US opposes 2024 expedition to recover Titanic artifacts, says shipwreck is a grave siteBy Patrick Reilly
August 29, 2023
The US wants to stop a planned expedition to recover artifacts from the Titanic wreckage next year, citing a federal law and international agreement that declares the shipwreck as a hallowed grave site.
RMS Titanic Inc., a Georgia-based firm that owns the salvage rights to the Titanic wreck, has organized the unmanned voyage and plans to take photos of the entire ship and enter its hull.
The government’s challenge to the expedition comes less than three months after five people were killed when a manned submersible from a different company imploded while descending to tour the wreckage.
The legal battle is playing out in the US District Court in Norfolk, Virginia, which oversees Titanic salvage matters.
The government has argued that entering the ship’s severed hull, as RMST intends to do, would breach a federal law and a pact with Great Britain to treat the sunken ship as a memorial to the more than 1,500 people who died after the ship crashed into an iceberg and sank while crossing the Atlantic in 1912.
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Source:
https://nypost.com/2023/08/29/us-opposes-planned-expedition-to-titanic-says-wreck-is-a-grave-site/
