Firm has no plans to salvage more Titanic artifacts, shelving legal fight [Video]

NORFOLK, Va. – The U.S. government has scrapped its litigation against the company that owns the salvage rights to the Titanic, noting that the firm no longer has dive plans to the shipwreck that could break federal law.

The scuttling of the government’s latest legal battle isn’t necessarily the end of RMS Titanic Inc.’s attempts to enter the rapidly deteriorating ocean liner or to fetch more historic objects. The company said last month that it’s still considering the implications of future expeditions.

But the U.S. on Friday withdrew its motion to intervene in a federal admiralty court in Virginia, which oversees salvage matters for the world’s most famous shipwreck. The withdrawal concluded the second of two legal battles in five years that the U.S. has waged against RMST, which also exhibits the artifacts.

The U.S. filed its latest legal challenge in 2023 when RMST was planning to take images inside the ship’s hull and pluck items from the surrounding debris field. …