Why Did the Titanic Sink?

What happened on the night of April 14–15, 1912?

The Titanic was on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York when it hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic.^[5][6] The British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry, headed by Lord Mersey, timed the collision at 11:40 p.m. ship's time on Sunday, April 14, and the sinking at 2:20 a.m. on April 15, 2 hours and 40 minutes later.^[1]

A little before 11:40, a lookout struck the warning gong three times and telephoned the bridge to report an iceberg right ahead.^[1] The officer of the watch, Mr. Murdoch, ordered the helm hard over and the engines reversed, but the ship struck the iceberg on its starboard side.^[1] The inquiry put the iceberg only about 500 yards away when it was sighted.^[1]

Why was the iceberg damage fatal?

The damage ran along about 300 feet of the hull, low on the starboard side, and opened six forward compartments to the sea: the forepeak, holds No. 1, 2 and 3, and boiler rooms No. 6 and No. 5.^[1]

The Titanic's bulkheads were spaced so that it could stay afloat with any two compartments flooded.^[1] It would even have floated with its four forward compartments flooded, the inquiry found, but not with the forward boiler room flooded too.^[1] Within the first 10 minutes, water stood about 14 feet above the keel in the five forward compartments, more than the pumps could handle.^[1] With those five flooded, water would spill over each bulkhead into the next boiler room in turn until the ship filled and sank.^[1]

Did the inquiries blame speed, ice warnings or the lookout?

The British court's formal finding blamed the collision on excessive speed.^[1] The ship was making about 22 knots and never slowed until the collision was unavoidable.^[1]

Ice warnings had come in by wireless that day, including messages from the Caronia at 9 a.m. and the Baltic at 1:42 p.m.^[1] A message from the Mesaba, received at 9:40 p.m., reported heavy pack ice and many large icebergs, but the court found that it apparently never reached an officer.^[1] Even so, the captain and three of his officers knew that evening that the ship was entering a region where ice might be expected.^[1]

The night was clear and moonless, and Second Officer Lightoller described the sea as "absolutely flat", with no breeze to make ripples break at the base of a berg.^[1] The court judged the lookout insufficient for those conditions and that speed: an extra lookout should have been posted at the bow, and an officer should have kept watch from both sides of the bridge.^[1] The lookouts had no binoculars, though the court did not consider them necessary.^[1]

Lord Mersey did not find Captain Smith negligent, because liners had long kept their course and speed near ice in clear weather and trusted a sharp lookout.^[1] He called that practice bad and warned that the same mistake would be negligence in future.^[1]

A U.S. Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator William Alden Smith heard 82 witnesses on ignored ice warnings, the ship's speed, the shortage of lifeboats and the failure of nearby ships to answer distress calls, and reported on May 28, 1912.^[2]

Why did so many people die?

The British report counted 2,201 people on board and 20 boats with room for 1,178, while the U.S. Senate report put lifeboat capacity at 1,176.^[1][3] That was still more than the law required, because British rules issued in 1894 were based on a ship's tonnage, not on the number of people carried.^[1][3] By the British report's calculation, the rules demanded space for only 962 people on a ship like the Titanic; a Library of Congress blog post gives 990 for ships over 10,000 tons.^[1][3]

The boats were also not filled: the rescue ship Carpathia took only 712 people from them, one of whom died shortly afterwards.^[1] The inquiry calculated that only 652 of those saved could have left the ship in boats, an average of about 36 per boat.^[1] It noted that many people did not realize the danger at first and that there had been no proper boat drill.^[1]

• People on board2,201 people
• Lifeboat places1,178 people
• People saved711 people

Source: British Wreck Commissioner's Court, 1912; reprinted as U.S. Senate Document No. 933 (text hosted by Project Gutenberg) [1]

Sources do not agree on the exact toll.^[1][4] The British report counts 711 saved out of 2,201, a loss of 1,490 lives.^[1] The U.S. National Archives gives 2,223 aboard, 1,517 dead and 706 picked up by the Carpathia.^[4] The U.S. Coast Guard says more than 1,500 of 2,224 people died, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) gives 1,503 deaths, and NOAA puts 2,240 people on board.^[6][7][8]

What changed after the Titanic sank?

Lord Mersey recommended that lifeboat space be based on the number of people carried, not on tonnage, and be sufficient for everyone on board except where the Board of Trade judged that impracticable.^[1] The Senate committee also recommended lifeboat capacity for every passenger, lifeboat drills and regulation of radiotelegraphy.^[2]

The United Kingdom then called a conference of maritime nations, and 13 countries signed the first International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) on January 20, 1914.^[7] Its Article 40 addressed the shortage of lifeboats, and the convention also provided for a North Atlantic ice patrol.^[7] World War I kept it from entering into force as planned in 1915, though individual nations adopted many of its provisions, and SOLAS has since been revised many times.^[7]

The International Ice Patrol was formed in 1914 as a direct result of the disaster.^[4] Now a branch of the U.S. Coast Guard, it monitors iceberg danger in the North Atlantic.^[4][6]

When was the wreck of the Titanic found?

The wreck was discovered on September 1, 1985, by a joint American-French expedition led by Dr. Robert Ballard of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Jean-Louis Michel of the French research institute IFREMER.^[8] It lies about 350 nautical miles off Newfoundland, Canada, at a depth of about 12,500 feet (3,800 meters).^[8]

The 1912 British report stated that the ship did not break in two, whereas NOAA's account says the Titanic broke apart and sank.^[1][8]