CIRCUMSTANCES THAT LED TO THE SINKING OF THE TITANIC

 

Thousands of people were at the dock in Belfast, Ireland to watch the launch of the RMS Titanic on March 31, 1911. It was the largest, luxurious cruise ship of the time. Titanic measured 882+ feet long, 175 feet high and weighed more than 46,000 tons. The builders boasted that it was the most modern technology having four elevators and a wireless communications system that could transmit Morse Code; bragging that the ship was unsinkable. Recently a deep-sea submersible tragedy occurred where the vehicle imploded with five people aboard brings up the story of the Titanic's tragic sinking. 

So why did it sink after grazing an iceberg?

Experts have continually debated how such a disaster could happen taking the lives of more than 1,500 people.

First, Captain E.J. Smith was blamed for sailing such a huge ship at 22 knots through the North Atlantic known to have icebergs. In 2004, engineer Robert Essenhigh wrote in a paper that the ship was sailing at such a high speed because one of the coal bunkers was smoldering.

Another factor was that about one hour before the Titanic hit the iceberg, a nearby ship, the Californian, had radioed a message that it had been stopped in a dense field of ice. The message did not begin with “MSG” (Master's Service Gram) that would have required the captain to acknowledge receiving the message, Jack Phillips the radio operator did not consider the message urgent. The Titanic radio operator was also frustrated with a large amount of passenger messages, Phillips signaled back with the words “Shut up!”

Another factor was a story in 2010 by Louise Patten, granddaughter of a senior officer that survived, Charles Lightoller. One of the ship's crew members panicked after hearing the order to turn “hard-a-starboard” to avoid the iceberg, turned the wrong way.

After investigating the wreckage in the 1985 undersea discovery of the Titanic, materials scientist Tim Foecke and Jennifer McCarty blamed rapid sinking and splitting in half of the Titanic on the poor quality of the 3 million rivets that held the plates together.

Another factor was that the lookout did not have binoculars because second officer David Blair was transferred off the ship before the Titanic left Southampton and forgot to turn over the key that unlocked the storage compartment to the officer who replaced him.

Looking at the various reasons the Titanic sank, the horrific amount of lost lives could have been avoided if the ship had enough lifeboats for its passengers and crew. Titanic left Southampton with only 20 lifeboats. Maurice Clark, the civil servant who inspected the Titanic in Southampton, recommended in handwritten notes that the Titanic should have 30 lifeboats. After the Titanic struck the iceberg, panic had ensued and the 20 lifeboats that departed the sinking ship had about 400 empty seats.