Recovery Expedition Raises 20-Ton Piece of Titanic to the Surface

A recovery expedition lifted a giant slab of the Titanic’s hull from its watery ocean grave Thursday, 84 years after the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, an expedition spokesman said.

The 20-ton piece of steel was hovering at the water’s surface, still attached to several bags filled with diesel fuel, which is lighter than water and was used to raise the slab from the ocean floor more than 2 1/2 miles below, said Todd Tarantino, spokesman for New York-based RMS Titanic Inc., which is sponsoring the expedition. Plans call for the piece of debris to be taken to Boston on Saturday and to New York on Sunday.

The Titanic, thought to be unsinkable, struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, and sank, killing 1,523 of the 2,200 passengers and crew on board. The wreck was located in 1985.

As part of the recovery expedition, more than 1,700 people, including three survivors of the doomed liner’s first transatlantic voyage, sailed in two ships from Boston and New York to the site, paying $1,500 and up for a nine-day cruise.

RMS Titanic Inc., which holds the rights to the ship’s debris, has recovered about 4,000 artifacts since 1987. It hopes to use the hull section as the centerpiece of an exhibition next spring and possibly a full-fledged museum.