By Brian Okoth
For more than 110 years now, the wreckage of the Titanic ship continues to rest deep in the North Atlantic Ocean.
The vessel – en route to New York City (USA) from Southampton (England) – had 2,228 people on board when it went under on April 15, 1912, killing 1,508 people.
The ship, which was on its maiden trip, hit an iceberg and sank, slowly descending to the ocean floor, some 600 kilometres southeast of the Newfoundland coast in Canada.
About 720 people survived, thanks to 20 lifeboats on the ship. Titanic was supposed to have 32 lifeboats upon its completion, but the confidence its engineers had about its “unsinkability” made them reduce that number by a third.
Besides the weight of more than 2,000 people and their luggage, Titanic had been stocked with 39,000 kilogrammes of meat, 2,400 kilogrammes of eggs, 1,600 kilogrammes of onions, 5,350 kilogrammes of apples and 800 kilogrammes of ice cream, according to the National Geographic.
On the fourth day of its trip – that began on April 12, 1912 – Titanic sank, attracting front-page news world over for many weeks to come.
It took 73 years for its wreckage to be spotted after several failed attempts. That major discovery happened on September 1, 1985, when a joint US-French expedition located the wreckage at a depth of 12,500 feet.
The team, led by American navy officer Robert Ballard, took eight days to find the ship’s remains.
Nearly 38 years later, the wreckage of the Titanic continues to rest on the ocean floor. But why is it so difficult to remove the wreckage from its site in the North Atlantic Ocean? There are at least five possible explanations.
USA law
Shortly after Titanic’s discovery, the United States’ Congress enacted the RMS Titanic Maritime Memorial Act of 1986. The law prohibits the removal of the wreckage from its location.
It, however, allows persons to access it for “limited exploration activities for the purpose of enhancing public knowledge of Titanic’s scientific, cultural, and historical significance.”
International treaty
The USA and the United Kingdom are among the countries that have signed an international treaty to “protect the Titanic from commercial salvage”, meaning no person, nation or organisation can remove it from the ocean floor to display it for commercial gain.
"The agreement reinforces the United States' collaborative efforts with the United Kingdom and others to preserve the wreck site as an international maritime memorial to the men, women, and children who perished aboard the ship," says the US Department of State.
"The RMS Titanic is of major national and international historical, cultural, and scientific significance and merits appropriate protection."
UNESCO Convention
In 2012, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) passed a resolution to protect Titanic under its convention.
“The wreckage of the passenger liner Titanic will now be protected by a UNESCO convention that seeks to safeguard wrecks, sites, decorated caves and other cultural relics underwater,” the UN said in April 2012.
“From now on, state parties to the UNESCO convention can outlaw the destruction, pillage, sale and dispersion of objects found at the site. They can take all possible measures within their power to protect the wreck and ensure that the human remains there are treated with dignity,” said UNESCO, which has at least 193 member states.
"They also have the authority to seize any illicitly recovered artefacts and close their ports to all vessels undertaking exploration that is not done according to the principles of the treaty."
Expensive affair
Documented estimates suggest that bringing the Titanic’s wreckage to the ocean surface would cost not less than $35.5 million. Few people can fork out such an amount of money on an exercise that has many hindrance factors, mostly legal in nature.
The technology to be used in the retrieval is also expensive, with a comprehensive research and feasibility study needed before the exercise is undertaken.
In 1914, American architect, Charles Smith, proposed that electromagnets be attached to a submarine to draw the Titanic wreck's steel hull. But most of the ship’s metal have since rusted away, making the execution of Smith’s proposal a tall order.
The other proposal, which is quite expensive to execute, is raising the Titanic by means of attaching balloons to its hull using electromagnets. Once enough balloons are attached, the ship would float gently to the surface.
Fears of disintegration
There are fears that during retrieval, the Titanic wreck would disintegrate into pieces, making it impossible to have something concrete by the time the remains reach the sea surface.
There are documented reports that metal-eating bacteria has already consumed most of Titanic’s wreckage.
Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate, who died alongside four others during an expedition to the Titanic wreckage on June 18, said in July 2021 that the “the ocean is taking this thing (Titanic), and we need to document it before it all disappears or becomes unrecognisable.”
Deep sea currents consume hundreds of pounds of Titanic’s iron daily, with scientists predicting that in a few decades, the ship’s wreckage would be gone completely.
When Titanic hit the iceberg, it broke into two during sinking, with its bow and stern said to be located 600 metres apart today. Due to the decay, attempts to upswell each of the broken parts might end in disappointment.
