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U.S Firm Announces Salvage Expedition To Titanic Wreck MIAMI, (AFP) - The U.S. firm that owns the rights to the Titanic shipwreck announced that it plans to launch a salvage expedition to the site of one of the world's most famous maritime disasters. The multinational expedition team will seek to recover specific items and valuable artifacts from the wreckage, according to a statement released by the Florida-based RMS Titanic, salvor-in-possession of the wreck. "The clock is ticking, if we don't enter the ship now for salvage purposes, ocean microbes will devour the ship's steel for all eternity," said RMS Titanic president and chief executive Arnie Geller. "There is incalculable value down below, and we are determined to recover as much as possible," he said. The salvage effort, scheduled to take place between July 10 and August 30, 2000, is to be headed by divers Ralph White and Graham Jessop, in association with Oceaneering International, using a Magellan 725 remote operated vehicle. A Russian delegation headed by professor Anatoly Sagalevitch, in association with the P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology of the Russian Academy of Sciences will use the Akademik Mstislev Keldysh vessel and the submersibles "MIR 1 and MIR 2." Altogether 12 scientists from diverse nations are involved in research tied to the expedition. According to RMS Titanic, its team will, for the first time ever, enter the Titanic through its cargo hold for the specific objective of recovering artifacts and historical items. Previous ventures only retrieved items from outside the Titanic, in the kilometer-long (half-mile-long) debris field. The team will be using a newly designed remote operated vehicle (ROV) the size of a hand, featuring fiber-optic technology to help facilitate the salvage efforts. Between 1987 and 1998, expeditions conducted by RMS Titanic recovered in excess of 5,000 artifacts from the wreck site, the company said in its statement. The Titanic was on its maiden voyage when it collided with an iceberg shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912. It was found at the bottom of the ocean on September 1, 1985
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