US government kept submarine crash with the Titanic secret
THE wreck of RMS Titanic was struck by an adventure firm’s submarine last year but the crash was kept secret by the US government, a court has heard.
Officials never revealed that an underwater vehicle hired by a British company had hit the sunken liner, according to legal papers seen by The Daily Telegraph.
Last night the expedition leader admitted that a state-of-the-art £27million Triton submersible ran into the wreck in July when “intense and highly unpredictable currents” caused the pilot to lose control. It is the first such incident to be made public since the wreck was discovered in 1985.
EYOS Expeditions, an adventure firm based in the Isle of Man, took scientists from Newcastle University to the Titanic in the first visit to the site for 14 years. The submersible is the only one in the world capable of diving below 7,000 metres – more than four miles. On its return, the expedition made headlines around the world after revealing that the captain’s bathtub had disappeared inside the deteriorating wreck, lost to bacteria and salt water corrosion.
Rob Mccallum, the EYOS expedition leader, confirmed last night that there had been “contact” with the Titanic due to strong ocean currents but insisted any damage could only have been minor. He told The Telegraph: “We tried to keep away from the Titanic
but we had to go close to deposit two science samples. We did accidentally make contact with the Titanic once, while we were near the starboard hull breach, a big piece of the hull that sticks out.
“Afterwards we observed a red rust stain on the side of the sub.
“But the submersible while underwater is essentially weightless – it’s not a battering ram.”
The claims emerged ahead of a landmark court battle set to decide the future of the wreck, more than a century after it went down in the North Atlantic.
Next month a US salvage firm, named RMS Titanic Inc (RMST), will seek permission to retrieve artefacts inside the rusting wreck for the first time, including a Marconi wireless described as the “voice of Titanic”. The company has been the official salvor in possession of the wreck since 1994 and remains the only entity legally allowed to remove items from the site.
However, its plans are fiercely opposed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the US government weather agency, which holds responsibility for protecting deep sea wrecks.
In a legal filing at the District Court of Eastern Virginia ahead of the hearing, RMST will attempt to cast doubt on NOAA’S stewardship of the Titanic, alleging it knew that the two-man EYOS submarine had struck the Titanic in July but officials monitoring the dive failed to inform the court, even though an NOAA observer was on board the surface ship. Instead it took more than five months for EYOS to admit the collision, in an official report on Jan 8.
In its submission, RMST says the fact that the government agency never disclosed the crash to the court “raises a series of troubling issues”, and demands that EYOS produces video footage of the collision on “penalty of perjury”.
It demands that an NOAA representative be summoned to explain “the reasons why the court and RMST were not informed sooner, and the cause and effect of the collisions”.
The firm adds that the incident “implicates” a July ruling in the same court, which granted EYOS permission to dive the wreck if the expedition did not cause “damage to the wreck, the wreck site or any associated artefacts”.
An NOAA spokesman said: “NOAA takes its role in protecting the Titanic wreck and wreck site from disturbance very seriously. NOAA first learned of EYOS’ accidental contact with the sea floor and on one occasion the Titanic through EYOS’ report. After NOAA completed its review of the EYOS report, NOAA reminded EYOS legal counsel of EYOS’ obligation to provide a copy of the report to the court and RMST, which EYOS did on Jan 8, 2020.”
The first hearing in the case is due to take place on Feb 20. If RMST wins, the company plans to recover the Marconi wireless later this summer.
‘We did make contact with the Titanic once, while we were near the starboard hull breach’