Company halts trips to Titanic wreck, cites deaths of adventurers in submersible

A Georgia-based firm known for collecting artifacts from the site of the Titanic is following OceanGate's lead by suspending future trips to the ship's wreckage after the company's director died on the Titan submersible that imploded and killed five people on a similar voyage.

The move comes after the U.S. Government argued the group's previously planned expedition to collect artifacts from the wreckage, including the famous Marconi wireless telegraph unit that was on board, would violate federal law and a federal pact with Great Britain requiring the Titanic site to be treated as a gravesite.

In the latest development in the case, on Thursday afternoon the US cancelled a hearing that was scheduled for Friday.

RMS Titanic Inc. previously planned to enter the Titanic's severed hull in May 2024 with late director Paul-Henri Nargeolet in charge, according to court records. The company and the federal government have been entangled in a legal battle in the U.S. District Court in Norfolk, Virginia since August.

Court records filed by a law firm representing the company in a U.S. District Court on Wednesday show it changed its plans from collecting artifacts to only conducting "unmanned imaging and survey work at this time," according to the Associated Press. Jessica Sanders, the CEO of RMS Titanic Inc., supported those claims in a statement, AP reported.

The company owns the salvage rights to the property.

“Out of respect for P.H. Nargeolet and his family, and the other four people who perished so recently at the site, and their families, the company has decided that artifact recovery would not be appropriate at this time,” a law firm representing the company wrote, according to the AP.

What happened to the Titan submersible?

On June 16, OceanGate Expeditions, a privately-owned ocean tourism company, led a voyage of five people from St. John's in Newfoundland, Canada to the depths of the Titanic in the North Atlantic Ocean in a 22-foot submersible called The Titan.

The submersible was built with titanium and filament-wound carbon fiber, according to the company's website, which are unconventional materials for deep-sea vehicles.

About one hour and 45 minutes after the boat launched, a support ship monitoring the vessel lost all communication with the submersible.

After connection was lost, the US Coast Guard led an urgent race to find the men before the oxygen tanks on the vessel ran dry. Search and rescue teams scoured the Atlantic Ocean to find the submersible.

Days later, the Coast Guard found the debris of The Titan on the ocean floor about 1,600 feet from the bow of the Titanic. They ultimately determined the Titan imploded on its journey.

Rear Admiral John Mauger of the U.S. Coast Guard said the debris was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber" at a news conference.

Shortly after, OceanGate announced that all aboard The Titan had died.

There were four men and a teenager on board, including Nargeolet, OceanGate's CEO Stockton Rush, British billionaire explorer Hamish Harding and a father and son from one of Pakistan’s most prominent families, Shahzada Dawood and Suleman Dawood.

"This is a very sad time for the entire explorer community, and for each of the family members of those lost at sea,” the company wrote.

Who was French maritime and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet?

Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77, was the director of RMS Titanic Inc,, an affiliate of Experimental Media Group, which creates and tours world-class exhibitions, when he took the voyage to the wreckage with OceanGate in June.

He was a French maritime and known for his "impressive and tenured history with Titanic," according to his biography on the company's website.

"Widely considered the leading authority on the wreck site, P.H. has led several expeditions to Titanic, completed 37 dives in the submersible himself, and supervised the recovery of 5,000 artifacts, including the recovery of the “big piece” a 20-ton section of Titanic’s hull (now on display in Las Vegas)," the biography reads.

A memorial for Nargeolet on the website's homepage reads: "In loving memory of PH Nargeolet: Always in our hearts and thoughts. A true explorer of his time."

What artifacts did the company want to collect from the wreckage?

In court filings, attorneys for RMS Titanic Inc. said during the planned trip, the company "may recover free-standing objects inside the wreck" in addition to items in the outer debris.

Those could have included “objects from inside the Marconi room, but only if such objects are not affixed to the wreck itself."

The Marconi room holds the famous Marconi wireless telegraphic machine, named after its inventor Guglielmo Marconi. The senior wireless operator Jack Phillips used the device to send radio messages in Morse code for help as the Titanic collided with an iceberg on April 15, 1912, according to the ScienceMuseum. Harold Cottam, an operator on a Cunard Line passenger steamship named the Carpathia, received the Philiip's messages and traveled 60 miles on the steamship to the Titanic. More than 700 survivors on lifeboats boarded the ship and sailed to New York City.

A U.S. District judge previously granted the company permission to venture in a submersible to obtain the artifact, saying that it could "contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking," according to the AP.

The judge Rebecca Beach Smith said in 2020 it could soon be lost to decay. The US government also challenged RMS Titanic's expedition then, and the company cancelled its trips due to the pandemic, the AP reported.

What's next for RMS Titanic Inc.?

The company didn't only cancel its May 2024 trip to the Titanic.

In court filings, it said it would halt all trips until “further investigation takes place regarding the cause of the (OceanGate) tragedy," the Associated Press reported.

OceanGate also suspended its operations, including voyages to the Titanic, the company said in June.

Contributing: Associated Press

Contact Kayla Jimenez at kjimenez@usatoday.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter, at @kaylajjimenez