut the heavily corroded roof in order to retrieve the radio. A “suction dredge” would remove silt while manipulator arms could cut electrical cords, it said.
The proposed expedition has been controversial among some archaeological and preservation experts, and the firm may face more legal battles.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which represents the public’s interest in the wreck site, fiercely opposes the mission. It argued in court documents that the telegraph is likely to be surrounded “by the mortal remains of more than 1,500 people” and should be left alone.
But in an order on Monday, US district judge Rebecca Beach Smith agreed that the telegraph is historically and culturally important and could soon be lost within the rapidly decaying wreck site.
The docking bridge telegraph recovered from the wreckage of the Titanic is displayed at the Nauticus National Maritime Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Smith wrote that recovering the telegraph “will contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking”.
Smith is the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters from a federal court in Norfolk. Her ruling modifies a previous judge’s order from 2000 that forbids cutting into the shipwreck or detaching any part of it.
NOAA says the expedition is prohibited under federal law and an international agreement between the United and the United Kingdom. Smith acknowledged Noaa’s arguments but said the only matter before the court was the previous order.
Smith also wrote that the company’s plan meets most requirements set forth in the international agreement and other restrictions. Those include justifying the expedition on scientific and cultural grounds and considering damage to the wreck.
The order is a big win for RMS Titanic, Inc., the court-recognized salvor, or steward, of artifacts from the doomed ocean liner.
The Titanic was traveling from England to New York when it struck an iceberg and sank in 1912, killing all but about 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew.
RMS Titanic, Inc. which recently emerged from bankruptcy, has said it plans to exhibit the telegraph with stories of the men who tapped out distress calls to nearby ships “until seawater was literally lapping at their feet”.
“The brief transmissions sent among those ships’ wireless operators, staccato bursts of information and emotion, tell the story of Titanic’s desperate fate that night: the confusion, chaos, panic, futility and fear,” the company wrote in court filings.
RMS Titanic submitted a 60-page plan to retrieve the telegraph, which is believed to still sit in a deck house near the doomed ocean liner’s grand staircase.
The company said an unmanned submersible would descend nearly 2.5 miles to the bottom of the North Atlantic, then slip through a skylight or cut the heavily corroded roof in order to retrieve the radio. A “suction dredge” would remove silt while manipulator arms could cut electrical cords, it said.
The proposed expedition has been controversial among some archaeological and preservation experts, and the firm may face more legal battles.
The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which represents the public’s interest in the wreck site, fiercely opposes the mission. It argued in court documents that the telegraph is likely to be surrounded “by the mortal remains of more than 1,500 people” and should be left alone.
But in an order on Monday, US district judge Rebecca Beach Smith agreed that the telegraph is historically and culturally important and could soon be lost within the rapidly decaying wreck site.
The docking bridge telegraph recovered from the wreckage of the Titanic is displayed at the Nauticus National Maritime Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Smith wrote that recovering the telegraph “will contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking”.
Smith is the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters from a federal court in Norfolk. Her ruling modifies a previous judge’s order from 2000 that forbids cutting into the shipwreck or detaching any part of it.
NOAA says the expedition is prohibited under federal law and an international agreement between the United and the United Kingdom. Smith acknowledged Noaa’s arguments but said the only matter before the court was the previous order.
Smith also wrote that the company’s plan meets most requirements set forth in the international agreement and other restrictions. Those include justifying the expedition on scientific and cultural grounds and considering damage to the wreck.