Current:Home > MyTitanic expedition might get green light after company says it will not retrieve artifacts -ProfitPioneers Hub
Titanic expedition might get green light after company says it will not retrieve artifacts
View
Date:2025-04-15 23:55:39
The U.S. government could end its legal fight against a planned expedition to the Titanic, which has sparked concerns that it would violate a law that treats the wreck as a gravesite.
Kent Porter, an assistant U.S. attorney, told a federal judge in Virginia Wednesday that the U.S. is seeking more information on revised plans for the May expedition, which have been significantly scaled back. Porter said the U.S. has not determined whether the new plans would break the law.
RMS Titanic Inc., the Georgia company that owns the salvage rights to the wreck, originally planned to take images inside the ocean liner's severed hull and to retrieve artifacts from the debris field. RMST also said it would possibly recover free-standing objects inside the Titanic, including the room where the sinking ship had broadcast its distress signals.
The U.S. filed a legal challenge to the expedition in August, citing a 2017 federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the site as a memorial. More than 1,500 people died when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.
The U.S. argued last year that entering the Titanic - or physically altering or disturbing the wreck - is regulated by the law and agreement. Among the government's concerns is the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist on the North Atlantic seabed.
In October, RMST said it had significantly pared down its dive plans. That's because its director of underwater research, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, died in the implosion of the Titan submersible near the Titanic shipwreck in June.
The Titan was operated by a separate company, OceanGate, to which Nargeolet was lending expertise. Nargeolet was supposed to lead this year's expedition by RMST.
RMST stated in a court filing last month that it now plans to send an uncrewed submersible to the wreck site and will only take external images of the ship.
"The company will not come into contact with the wreck," RMST stated, adding that it "will not attempt any artifact recovery or penetration imaging."
RMST has recovered and conserved thousands of Titanic artifacts, which millions of people have seen through its exhibits in the U.S. and overseas. The company was granted the salvage rights to the shipwreck in 1994 by the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia.
U. S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith is the maritime jurist who presides over Titanic salvage matters. She said during Wednesday's hearing that the U.S. government's case would raise serious legal questions if it continues, while the consequences could be wide-ranging.
Congress is allowed to modify maritime law, Smith said in reference to the U.S. regulating entry into the sunken Titanic. But the judge questioned whether Congress can strip courts of their own admiralty jurisdiction over a shipwreck, something that has centuries of legal precedent.
In 2020, Smithgave RMST permission to retrieve and exhibit the radio that had broadcast the Titanic's distress calls. The expedition would have involved entering the Titanic and cutting into it.
The U.S. government filed an official legal challenge against that expedition, citing the law and pact with Britain. But the legal battle never played out. RMST indefinitely delayed those plans because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Smith noted Wednesday that time may be running out for expeditions inside the Titanic. The ship is rapidly deteriorating.
"Personal stories down there"
Last year, new images of the Titanic developed using deep sea mapping revealed unprecedented views of the shipwreck.
The scan was carried out in 2022 by Magellan Ltd, a deep-sea mapping company, in partnership with Atlantic Productions, a London-based company that was making a film about the project.
The scan provides a three-dimensional view of the wreckage in its entirety, enabling the ship once known as "unsinkable" to be seen as if the water has been drained away.
In the debris surrounding the ship, lies miscellaneous items including ornate metalwork from the ship, statues and unopened champagne bottles.
There are also personal possessions, including dozens of shoes.
"I felt there was something much bigger here that we could get from the Titanic," Anthony Geffen, the CEO of Atlantic Production, told CBS News last year. "If we could scan it, if we could capture in all its detail… we could find out how it sank and how the different parts of the boat fell apart and we can find a lot of personal stories down there as well."
Emmet Lyons contributed to this report.
- In:
- RMS Titanic
- Titanic
veryGood! (2)
Related
- EU countries double down on a halt to Syrian asylum claims but will not yet send people back
- Lizzo says she’s ‘not the villain’ after her former dancers claim sex harassment
- Report: Ex-New Mexico State basketball coach says he was unaware of hazing within program
- Florida State women's lacrosse seeks varsity sport status, citing Title IX
- Why Sean "Diddy" Combs Is Being Given a Laptop in Jail Amid Witness Intimidation Fears
- An 87-year-old woman fought off an intruder, then fed him after he told her he was ‘awfully hungry’
- Texas Medicaid dropped more than 500,000 enrollees in one month
- A 13 year old boy is charged with murder in the shooting of an Albuquerque woman
- 'Meet me at the gate': Watch as widow scatters husband's ashes, BASE jumps into canyon
- Politicians ask Taylor Swift to postpone 6 LA concerts amid strikes: 'Stand with hotel workers'
Ranking
- Man charged with murder in death of beloved Detroit-area neurosurgeon
- Federal appeals court upholds ruling giving Indiana transgender students key bathroom access
- Man linked to 1984 kidnapping and rape by DNA testing sentenced to 25 years
- Petting other people's dogs, even briefly, can boost your health
- Off the Grid: Sally breaks down USA TODAY's daily crossword puzzle, Triathlon
- A father rescued his 3 children from a New Jersey river before drowning
- China sees record flooding in Beijing, with 20 deaths and mass destruction blamed on Typhoon Doksuri
- Federal funds will pay to send Iowa troops to the US-Mexico border, governor says
Recommendation
Travis Hunter, the 2
Birders flock to Green Bay to catch glimpse of Gulf Coast shorebird last seen in Wisconsin in 1845
Beyoncé's Mom Denies Singer Shaded Lizzo With Break My Soul Snub at Renaissance Concert
MLB trade deadline winners and losers: Mets burning it all down was a big boon for Astros
What to watch: O Jolie night
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy leaving Italy vacation early after death of lieutenant governor
Man forced to quit attempt to swim across Lake Michigan due to bad weather
Willy the Texas rodeo goat, on the lam for weeks, has been found safe