Pandemic may sink plans to retrieve Titanic’s radio

NORFOLK, Va. — Fallout from the coronavirus pandemic is threatening a company’s plans to retrieve and exhibit the radio that had broadcast distress calls from the sinking Titanic, according to a court filing made by the firm.

The company, RMS Titanic Inc., said this week that its revenues plummeted after coronavirus restrictions closed its exhibits of Titanic artifacts, causing the firm to seek funding through its parent company. Some of the exhibitions, which are scattered across the country, are still closed, while others that have reopened are seeing limited attendance.

RMS Titanic Inc. recently missed a deadline with a federal admiralty court in Virginia to submit a funding plan for the radio expedition. The company left open the possibility that it may no longer seek the court’s approval for the undertaking if a plan isn’t submitted in the coming weeks.

The company’s update, filed with a U.S. District

Court in Norfolk, was made in the midst of an ongoing court battle with the United States over whether the expedition is legal.

Lawyers for the U.S. government have argued that the mission is barred under federal law and an international agreement with Britain. The attorneys say the company must seek the government’s permission to remove the radio because the sunken vessel is a recognized memorial to the roughly 1,500 people who died.

The luxury ocean liner was traveling from England to New York in 1912 when it hit an iceberg and sank. It was discovered in 1985 about 2.4 miles below the surface of the Atlantic.

RMS Titanic Inc. owns the salvage rights and oversees a collection of items recovered from the wreck as the court-recognized steward of the artifacts. They include silverware, china and gold coins as well as the Titanic’s whistles and a piece of its hull.

Exhibiting the radio will help sustain the ship’s legacy while honoring passengers and crew, the company has argued. Known in 1912 as a Marconi wireless telegraph machine, the radio sent distress calls to nearby ships that helped save 700 people in lifeboats.

The U.S. government’s effort to stop the expedition is pending in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond. But the company’s funding woes appear to pose a more immediate threat.

“The pandemic and resulting governmental restrictions forced the company to temporarily close its exhibitions to the public, effectively shutting off its primary source of revenue for six months,” RMS Titanic Inc. wrote in a filing Monday.

The Atlanta-based company said only a few of its exhibits have reopened. They’re operating at diminished capacity and revenues “remain very low.”

The company said it received more than $700,000 through the Paycheck Protection Program. And it expects to get $3 million in funding through parent company Premier Acquisition Holdings.

INSTITUTE FOR EXPLORATION 2004 The remains of a coat and boots in the mud on the North Atlantic Ocean seabed near the RMS Titanic’s stern.