ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, August 31, 1996 TAG: 9609030039
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BOSTON
SOURCE: Associated Press
NOTE: below
The Titanic sank again.
A commercial expedition to raise part of the luxury liner ended in failure early Friday when the nylon lines being used to lift a 21-ton section of the hull snapped and the chunk of steel dropped 2 1/2 miles back to the bottom of the cold North Atlantic.
With food running low, the seas getting rough and the expedition members exhausted, the $5million salvage operation was abandoned until at least next summer.
``The Titanic's not easy to bring home,'' George Tulloch, president of the expedition's sponsor, RMS Titanic Inc., said by satellite phone.
The salvagers had used giant flotation balloons filled with lighter-than-water diesel fuel to lift the 24-by-16-foot piece, but because of rough seas, they couldn't manage to pull it all the way up, organizers said.
The hull section never actually broke the water's surface; it was 70 yards down when it snapped loose from the flotation balloons and returned to its resting place of 84 years.
At 3 a.m. local time, or midnight EDT, the captain of a French research vessel taking part in the expedition found Tulloch, embraced him and broke the news.
``He just whispered in my ear, `We just lost it. We lost the piece,''' Tulloch said. ``One line snapped, and then they went one at a time and the piece is gone.''
An RMS Titanic spokesman in Boston, Marty Burke, said it was unclear why the lines broke. However, organizers acknowledged that the hull section turned out to be far heavier than the 13 to 15 tons it was thought to weigh.
The ``unsinkable'' Titanic, then the biggest ocean liner in the world, sank on April 14, 1912, after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage from England to New York. More than 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers and crew died.
The disaster has fascinated explorers and history buffs ever since, and the wreck was discovered in 1985 about 420 miles southeast of Newfoundland.
The salvage efforts were denounced by some Titanic historians as grave-robbing; they said the wreck should be left intact as a memorial. RMS Titanic, which owns the salvage rights and mounted the expedition with the Discovery Channel, said it was simply trying to preserve a piece of history by bringing a section of the ship back to New York.
About 1,700 people, including three Titanic survivors, paid $1,800 to $6,000 to watch the recovery effort on video monitors from two cruise ships circling nearby.
The passengers watched the hull section rise through the water via an underwater camera and cheered when the flotation balloons broke the surface Thursday afternoon. They did not see the piece break loose; the cruise ships left the area before the accident.
Tulloch said they got their money's worth.
``We gave them coverage that would have made the Super Bowl envious and there were no commercials,'' he said. ``If people were disappointed, I'm disappointed.''
The expedition members decided to give up for at least a year. Some had been at sea for a month, and Tulloch said they had spent three years planning the operation.
A transponder attached to the big piece is designed to emit radio signals for two years and should make any future recovery effort easier.
``The greatest tragedy in the world is to give up. And we haven't given up,'' Tulloch said. ``We'll get it next year.''
LENGTH: Medium: 71 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Divers grapple with ropes holding a 21-ton chunk ofby CNBthe Titanic Thursday off the coast of Newfoundland. color.