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 ...
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Come on....you know its an 8-Track tape... :^)
I understand the grave perspective. I guess at some point our graves become archeology sites.
I am not sure what taking a telegraph kit out of the ship would teach anyone. Hopefully, progress has been made in ship to ship communications in the last 110 years. And discovering what “happened” that night is really not a pressing concern to many people.
I imagine anything that was worth “liberating” from the site was liberated a long time ago.
I disagree. The information to be gathered is important, and no disrespect is necessary.
After 108 years on the bottom of the ocean what makes them think there’s anything left of the Marcconi equipment?
Not familiar with Marconi's. Are we assuming that it will be intact and provide valuable information?
I guess they get to decide what they have jurisdiction over when it suits the black-robed tyrants... be it over the President of the United States carrying out his Constitutional duties or shipwrecks hundreds of miles away from the country.
It is also a tomb. Although it's a tough call as to when archaeology becomes grave robbing.
Is the Titanic really a grave? It’s quite possible there are no bodies within the wreck. Have any been found? Did anyone actually go down with the ship? I would think everyone got off in an effort to survive, and their remains eventually sank at various spots around where the parts of the hull came to rest on the bottom. In some cases that could be miles away.
It’s an accident site. Any remains found could be reinterred with a proper marker, even if the victim remains unkown. Artifacts have been retrieved from ancient battle sites, burial grounds of plague victims, and countless other places of human demise. As long as proper respect is made and dignity observed, I see no issue here.
Its the type used on Mission Impossible.
“As a Sailor, I am totally opposed to this kind of grave robbing! Sunken Ships with a death counts are graves and it’s totally disrespectful to the victims.”
Recovering a historically significant telegraph is not grave robbing.
It’s a 4 track...
Extremely rare.
The first films of the Ed Fitz on the lake bottom also showed the body of one of the sailors near the wreck.
The judge is from Hawaii...
I wouldn’t think so. It seems to me that the corrosive effects of the ocean would have destroyed all hardware long ago. However, I find no disrespect in gathering information, as much as possible.
“They should have saved the money they wasted on lawyers and spent it on better iceberg spotters. “
You would make more informed posts if you thought before posting.
Were many people trapped inside the ship when it went down? I thought they were all on deck.There were a few sailors stoking coal to keep the generators going but they emerged on deck when the ship went down. If they were on deck they wouldn’t stay with the ship when it went down.
As a side note, warships are different because they are owned by the country and not salvageable without the country’s permission. The US salvaged most of the battleships sunk at Pearl Harbor and salvaged some gun barrels of the Arizona. There is a great book by a salvage diver at Pearl Harbor. Tirpiz was salvaged. In the South Pacific, salvage companies are raiding these ships for the steel. Whole ships disappear. Very sad.
Limited jurisdiction per international agreements. Do you know how to Google?
Seems like a lot of money and risk to get the Marconi just to put it in the Luxor.
If that’s the case lets send Tom Cruise to retrieve it!
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