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A year on from the Titan submersible disaster, an expedition to the most famous shipwreck in history is about to take place.
The upcoming expedition is not a commercial tourist trip, but will be an unmanned mission charting the deterioration of the ship, which sank in April 1912.
It is being carried out by RMS Titanic Inc, which owns the salvage rights to the Titanic, and is working to preserve the legacy of its tragic story for future generations.
News of this summer’s dive met with controversy in the wake of last year’s submersible disaster, which claimed the lives of five men.
According to reports last year, the US federal government attempted to block the mission, citing the wreck’s status as a gravesite.
But RMS Titanic Inc previously obtained permission to explore the wreck after laying out plans that “seek to minimise disturbance to the rest of the Titanic wreck, including to the hull of the ship and the remains of those 1,500 souls lost in the sinking of the ship”.
RMS Titanic Inc told The Independent that this month’s trip is still going ahead as planned.
Behind every great mission is an expert team. Meet the @Cinnovationllc ROV mobilization team working hard to prep the ROV’s for our July 2024 imaging and research mission.#TITANICExpedition2024 #Cinnovation pic.twitter.com/Am2EbgxN9a
— RMS Titanic, Inc. (@RMSTitanic_Inc) July 1, 2024
The company confirmed to The Independent that, unlike last year’s doomed dive, this year’s mission will not be carried out by manned submersibles but by remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) instead.
In a Reddit Ask Me Anything this week, RMS Titanic Inc said it plans to keep the vehicles in the water for a full 20 days to obtain as much information as possible about the wreck site.
“We aren’t using manned submersibles this time around, so thankfully we don’t have to worry about that, just the cabin fever of being stuck on the ship,” the company wrote.
This month’s trip will be RMS Titanic Inc’s first visit to the wreck since 2010 and it will utilize the most recent technological advancements to document the site.
It plans to identify objects for potential recovery on future dives and to document as much of the ship as possible to learn new details about the sinking, as well as to examine its wider debris field, which the firm admits could be full of “surprises”.
There is a particular interest in recovering the Marconi wireless system, which was used to send the SOS call the night the ship sank in the middle of the North Atlantic.
Visits to the wreck have been a source of controversy since it was first discovered in September 1985, with many survivors and families of the victims requesting that it be left alone because of its status as a gravesite for more than 1,500 people.
While it was reported last summer that RMS Titanic Inc would be attempting to go inside the wreck where possible, in its recent Reddit Q&A, it said that it will not be doing this on this expedition.
As the Titanic lies in international waters, it has no owner.
The company obtained exclusive salvage rights to the wreck in 1994 through an agreement with the Liverpool and London Steamship Protection and Indemnity Association in 1994, which asserted potential rights over the wreck under the maritime law of salvage.
The investigation into last year’s submersible disaster remains ongoing.
It made international headlines when the tourist sub lost contact around an hour and 45 minutes into its dive to the Titanic. The paying guests forked out $250,000 each for a chance to see the wreck.
What followed was an intense international search and rescue mission before its debris were recovered near the bow of the Titanic.
It was then concluded that it had suffered a “catastrophic implosion”, instantly killing British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48; and his son Suleman Dawood, 19.
The Independent has reached out to RMS Titanic Inc for further information.
