#LUSITANIA - The millionaire owner of the Lusitania shipwreck has rejected the findings of the recent TV documentary investigating the mystery of its sinking.
The Irish Independent reports that Gregg Bemis is seeking permission from the Government to mount another dive to the wreck site to "pursue the truth".
On 7 May 1915 the cruise liner RMS Lusitania was hit by a torpedo from a German U-boat off the coast of the Old Head of Kinsale in Co Cork, with the loss of 1,198 lives.
A second explosion was reported minutes later, and within 20 minutes the vessel was underwater. Only 761 people survived.
Last summer Bemis launched what was expected to be the last dive expedition to find out what really happened to the former Cunard passenger liner.
However, Bemis argues that the National Geographic documentary team behind 'Dark Secrets of the Lusitania' used "insufficient data" when they concluded that the second explosion on the vessel following a torpedo strike was from a boiler blowing up in the bowels of the ship.
He remains convinced that a secret cargo of Allied munitions was responsible for the devastating explosion that sealed the ship's fate.
"They did not have all the information they should have had," said Bemis. "They used a computer analysis to get their theory and a computer is only as good as the garbage you put in. You put garbage in, you get garbage out."
The American said only a second dive with complete access to the hull could uncover what he believes really happened - a project he hopes will take place before the Lusitania centenery.
