US expert on Titanic wreck believes tourist visits will resume despite tragic deaths of five

A US expert on the Titanic wreck believes tourist visits will resume despite the catastrophic implosion of the OceanGate last month that took the lives of five people.

Jessica Sanders, president of Royal Mail Ship Titanic, Inc., spoke candidly regarding the submersible implosion that took the life of her colleague, revered French explorer Paul-Henri Nargeolet, one of the five victims, on the doomed vessel. 

Though she shared her trepidation about the future of commercial expeditions since the catastrophic Titan tragedy, she also highlighted Nargeolet’s beliefs. ‘It’s difficult because this one ended in a tragedy. But do I think the response is you should never be able to go? Then that contradicts a person that I deeply respected.’ 

Sanders said Nargeolet believed, ‘it shouldn’t be just for a handful of people who can afford to get there.’

She shared his conviction: ‘Everybody should be able to see the artifacts, and it shouldn’t be just a millionaire, a billionaire or the military or a filmmaker that can go down to the wreck site.’

The scene of the Titanic 12,000 feet below the surface. The Titanic was discovered on September 1985 by underwater explorer Robert Ballard 

A graph that shows where the Titanic wreckage is located and where the OceanGate Titan went into the water to visit the site

Sunday marks three weeks since the submersible likely imploded during a voyage to the wreckage of the Titanic, 12,500 feet beneath the Atlantic Ocean’s surface before it imploded 

OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, perished on June 18 along with British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, 58; Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, his 19-year-old son Suleman and Nargeolet, 77.

Canadian police are considering whether ‘criminal, federal, or provincial laws’ were broken in the lead-up to the Titan submersible disaster.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police will examine ‘the circumstances that led to the deaths’ of the five crew on board the sub and decide ‘whether or not a full investigation is warranted’.

Their investigation was ongoing on Thursday, a day after it emerged human remains were found during the recovery mission and segments of the vessel were brought ashore. 

It comes as a marine engineering professor claimed electrical failure could also have contributed to the disaster, following suggestions it was made from inappropriate materials.

CEO Stockton Rush made several claims to French Navy Veteran PH Nargeolet about the safety of the submersible 

Five people were onboard Titan, including British billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding and Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman, who was just 19

Debris from the Titan submersible, recovered from the ocean floor near the wreck of the Titanic, is unloaded from the ship Horizon Arctic at the Canadian Coast Guard

Sanders, whose organization locates and preserves artifacts from the Titanic, shared her concerns about tourist visits to the site and keeping the integrity of the 1912 shipwreck.

‘There have been a lot of expeditions in the last couple of years. They say that they didn’t do anything … We just need to verify,’ Sanders told the New York Post.

She also spoke about her concerns and the risks involved when the OceanGate Titan began tourist expeditions.

The investigation is active but it appears that it is unlikely that the debris, which was located 1,600 feet from the bow (front) of the ship, caused damage to the Titanic wreck, she said.

Sanders pointed out that her team is trying to figure out a way to ‘bring the wreck site to the public,’ so their only option is not venturing into the deep sea.

Jessica Sanders (pictured) who heads up RMS Titanic Inc., pointed out that her team is trying to figure out a way to ‘bring the wreck site to the public,’ so their only option is not venturing into the deep sea

PH Nargeolet, 77, was an expert on the Titanic’s wreckage and worked with a company which has recovered thousands of artifacts from the site

OceanGate’s website still included pages advertising trips to the Titanic – just weeks after the disaster. 

A page titled ‘Titan Expedition – Explore the Titanic’ was still available on Thursday, which offered a chance to dive to the shipwreck in the company’s submersible.

The page also lists renowned French explorer PH Nargeolet, who perished on board the Titan, as an expert ‘who may join you on [the] expedition’.

Since the implosion, many groups have halted any future expeditions to the Titan wreck for the rest of 2023, including The Explorers Club and deep-sea mapping firm Magellan. 

The French diver, Nargeolet, was a director of the controversial firm accused of ‘pillaging’ thousands of items from the Titanic.

Nargeolet had spent two decades working with RMS Titanic Inc., which owns the sole salvage rights.

He was known as ‘PH’ and earned the nickname ‘Mr. Titanic’ as an expert on the 1912 wreck and led several expeditions for the US firm based in Georgia.

The explorer, who served as the director of underwater research for RMS Titanic Inc., had two adult children and owned a $1.5million home in New York state.

He had previously told how relatives of Titanic victims had told him they did not agree with his work with RMS Titanic Inc. – which filed for bankruptcy along with its parent firm in 2016 and came close to auctioning off the relics in their possession.

RMS Titanic Inc. operates ‘Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition,’ which has two locations in Las Vegas and Orlando that it says have been visited by more than 35million people.

Money salvaged from the Titanic wreck was ready to be auctioned off

A pocket watch found in the belongings of a third class passenger named William Henry Allen, found in the Titanic wreckage, is among a sampling of Titanic artifact that was auctioned off

But after the Titan disaster, politicians and relatives of the Titanic’s passengers and crew have urged explorers to leave the wreck alone and stop recovering artifacts. Some have also called for relics from the wreck to be donated to a museum.

Gavin Robinson, the MP for East Belfast in the UK, where construction on the Titanic began in 1909, pointed out that the ship ‘remains a maritime tomb for over 1,500 souls’.

He added there is an ‘uncomfortable conflict between respectfully honoring the site and extreme tourism’, and that ‘issues around pilfering and profiteering have gone far beyond efforts that assist historical understanding’ over the years.

Families of those who were on board when disaster struck on its maiden voyage in April 1912 have also called for potential tourists to leave the wreck as a ‘grave site.’

In the Las Vegas exhibit, more than 400 artifacts and full-scale room re-creations are on display along with a 15-tonne section of Titanic’s starboard hull. In Orlando, there are 300 items as well as room recreations and a three-ton section of Titanic’s hull.

RMS Titanic Inc. insisted it is ‘dedicated to preserving the legacy of the ship, wreck site and all her passengers’, but critics have accused it of trying to ‘profiteer’ by ‘pilfering and pillaging’ the ship.

One relative of two Titanic victims has now called for the full treasure trove of relics to be donated to a museum.

Linda Reader, whose great grandfather and great uncle died in the 1912 disaster, said items should be available for all the world to see.

She told MailOnline: ‘From a personal point of view I would like to see those artefacts put into a museum. That way many people can view them and not just a few.

‘I don’t agree with the artifacts being taken in the first place. They belong to family members of those who died and should have a say where they go. I have never agreed with artefacts being taken from the ship. It is a graveyard, and you do not plunder a graveyard.’

Reader, 63, of Southampton, plans to make a pilgrimage to Newfoundland later in the year to lay a wreath for her long-lost relatives.

Titanic leaves Southampton, England, on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912

Her great-grandfather Arthur William May was a stoker/messman on the RMS Titanic and her great uncle, also called Arthur William May, was another stoker.

Jacqueline Hall, of Burslem, Staffordshire, who told DailyMail.com in a letter that her grandfather Harry Senior, was a stoker on the ship who survived.

She wrote: ‘I cringe when I see Titanic fancy-dress parties and computer games. How disrespectful. I believe the ship is a grave site and should not be the focus of tourist trips.

‘My grandfather managed to clamber onto the upside-down collapsible lifeboat B after being hit with oars. He never spoke about the horrific events of that night until he was dying of cancer 25 years later.’

She was writing in response to an article published in the Mail last week by Julie Cook, whose great-grandfather William Bessant was also a stoker and one of the 1,500 crew and passengers who died.

Cook wrote: ‘It is high time we stopped this Titanic tourism and left the ship and her dead to rest.’

She also said: ‘The Titanic sinking was a real-life tragedy, not a film. If we stop for a minute and imagine what it was really like for those on board, we can’t help but feel a visceral horror at their plight — just as we do now, imagining the situation faced by those inside the missing submersible.

Cook had accepted an invitation two years ago by a US production firm to visit the wreck in an OceanGate vessel for a documentary, but it was canceled ‘because of various problems involving the post-pandemic world, travel visas and so on’.

She added: ‘Now, listening to news of the tragic disappearance of the sub, I feel sick with relief.’