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Pricey tours of decaying Titanic shipwreck delayed until June 2020

Jun 18, 2019 | 10:17 AM

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. — Adventure tourists who paid $168,000 each to help survey the Titanic shipwreck off Newfoundland have been told their much-anticipated dives are being postponed.

The U.S. company behind a series of week-long expeditions has announced that the submarine research tours will be postponed until June 2020, after the operator of a staging vessel backed out.

The news comes just two weeks before the inaugural voyage was set to depart from St. John’s, N.L., and a year after damage to the submarine delayed the original 2018 departure date.

OceanGate Expeditions said the delay is disappointing but changing vessels so close to the departure date would risk safety and the mission’s success.