A salvage firm can now recover a wireless telegraph machine that transmitted desperate calls from people aboard the Titanic as it sank in the Atlantic Ocean in 1912, a Virginia federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Rebecca Beach Smith, who presides over Titanic salvage proceedings, determined on Monday that the historic telegraph “will contribute to the legacy left by the indelible loss of the Titanic, those who survived, and those who gave their lives in the sinking.” RMS Titanic Inc., the court-ordered salvor, said the brief transmissions sent “tell the story of Titanic’s desperate fate that night: the confusion, chaos, panic, futility and fear,” according to court filings.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, however, argued against the mission as the artifact lay among “the mortal remains of more than 1500 people.” About 700 of the 2,208 passengers and crew onboard the Titanic survived the shipwreck, which is now at the bottom of the North Atlantic.