Devendra Kumar
In a Virginia courtroom, an assistant US attorney, Kent Porter, revealed that the US government is seeking more information on revised plans for an expedition to the Titanic. The Georgia-based company, RMST, which owns the salvage rights to the wreck, had initially planned to send a submersible to take images inside the ocean liner’s severed hull and retrieve artifacts from the debris field.
The company had also intended to potentially recover free-standing objects inside the Titanic, including the room where the ship had broadcast its distress signals. However, following the death of its director of underwater research, Paul-Henri Nargeolet, in a submersible implosion near the wreck site in June, RMST significantly scaled back its plans.
The US government, citing a 2017 federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the site as a memorial, is concerned about the possible disturbance of artifacts and any human remains that may still exist on the North Atlantic seabed. The government is also concerned about the potential for physical alteration or disturbance of the wreck, and has filed a legal challenge to the expedition. RMST’s revised plans, which aim to send an uncrewed submersible to the wreck site and take external images of the ship, have not yet been deemed compliant with the law.
Despite having recovered and conserved thousands of Titanic artifacts, which have been displayed in exhibits across the US and overseas, RMST’s plans are still subject to further scrutiny by the government. The company was granted the salvage rights to the shipwreck in 1994 by the US District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, and it will likely take some time for the government to determine whether the revised plans meet the requirements of the law.