Calls from Belfast and beyond to end tours of Titanic site after Titan tragedy: 'It is a grave - the whole thing is money-making and in bad taste'

​A number of Titanic enthusiasts from Northern Ireland and beyond are now saying that the tragedy should herald a re-think about how the wreck of the Belfast-built super-liner is treated.

Contact with the tiny submersible Titan was lost on Sunday, roughly one hour and 45 minutes into its 12,500ft dive to the Titanic wreck, some 400 or so miles east of Newfoundland, Canada.

It had been launched from surface ship MC Polar Prince at about 9am, local time (midday, GMT).

Then after days of searching, at about 4pm GMT on Thursday the US Coast Guard’s north-east wing announced it had found a “debris field” in the search area; later on Thursday, US Rear Admiral John Mauger said “the debris is consistent with the catastrophic loss” of the vessel.

It also emerged at around midnight on Thursday that on Sunday the US Navy had picked up an underwater sound “consistent with an implosion or explosion in the general vicinity of where the Titan submersible was operating”.

Onboard were British-Pakistani businesswoman Shahzada Dawood, her teenage son Suleman, British businessman Hamish Harding, and ex-French navy commander Paul-Henri Nargeolet.

The sub was piloted by American businessman and engineer Stockton Rush.

Co-incidentally, Mr Rush had visited Belfast earlier in the year, and his company OceanGate Expeditions had posted up a picture online showing him in the old dry dock in the Titanic Quarter.

Former president of the Belfast Titanic Society Una Reilly said she hopes that “sense will rear its head again” in the wake of the tragedy.

“It's horrendous, but at least it would have been very quick for everyone who died,” she told the News Letter.

"I didn't really agree with commercial day trips if you like to the wreck. It is a grave site after all, and it should be left in peace. It should be left to be reclaimed by nature.

"It's very sad what happened, but now hopefully something like this will not happen again because people will be watching developments.”

She added: “What happened to Titanic was a disaster.

"We're the only people in the world that can be proud of the construction and the history; the rest of the world can only commemorate the disaster.

"And this is another disaster associated with that story.”

Stephen Cameron, author of history book Titanic: Belfast’s Own, told the News Letter: “It's extremely sad, and my thoughts would be with the families of those who were lost.

"But I've always said this from the word go, from when it was discovered: leave the thing alone. It's a grave site.

"On what's left of the bridge of the ship are plaques from everybody who has been down to it. It's disgraceful, to be perfectly honest with you.

"One couple even went down and got married! The ships at Pearl Harbour are classed as war graves and nobody goes down or takes things out of them, but Titanic is up for free grab for anybody…

"The whole thing is just money-making, and to me it's in very bad taste.

"I honestly feel now the whole thing should just stop and be done with. Apparently, at the beginning, Robert Ballard tried to hide the location of it from the world so this would not happen.”

He said the tragedy is particularly keenly-felt in Titanic’s native city.

"A president of [the Belfast Titanic Society] John Parkinson saw the ship as a child. We had other people in our society whose relatives worked on the ship. We feel it very much,” he said.

Meanwhile, in a statement published online, Charles Haas, president of the Titanic International Society (set up in the 1980s to preserve the ship’s history).

He said: “It is time to consider seriously whether human trips to Titanic’s wreck should end in the name of safety, with relatively little remaining to be learned from or about the wreck.

“Crewed submersibles’ roles in surveying the wreck now can be assigned to autonomous underwater vehicles.

“The world joins us in expressing our profound sadness and heartbreak about this tragic, avoidable event.”