NORFOLK, Va. NORFOLK, Va.The U.S. government will try to stop a company's planned salvage mission to retrieve the Titanics wireless telegraph machine, arguing the expedition would break federal law and a pact with Britain to leave the iconic shipwreck undisturbed.
U.S. attorneys filed a legal challenge before a federal judge in Norfolk, Virginia, late Monday.
The Atlanta-based salvage firm RMS Titanic Inc., plans to recover the radio equipment from a deck house near the ship's grand staircase.
The salvage firm disagrees, arguing that hundreds of years of maritime law firmly puts the wreck into the hands of admiralty court in Norfolk.
NOAA seeks to jettison the law of the sea, developed over centuries, the firm argued in legal documents filed earlier this year.