Titanic radio may soon be recovered

Replica of the Titanic’s radio room at the Antique Wireless Museum (Source: Trip Advisor)

(Source: The Washington Post via Davud Iurescia, LW4DAF)

[…]“Lying two and a half miles below the ocean surface, the RMS Titanic is the subject of the most documented maritime tragedy in history,” British Transport and Maritime Minister Nusrat Ghani said in a statement. “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.”

A century later and the Titanic still fascinates

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 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.

But the deckhouse above the Marconi transmitter has been falling apart since 2005, and holes have been forming over the Silent Cabin. The overheard 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.”

[…]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’s too late.

“It’s not some kind of Trojan horse so that we can start grabbing suitcases full of diamonds from the wreck,” he said, according to the Telegraph. “This is a careful, surgical operation to rescue a historically significant item so it can teach future generations about the story of Titanic.”[…]

Click here to read the full article at the Washington Post and note portions may be behind a paywall or geo-blocked.

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3 thoughts on “Titanic radio may soon be recovered

  1. Paul Evans

    Looking through DuckDuckGo Images (or Google Images if you want to be tracked!) there are many, many reconstructions of the radio room and examples of original Marconi systems. To me it seems desecration of the wreck and against the original agreements to ‘leave it alone’. I’ve been through the Titanic museum tour and it really wasn’t all that exciting. I’d think that getting it up in anything like salvageable condition is very unlikely and may either end up completely lost or, if restored, actually contain very little of the original parts. It all seems like a waste of time and money, but some investors will bet on anything!

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