The company, which has exclusive salvage rights to the Titanic wreck and remains of that ship, submitted to a federal court on Saturday a map of the surrounding seabed showing where searchers found the twisted wreckage of the Titanic submarine.
This map is a mosaic of sonar images annotated by RMS Titanic experts to help show how close the ship was to its destination when the disaster struck.
The vehicle exploded on the morning of Sunday 18 June, most likely killing all five occupants. The RMS Titanic Underwater Research Director participated in the last dive of the tourist submersible as a guest of Titanic owner Ocean Gate.
Attached seafloor map legal submission An exhibit shows the ghostly outline of the bow of the Titanic. This is her one of the most famous features of the sunken ship. Decades of depth explorers have revealed her bow and fore railings to be in relatively good repair, standing upright, almost proudly, in the pitch-black darkness.
The rescuer’s attorney, Brian A. Weinger, said in an interview: RMS Titanicsaid the map was based on private and public information available to the company. He added that he has shared the seafloor map with the US Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and neither federal agency has expressed any concerns about the accuracy of its representation.
“We believe this is reliable data,” Weinger said.
Weinger said in a July 8 court filing that the Marine Survey Board, the Coast Guard agency investigating the disaster, will complete its investigation within approximately 12 to 18 months, after which witnesses will be released. He also said he planned to hold a public hearing to testify. sworn testimony.
The story of the Titanic is well known. After hitting an iceberg on her maiden voyage in 1912, the luxury liner snapped in two and sank to the bottom of the ice over three miles across the North Atlantic.
The Titanic wreck was discovered in 1985 and in 1994 at the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in Norfolk, Virginia. Granted salvage rights To RMS Titanic. The RMS Titanic is under the jurisdiction of a court that has long overseen wreck recovery cases as a designated rescuer, defined as an individual or entity engaged in the recovery of ships and goods lost at sea.
The Atlanta-based company conducts salvage operations for a variety of purposes, including hosting a traveling exhibition of Titanic artifacts.
A map in the company’s filing shows a large dotted circle labeled “Titan’s Debris Field” in the area to the right, or starboard, of the Titanic’s intact bow. Other details, such as the size of the fields, are not shown on the map. However, the map shows the approximate location. When the Coast Guard announced on June 22 that the Titan submarine had catastrophically imploded, the wreckage was about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic.
Jessica SandersThe president of RMS Titanic said the seafloor map was submitted legally as part of the company’s obligation to keep the court informed of its activities and, in this case, how it cooperated with the Titanic investigation in the hours and days that followed. said to be included in The submarine has gone missing.
“We tried to help,” she said in an interview. “We gave them this map” so that the researchers could better understand the features of the seafloor around the Titanic, so that information about rocks and natural outcrops could be used by the ship. It is more likely to be separated from possible evidence of itself or its remains.
Sanders said some of the maps were developed by Paul-Henri Narjolet, a 77-year-old employee who died in the Titan accident. He was a French diving expert and world authority on the Titanic, who had attempted his 38th dive into the wreckage. “So part of it was his,” she said, referring to the map. She added that a memorial service for Narjolet will be held in Paris next week.
Rob McCallumThe founder of EYOS Expeditions, which led seven trips to the sunken passenger ship, said the maps showed no unexpected features or clues. “Nothing unusual happened,” he said in an interview. The wreckage of the Titan submarine “is where it should be,” he added.
