Everyone knows the story of the Titanic crash. Many have seen films about this disaster. This is a terrifyingly true story about an "unsinkable ship" that sank anyway and claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people.
In fact, there were many opportunities to prevent this tragedy or make it less catastrophic. Only human errors, and sometimes laziness and callousness, made this disaster so terrible. Here are some facts about this gruesome shipwreck.
There was a ship nearby that could save people
Despite the fact that the Titanic was not the first ship in history to use the SOS distress signal, wireless communication was still new at the time, so not every ship used it.
This explains why no one heard the distress signal on board the Californian ship that passed alongside the Titanic. The Californian had only one wireless operator. He just turned it off and went to bed. If the operator had not done this, then about 15 minutes after the collision of the Titanic with the iceberg, he would have heard a distress signal.
It would have taken the Californian crew about an hour to get to the Titanic, and perhaps they could have saved all the passengers. The crew even saw flares, but the captain considered that these were not emergency signals, so he decided not to take them seriously. When the wireless connection was turned on the next morning, nothing was left of the Titanic except bodies floating in the ocean.
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Shame on those who haven't died
Everyone has a survival instinct, and everyone doesn't want to die. Even a hundred years after the sinking of the Titanic, people continue to be judged for what they did during the disaster.
Masabumi Hosono was the only Japanese to survive on the Titanic, and because of this, he was branded a coward for the rest of his life. However, it was not his fault, but simply got into the lifeboat, as there were no women and children in the queue.
In Japanese culture, shame and duty play an important role, and when Honoso returned home, he was not called a hero, but a coward. Shame followed him all his life and even after death.
The binoculars were locked
The two guys who were on patrol on the fateful night did not see the iceberg, and when they did, it was too late. This was due to the fact that the binoculars were locked, and the marines did not have the key to the box.
In fact, the key was in the pocket of David Blair, who landed at Southampton. In his haste, he forgot to give the key to his deputy. Perhaps, if the watchmen saw the iceberg in time, the disaster would not have happened.
Lifeboats
Everyone knows that the Titanic did not have enough lifeboats. In the event of a ship wreck, the death of people was still inevitable. There were about 2,223 passengers on board the Titanic (the exact number is not known), and the capacity of the boats was 1,178 people.
Nevertheless, there were only 712 survivors. Many of the lifeboats were only half full. It sounds crazy, but this filling of boats was dictated by precautions. Many of the officers in charge of filling the boats operated on a strict "women and children only" principle. However, when they could not recruit the required number of women and children, they launched the boats, half full.
The Titanic was supposed to have 64 lifeboats, but in fact there were only 20 of them, as they thought the ship would look very cluttered.
The mounts were of poor quality
It is very difficult to believe that one iceberg could sink such a huge ship. For a while, researchers believed that the Titanic's builders used low-quality steel, but this theory was rejected after all the required tests were carried out. Only six small breaks in the case were identified. This was not enough to sink such a ship, as it had 16 watertight compartments.
However, the studies carried out showed that the fasteners contained a lot of slag, much more than the standards allowed. This made the fasteners too fragile at low temperatures, so the iceberg simply cut off the bolt heads that could not withstand the pressure of the water.
Wreck of "Titan"
The builders of the Titanic probably didn't read too much popular fiction. If they had read the book "The Wreck of the Titan", they might have picked up a different name for the ship.
According to the work, the fictional ship Titan was the largest and unsinkable. He also hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and did not have enough lifeboats on board.
The passenger has already survived one shipwreck
Every life lost on the Titanic was a real tragedy. Especially striking is the story of Ramon Artagaveiti, who has already survived the downfall of "America" During the trip, he often had nightmares. He could not travel for a long time, as he was madly afraid of a repetition of history.
However, a few years later he wrote to his brother that he believed in the Titanic, that it was a majestic and unsinkable ship. However, he was greatly mistaken. Artagaveitia's body was found about a week after the sinking of the Titanic.
Acts of Heroism on the Titanic
It was not possible to save everyone on the Titanic. However, on that fateful night, there were many acts of heroism that helped save the lives of individuals.
There were 35 engineers on the Titanic, who remained at their posts until the last and provided the ship's lighting. This helped to avoid passenger panic and allowed the crew to fill the lifeboats normally. Electricity also made it possible to send a distress signal to radio operators.
False sense of security
In the film by James Cameron "Titanic" is shown a huge ship, which split into two parts at a large angle, and its stern was above the water for a long time. This is likely, although not certain.
In 2008, Roger Long reported that, according to research, the tilt angle was 11 degrees or less. Long says that the ship began to break down and then regained its buoyancy. This gave the passengers a false sense of security. Some of them chose to stay on the deck of the ship rather than board the lifeboats.
The theory of low angle fracture has other evidence as well. Many eyewitnesses say that he simply disappeared under the surface of the water. The few who mentioned the large angle probably saw an optical illusion.
Most of the victims didn't drown
4 days after the disaster, a message appeared stating that in fact not all of the victims drowned. The fact is that the water in the North Atlantic was -3 degrees Celsius on the night of the dive. This is 4 degrees below the freezing point of fresh water.
After the sinking of the "Titanic", in fact, there were not many victims who drowned immediately. Those who remained on the ship probably drowned when the Titanic sank, but those who jumped into the water were wearing life jackets, so they did not drown, but simply died from hypothermia. This is also evidenced by the fact that those who were in the boats heard a rumble in the water.
As a result of hypothermia, people lost consciousness and swallowed water. Therefore, most people died from hypothermia. If the Titanic had been in warm waters, then there probably would have been few casualties.
Who will pay for the tainted uniform
The sinking of the Titanic was a grief for everyone. However, the relatives had not yet had time to recover from the death of their loved ones, as the relatives of the musicians who played on the ship and sank with it sent a bill for the uniform.
The company that provided a uniform for the musicians did a terrible thing.
Olga Simchenko
