Iceberg Or Human Factor: Titanic

Everyone must have heard about the Titanic, that large and luxurious ocean liner way back in 1912, which left Belfast harbor for New York City for its maiden voyage. Ironically, the Titanic was talked about a million times more, not because it was a luxury ship but because of its tragic end, when more than 1,500 died in one of the worst maritime disasters in history.

What really caused it to sink? Almost all historical sources would point to the ship hitting the iceberg as it was sailing fast at 22 knots through the iceberg-heavy waters. Some fingers were even pointed at a crew member who apparently panicked and did the wrong turn, a theory which cannot be discounted because ships during those times were operated on two different steering order systems.

But digging deep into the historical archives will lead us to quite an alarming but very substantiated fact. That is, there was an ongoing fire in the ship’s boiler room, and very likely, that could have triggered the Titanic to sail at full speed. To make matters worse, it was speculated that the fire in the boiler room could have been raging even for days and weeks prior to departing for its maiden but tragic voyage.

What somehow clears up the air was the formal inquiry, which points to the fact that there was indeed a coal fire raging for days below the deck, even as the ship still sailed as scheduled with that fire burning in the hull.

How would we then reconcile that ‘iceberg theory’ with this fire in the hull? That 30-foot long dark mark on the hull was the very point where the iceberg struck the ship. Both engineers and firefighters corroborated that the mark on the hull was caused by the coal fire that was raging in the ship’s bunker. Based on numerous and complementary testimonies, the stokers were shoveling the coal to burn the fire away, and with that effect of excess coal, getting burned triggered the ship’s engines to generate speed. And this corroborates one of the validated facts that the ship was sailing at full speed when it finally hit the iceberg.

Enough said the Titanic sank because of the explosion arising from that raging fire as the ship, at its full speed, did hit the iceberg-heavy waters.

With all these, we hope we can rest the case of Titanic by now.