Posted on 05/20/2020 8:13:02 AM PDT by NRx
An underwater salvage company was granted approval this week to cut into the wreckage of the Titanic to try to recover a Marconi telegraph, rekindling a complex debate over access to the ship and maritime law.
The company, R.M.S. Titanic, persuaded a federal judge on Monday to allow it to conduct a salvage operation this summer in the wreckage of the ship, which sank during its maiden voyage across the Atlantic in 1912 after hitting an iceberg. More than 1,500 of the ship’s passengers died, and about 700 survived.
The ruling, by Judge Rebecca Beach Smith of the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Va., made changes to a 2000 court order that prohibited the company from cutting into the ship’s hull to search for diamonds.
The company sought to loosen the restrictions so it could recover the Titanic’s telegraph machine, which it contends could be lost forever because of the degradation of the ship. The radio transmitter could unlock some of the secrets about a missed warning message and distress calls sent from the ship, said the company, which obtained the salvage rights to the wreckage in the 1980s. The site is about 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland.
“The Marconi device has significant historical, educational, scientific and cultural value as the device used to make distress calls while the Titanic was sinking,” Judge Smith wrote in her ruling. The company will be permitted to “minimally to cut into the wreck” so it can reach the telegraph room, Judge Smith wrote.
David Concannon, a lawyer for R.M.S. Titanic, said in an interview on Tuesday that the company would try to avoid cutting into the ship and that the ship’s telegraph room could be reached through a skylight that was already open.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
No no no!
Candygram for Mongo! Candygram for Mongo!
Mongo like candy!
Mongo just a pawn in game of life.
:p
:-)
I’m surprised they can justify the cost of such an operation but it will definitely be an interesting item to display.
Yes but such contrived mystery makes for a better television documentary.
[[[I don’t get how a retrieving primitive radio transmitter sitting in a ship which sunk 110 years ago, is 12,500 below the surface and 400 miles from the closest land is really going to tell them anything.]]]
They will pull the tapes.
Streaming log of Titanic’s wireless messages starting at 1215 AM 15 April 1912...
It’s a tomb. Let it rest in peace.
I hate grave robbers! It’s dishonorable and downright sick.
That ship already sunk.
They display pieces of the Titanic’s hull at the Luxor Hotel in Vegas.
Davey Jones claimed them long time ago.
Bookmark
Like the Ed Fitz.
Rest in Peace...
Paying for smuggled diamonds out of Africa has got to be cheaper.
Probably a tad more dangerous though.
Chilling vid...seeing the distress messages play out...
CQD CQD
This reply post was interesting...
While Phillips was distracted sending the last messages, a crewmember tried to steal the life vest from his waist. Bride, the operator assistant, saw this and knocked the thief out cold.
[[[The tapes?]]]
Yes, the cassette in the machine.
I was thinking the same thing.
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