Who was to blame for the sinking of the Titanic and why?
As the story goes they say it's the icebergs fault for the sinking of the ship. When in reality, the White Star Line was truly at fault for the sinking of the Titanic. They are responsible for this tragedy because they went full speed after ignoring six ice warnings.
Smith was accused of ignoring ice warnings from other ships and failing to reduce the ship's speed to fit the conditions at hand. The British inquiry essentially exonerated him, saying he did nothing other captains wouldn't have done.
The Titanic sank from human error. According to the granddaughter of the second officer of the Titanic, Louise Patten, a new steering system led to a mistake by the steersman, Robert Hitchins, into going "hard a port" instead of "hard a starboard" and straight into the iceberg instead of away from it.
Captain Smith having done all man could do for the safety of passengers and crew remained at his post on the sinking ship until the end. His last message to the crew was 'Be British.'"
Scientists specializing in metallurgy say they've concluded the Titanic's fatal flaw was in its rivets.
None more so than the chairman of the White Star Line, J Bruce Ismay. Ismay became known as the “coward of the Titanic” after he made it off the ship, which sank on 15th April 1912 with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
The sea's surface shone like glass, making it hard to spot icebergs, common to the North Atlantic in spring. Nevertheless, Captain Smith kept the ship at full speed. He believed the crew could react in time if any were sighted. (Related: go on the trail of Titanic in the UK.)
The average lifespan of an iceberg in the North Atlantic typically is two to three years from calving to melting. This means the iceberg that sank the Titanic "likely broke off from Greenland in 1910 or 1911, and was gone forever by the end of 1912 or sometime in 1913."
Gallo said remnants of those who died likely disappeared decades ago. Sea creatures would've eaten away flesh because protein is scarce in the deep ocean, and bones dissolve at great ocean depths because of seawater's chemistry, Gallo said. The Titanic sits about 2.4 miles (3.8 kilometers) below the surface.
After the Titanic sank, searchers recovered 340 bodies. Thus, of the roughly 1,500 people killed in the disaster, about 1,160 bodies remain lost.
Will Titanic rust away?
A newly discovered species of rust-eating bacterium found on the ship has been named Halomonas titanicae, which has been found to cause rapid decay of the wreck. Henrietta Mann, who discovered the bacteria, has estimated that the Titanic will completely collapse possibly as soon as 2030.
Photo copyright by Carol Goodwin, used by permission. Five days after the passenger ship the Titanic sank, the crew of the rescue ship Mackay-Bennett pulled the body of a fair-haired, roughly 2-year-old boy out of the Atlantic Ocean on April 21, 1912.
This illustration from the late nineteenth century shows Pocahontas, the young daughter of Powhatan, the chief of the Algonquian Indians of the Chesapeake, pleading for the life of John Smith, a leader of the Jamestown colony.
While we cannot know for sure how he spent his final moments, it is known that Captain Edward Smith perished in the North Atlantic along with 1517 others on April 15, 1912. His body was never recovered.
Crashing into the iceberg head-on
If the ship had hit the iceberg head-on therefore, it's predicted that only the first three or four watertight compartments would have been flooded, a less severe alternative to what actually happened.
The lookouts on the Titanic didn't see the Iceberg due to still weather conditions and a moonless night. The Titanic had two lookouts who were located in the crows nest, 29 meters about the deck, neither of which had binoculars.
Bruce Ismay, chairman of Titanic's owner the White Star Line persuaded the captain to continue sailing, sinking the ship hours faster than would otherwise have happened. “If Titanic had stood still, she would have survived at least until the rescue ship came and no one need have died,” Patten said.
Who was the oldest on board the Titanic. The oldest passenger on board the Titanic was Johan Svensson, who was 74 years old when the Titanic sailed. The oldest woman on board was first class passenger Mary Eliza Compton, aged 64.
| Edith Rosenbaum Russell | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 12, 1879 Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | April 4, 1975 (aged 95) London, England, UK |
| Occupation | Fashion journalist, stylist and buyer |
| Known for | surviving the sinking of the Titanic |
One of these is a species of bacteria -- named Halomonas titanicae after the great ship -- that lives inside icicle-like growths of rust, called "rusticles." These bacteria eat iron in the ship's hull and they will eventually consume the entire ship, recycling the nutrients into the ocean ecosystem.
Did captains have to sink with their ship?
The captain is not obligated to drown on principle. There are, certainly, examples where a captain has elected to remain on a boat while it sank into the sea (E. J. Smith, captain of the Titanic, is perhaps the individual best known for doing so). This, however, is not a reasonable job expectation.
Edward John Smith say "Even God himself couldn't sink this ship," Foster said.
Both inquiries concluded the vessel had gone to the bottom intact. Blame for the incident fell on the ship's deceased captain, E. J. Smith, who was condemned for racing at 22 knots through a known ice field in the dark waters off the coast of Newfoundland.
In 1912 he left command of the Olympic to helm the Titanic on its maiden voyage from Southampton, England, to New York City in April. Several days into the voyage, the Titanic received iceberg warnings, and Smith altered the ship's course, though he did not decrease speed.
If a ship is sinking, maritime tradition dictates that the captain ensures the safe evacuation of every passenger before he evacuates himself. He (or she) is responsible for the lives of those onboard, and he can't coordinate their exit unless he's the last person off.
SS Californian was a British Leyland Line steamship. It is thought to have been the only ship to see the Titanic, or at least its rockets, during the sinking, but despite being the closest ship in the area, the crew took no action to assist.
"He held the little girl under one arm," said James McGann, a fireman, "as he jumped into the sea and endeavored to reach the nearest lifeboat with the child. I took the other child into my arms as I was swept from the bridge deck.