Undersea Expedition to Retrieve Titanic’s Radio

NEWS ITEM

Undersea Expedition to Retrieve Titanic's Radio

The company with sole rights to salvage artifacts from the RMS Titanic has gone to court to gain permission to carry out a "surgical removal and retrieval" of the Marconi radio equipment on the ship, a Washington Post article reports.

1912

The Titanic sank in 1912 on its maiden voyage after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The state-of-theart wireless telegraph transmitter, installed by Marconi Wireless and Telegraph Company, was the Titanic’s sole connection to the rest of the world. As the radio room filled with water, radio operator Jack Phillips transmitted, "Come at once. We have struck a berg. It's a CQD, old man," and other frantic messages for help, using the spark transmitter on board. CQD was ultimately replaced with SOS -- which Phillips also used -- as the universal distress call. The passenger liner RMS Carpathia responded and rescued 705 of the passengers.

CURRENT CONDITION

After resting at the bottom of the ocean for more than a century, the rust-covered wireless equipment that relayed those messages could be recovered. As might be expected, the deteriorating Marconi equipment is in poor shape after more than a century under water. RMS Titanic Inc., the Atlanta-based company with the sole rights to salvage artifacts from the shipwreck, is seeking a court’s permission for the “surgical removal and retrieval” of the Marconi set. The undersea retrieval would mark the first time an artifact was collected from within the Titanic, which many believe should remain undisturbed as the final resting place of some 1,500 victims of the maritime disaster, including Phillips. The wreck sits on the ocean floor some 2 1/2 miles beneath the surface, and remained undiscovered until 1985.

The Marconi wireless transmitter as it appears in the wreck.

THE TREATY

A just-signed treaty between the U.K. and the U.S. grants both countries authority to allow or deny access to the wreck and to remove items found outside the vessel. "This momentous agreement with the United States to preserve the wreck means it will be treated with the sensitivity and respect owed to the final resting place of more than 1,500 lives," British Transport and Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani said in a statement.

THE DEBATE

RMS Titanic Inc. argues that the wireless transmitter must be recovered soon, and ideally within the year, as expeditions to the site more than two miles below the

A rendering of the Marconi transmitter as it would have appeared in 1912.

ocean’s surface have noted deterioration over the years. The “Silent Cabin,” the soundproof room where it is housed, withstood years of damage and protected the transmitting switchboards and regulators, the company wrote in court documents. The deckhouse above the Marconi transmitter has been falling apart since 2005, and holes have been forming over the Silent Cabin. The overhead will probably collapse within the next few years, Titanic expert Parks Stephenson wrote in court documents, “potentially burying forever the remains of the world’s most famous radio.” Millvena Dean, Titanic’s last living survivor said in a 2000 interview, “I think the ship should be left in peace.” She was 9 weeks old at the time of the disaster and died in 2009. “Any bits and pieces that have come out from the ship on the seabed — that is all right. But to go on the ship — no, that is all wrong.” RMS Titanic Inc. President Bretton Hunchak, however, has said the radio recovery mission would be limited in scope and undertaken in an effort to protect the important artifact before it is too late, “This is a careful, surgical operation to rescue a historically significant item so it can teach future generations about the story of Titanic.” The request to enter the rapidly disintegrating wreck was filed in U.S. District Court in Eastern Virginia by RMS Titanic, Inc. of Atlanta, Georgia, which said that it hopes to restore the Titanic radio transmitter to operating condition, if it is allowed to go forward.

THE PLAN

The company plans to use a manned submarine to reach the wreck and then deploy a remotely controlled sub that would perforate the hull and retrieve the radio equipment. If carried to the surface, it could perhaps be restored to working order, RMS Titanic Inc. said, meaning “Titanic’s radio — Titanic’s voice — could once again be heard."

SOURCES

Undersea expedition planned to retrieve Titanic's radio gear, ARRL Letter, Feb. 6, 2020. B. Shammas, Relic hunters plan to retrieve Titanic radio that relayed the ship’s final pleas for help, Washington Post, Jan. 22, 2020.

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