[SFDXA] Plans to Retrieve Titanic Wireless Equipment Put on Indefinite Hold

[Bill]

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Plans to Retrieve Titanic Wireless Equipment Put on Indefinite Hold
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RMS Titanic, Inc., (RMST) the company that owns salvage rights to the 
Titanicshipwreck, has indefinitely put off its plans to retrieve the 
vessel’s radio equipment for exhibit. The company cited the coronavirus 
pandemic for the delay, according to a court filing the company made on 
January 29. The Atlanta-based company said its plans have faced 
“increasing difficulty associated with international travel and 
logistics, and the associated health risks to the expedition team.” 
RMST’s primary source of revenue comes from its exhibits of its vast 
collection of Titanic relics, which have been closed or seen only 
limited attendance due to virus-related restrictions.

RMST — a subsidiary of Premier Exhibitions and the 
“salvor-in-possession” of the Titanic wreck site — said its planned 
expedition to recover the ship’s wireless station equipment remains a 
top priority, however, and will “take place as soon as reasonably 
practicable.” The Marconi-equipped station transmitted the distress 
calls after the Titanic (on its maiden voyage) struck an iceberg some 
370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland in 1912 and began sinking. The 
transmissions, heard by some nearby vessels, have been credited with 
helping rescue some 700 passengers in lifeboats deployed from the 
Titanic, but about 1,500 passengers were lost in the disaster. RMST has 
said the radio transmitter could unlock some of the secrets about a 
missed warning message and distress calls sent from the ship.

The coronavirus pandemic aside, RMST has been in an ongoing legal battle 
with the US government over whether the recovery operation would be 
legal. In May of 2020, a US federal judge in Virginia gave permission to 
retrieve the ill-fated ship’s wireless gear. The judge ruled that the 
radio gear has “significant historical, educational, scientific, and 
cultural value” and could soon be lost within the rapidly decaying 
wreck, and said the company would be permitted “minimally to cut into 
the wreck” to access the radio room.

RMST has said it would try to avoid cutting into the ship, noting that 
the radio room may be reachable via an already-open skylight. But, the 
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has contended 
that the retrieval expedition is still prohibited under US law and under 
an international agreement between the US and the UK. NOAA has argued 
that any benefit to be realized from cutting into the vessel to recover 
the Marconi equipment would not be “worth the cost to the resource and 
not in the public interest.”

RMST sought permission to carry out what it called a “surgical removal 
and retrieval” of the Marconi radio equipment, which is in poor shape 
after more than a century under water. The undersea retrieval would mark 
the first time an artifact was collected from within the Titanic, which 
many believe should remain undisturbed as the final resting place of the 
victims of the maritime disaster. The wreck sits on the ocean floor some 
2 1/2 miles beneath the surface and remained undiscovered until 1985.

RMST plans to use a manned submarine to reach the wreck and would then 
deploy a remotely controlled submarine to retrieve the radio equipment.
http://www.arrl.org/news/plans-to-retrieve-titanic-wireless-equipment-put-on-indefinite-hold

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