Titanic radio rescuers are forced to wait after pandemic drives plans off course

A MISSION to retrieve the Titanic’s radio from the bottom of the ocean has been put on hold as funds dry up due to a lack of visitors to a museum.

Detailed plans to use underwater robots to “surgically remove” a roof from the historic shipwreck and retrieve the communications equipment were exclusively revealed by The Telegraph.

However, the complex expedition has been postponed, according to a court filing made by RMS Titanic Inc, the US company coordinating the mission.

The filing cited the “increasing difficulty associated with international travel and logistics, and the associated health risks to the expedition team”, as well as a lack of revenue due to visitor numbers to its vast collection of Titanic artefacts plummeting during the pandemic.

The company has also had to lay off high-profile experts in the field: Dave Gallo, P H Nargeolet, Bill Sauder and William Lange.

The company maintained that it was financially secure and said the expedition remained a top priority that would “take place as soon as reasonably practicable”. The postponement is likely to increase fears that the artefacts hidden in the wreckage may not survive if left for too long.

Known in 1912 as a Marconi wireless telegraph machine, the radio sent distress calls to nearby ships that helped save 700 people in lifeboats.

Documents seen by revealed plans to use a fleet of ROVs – remotely operated vehicles – with mechanical arms to remove a deteriorating section of roof, before “surgically” extracting the Marconi wireless, which issued the Titanic’s final distress signals as it sank.

“In the next few years, the overhead is expected to collapse, potentially burying forever the remains of the world’s most famous radio,” the legal document says.

Once recovered, the Marconi wireless would likely go on display at the RMS Titanic’s exhibition at the Luxor casino in Las Vegas, and then be taken on a world tour. The company believes it may even be able to restore the equipment to full working order, even after spending more than a century at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The Titanic ocean liner was travelling from England to New York in 1912 when it struck an iceberg and sank. It was not discovered until 1985.

‘The overhead is expected to collapse, potentially burying forever the remains of the world’s most famous radio’