More than a hundred years have passed since the sinking of the famous ocean liner "Titanic", during which more than 1,500 people died. Over the past century, many versions of the reasons for this terrible event have been expressed: from the obvious to the most incredible. We decided to consider the most famous of them.
The culprit of the disaster - the moon
As you know, the Titanic sank due to the fact that it ran into an iceberg.
But it is still unclear why there was an accumulation of drifting ice floes in the path of the ship. Seismologists at the University of Texas tried to answer this question.
In their opinion, the reason for the tragedy was the Moon, which on January 4, 1912 approached the Earth at an incredibly close distance. Such a convergence happened for the first time in 1.4 thousand years. As a result, strong sea tides occurred, which changed the course of icebergs moving off the coast of Canada, and by April 14, they could just be in the path of the liner.
Chasing the Blue Ribbon
However, the previous version does not in the least exclude another possible cause of the ship's death. The captain of the Titanic, Edward John Smith, knew that there was ice ahead, because he had been repeatedly warned of danger from other ships, but he still did not deviate from the course. Why? It is possible that he was chasing the Atlantic Blue Ribbon, a prize awarded for the fastest crossing of the Atlantic Ocean.
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The Olympic-class ships, one of which was the Titanic, were originally built by the White Star Line to compete with the ships of the Cunard Line. The liner of the last, "Mauritania", from 1907 held the lead of speed on the route between Europe and North America. He developed an average speed of about 26 knots. Titanic - about 25 knots. So Captain Edward John Smith had every chance to snatch the Blue Ribbon from Mauritania. Perhaps that is why he deliberately took the risk.
Titanic shortsighted gazer
But despite all this, the Titanic could have avoided a collision if the lookout had spotted an iceberg in the path in time. And he could not notice the ice floe due to the fact that he simply did not have binoculars. It so happened that just before the voyage, the management of the White Star Line decided to replace the first mate on the ship, appointing Henry Wilde, who had experience in managing huge liners, to this place. But in handing over the powers, the previous first mate David Blair forgot to give Wilde the keys to the safe in which the binoculars were kept. So the lookouts had to rely only on their own eyes.
Black iceberg
In principle, the reason for the Titanic catastrophe could be an iceberg that is difficult to see even with binoculars. As you know, ice floes are white and are perfectly visible at a great distance. This one turned out to be the so-called black iceberg - overturned, due to which its darkened underwater part was on the surface. The night was moonless, which further reduced visibility, and the weather was calm, so that the lookout could not even see the lambs of the waves forming around the iceberg.
Left or right
And yet, when the lookout Frederick Fleet noticed an ice floe at a distance of about 450 meters, the Titanic still had a chance to avoid a collision.
Fleet immediately reported the danger to the bridge. The command sounded: "Right on board!" But the ship turned in the opposite direction. There was a blow and the rattle of the torn skin. As the second mate Charles Lightoller later recalled, the helmsman simply turned the steering wheel to the wrong place. The fact is that the command “right to board” actually means turning the ship to the left: the starboard side should be in front, and the bow should go to the left. Apparently, in panic, the helmsman took the command literally.
Constructor error
By the way, according to statistics, in the twenty years before the sinking of the "Titanic" collisions with icebergs happened more than once, but only one ship was seriously damaged, and even then there were no casualties. Why didn't the Titanic, which was advertised as unsinkable, survive such a blow? It is quite possible that this is due to a miscalculation of the designers. In 1994, a piece of the ship's hull was lifted from the bottom of the ocean and subjected to laboratory analysis.
It turned out that steel with a large admixture of phosphorus was used during the construction of the ship, which made it very fragile at low temperatures. If the body were made of high quality steel, it would bend on impact. Then the damage would be minimal.
Not the Titanic sank
What if the Titanic was specially sent to meet with the iceberg? It turns out that there is such a version. The fact is that on September 20, 1911, the Olympic - the twin of the Titanic - collided with the British cruiser Hawk. The White Star Line Company, which was experiencing financial difficulties at that time, hoped to improve its position at the expense of insurance. But the liner was almost not injured in the collision, and insurance was denied. And then the company decided to cheat: the hastily patched Olympic was made up to look like the Titanic and was deliberately taken to the icebergs zone so that it got enough hole to pay insurance.
Of course, the White Star Line management had no idea that the ice mountain would send the ship to the bottom.
Fire aboard the Titanic
The version has been repeatedly expressed that the iceberg has nothing to do with it.
For example, British explorer Ray Boston, studying the disaster for twenty years, came to the conclusion that the fire was the real cause of the ship's death.
12 days before the sinking of the Titanic, spontaneous combustion occurred in its coal bunker. The team did not manage to completely extinguish the fire. But White Star Line officials decided not to cancel the costly maiden voyage, hoping the fire would stop on its own due to lack of air. Otherwise, it was planned, after disembarking passengers in New York, to unload the coal bunkers and call the fire brigade. And yet there was a good chance that the ship would explode right in the middle of the ocean.
Perhaps that is why, at the beginning of the journey, when the Titanic made a stopover in the Irish town of Queenstown, the fireman John Kofi deserted from the ship. The owner of the White Star Line, John Morgan, also knew about the possible explosion - he was among the passengers, but refused to sail a day before departure, citing poor health. This explains why Captain Edward John Smith tried to get to New York as quickly as possible, ignoring reports of icebergs. According to Ray Boston, the Titanic broke exactly in the place where there was a fire: most likely, a boiler exploded there. And the collision with the iceberg is just a coincidence.
German torpedo
Indeed, many passengers who escaped from the Titanic claimed that they heard an explosion after the collision with the iceberg. But there is an opinion that it was not the boiler that exploded at all, but the German torpedo! There were just over two years left before the start of the First World War.
At that time, the commander of the German fleet, Alfred von Tirpitz, was intensively building submarines, hoping that they would become the main weapon against the British fleet. The Titanic could easily become a target for a German submarine. Firstly, on the liner Tirpitz could test the combat power of his brainchildren, and secondly, in this way he eliminated a potential enemy. Indeed, during the war years, all passenger ships were converted into military ones. For example, the above-mentioned "Mauritania" was used as a military transport.
Pharaoh's curse
And here is another, perhaps the most incredible version of the disaster: "Titanic" was drowned by an Egyptian mummy! In the 1880s, during excavations near Cairo, the mummy of the soothsayer Amen-Otu, who lived during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep IV, was discovered. Until 1912, it was exhibited in the British Museum, but it was bought by some American collector. They decided to deliver the mummy to America on the Titanic. They did not dare to transport such a valuable cargo in the hold and placed it right behind the captain's bridge of the liner.
It was said that at the head of the soothsayer's remains lay a figurine of the god Osiris with the inscription: "Rise from the dust, and your gaze will crush all who are in your path." Perhaps it was this ancient prophecy that brought disaster to the Titanic?