On This Day: “Unsinkable” Titanic Lost After Hitting Iceberg

The Titanic, full of wealthy celebrity passengers, had left Southampton, England, on April 10, for its first trip across the Atlantic Ocean. The ship, which was part of the White Star Line, was the largest and most luxurious ship of its time. Its design, with “16 supposedly watertight compartments” was what made people think it was unsinkable, according to the History Channel.

“The Titanic’s engineers believed it would be able to remain afloat even if as many as four of the compartments were flooded,” the History Channel said.

On the night of April 14, the ship’s crew had been warned about ice in the vicinity of its path through the North Atlantic. According to PBS, several factors were against the Titanic’s crew that night, besides the ice warning, which came late in the season. The night was dark, without the benefit of the moon; there were no binoculars in the crow’s nest, which may have been used to spot the iceberg sooner; and finally, says PBS, quoting the book “Lost Liners,” “the ship might have been saved had the officers on the bridge steered her straight into it rather than turning the wheel.” The iceberg, which was seen too late for the ship to avoid, scratched the hull. Six of the ship’s compartments took on water, which “sealed her fate,” the book said.

According to the History Channel, the Titanic collided with the iceberg at 11:40 p.m., and at midnight the captain told his crew to get the lifeboats ready. The first lifeboat left the ship approximately 45 minutes later.

PBS described the evacuations, and explained that at first, no one was particularly concerned about the iceberg collision. “Lost Liners” reported that some of the first lifeboats that left the ship weren’t full. The History Channel said some people didn’t want to leave the luxurious ship for a row boat in the middle of the chilly North Atlantic night.

But even if the lifeboats had been full, there weren’t enough for everyone, and 1,500 people were still on the ship after the last one left. The History Channel said the water that night was 28 degrees, and most of the people lost died from hypothermia.

The evacuation efforts were hampered by class considerations, as well. According to Lost Liners, “Until near the end, some of the third-class passengers remained trapped below decks, prevented by locked gates and stern stewards from reaching the boats.”

The History Channel describes a maze of passages that third class passengers had to take to get to the lifeboats. Stewards had to help them up to the decks. The History Channel quoted the book “Unsinkable: The Full Story of the RMS Titanic” by Daniel Butler: “none of the women and children from steerage who reached the boat deck were prevented from getting into the lifeboats.”

The ship eventually broke into two sections and sank below the water less than three hours after hitting the iceberg, the History Channel said.

Another ocean liner, the Carpathia, had heard the Titanic’s distress call that was sent out around 12:15 a.m. That liner arrived on the scene around 4 a.m. and “rescued 705 survivors from lifeboats.”

Stories of survivors and those who died have lived on for years. “Lost Liners” recounts the story of Isidor Straus, one of Macy’s founders. His wife Ida reportedly refused to leave the ship without him, saying, “We have lived together many years. Where you go, I go.”

Within days of the Titanic’s loss, the United States Senate convened a special subcommittee to investigate the sinking. Hearings started April 19 at New York City’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel, and then moved to Washington, D.C., according to the U.S. Senate.

The Senate recounts that 82 witnesses testified about what went wrong, including, “ice warnings that were ignored, the inadequate number of lifeboats, the ship’s speed, the failure of nearby ships to respond to the Titanic’s distress calls.” Witnesses also described how passengers were treated differently based on their class.

Transcripts of the hearings ran more than 1,100 pages, and Congress ultimately passed laws honoring officers and crew of the Carpathia, as well as establishing a memorial to officers who were lost with the Titanic.

After the Titanic sank, engineers used some of the lessons learned from the tragedy to improve ship safety. Improvements were incorporated into the Titanic’s sister ship, the Britannic. During World War I, the Britannic was hit by a torpedo or bomb while traveling off the coast of Greece and sank. The fact is an unsinkable ship doesn’t exist. Any ship is vulnerable under the right circumstances. But one safety improvement did save lives: the Britannic had enough life boats for everyone, something the Titanic lacked. According to Nova, “This addition helped save the lives of most of those aboard the Britannic.”

There was debate in the decades after the tragedy as to whether the Titanic was actually advertised as “unsinkable.”

Snopes.com, a site devoted to proving or disproving urban legends and other rumors, quotes Walter Lord, who wrote the book “Titanic.” He said the claim wasn’t something in advertisements or added after the ship was lost. “It was the considered opinion of experts at the time.”

Though the Titanic’s sinking was a famous event broadcast throughout the world, its final resting spot was a mystery for decades. Dr. Robert Ballard is credited with finding the Titanic with the help of a French expedition on Sept. 1, 1985.

It was found approximately 230 miles south of Nova Scotia, according to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. The debris sat on the ocean floor 12,400 feet below the surface.

A researcher has suggested that British men on the Titanic were more likely to die because they acted like gentlemen, waiting in line for lifeboats and following the “women and children first” convention. Americans, on the other hand, were 8.5 percent more likely to survive. The researcher, David Savage, suggested two factors that may have contributed, according to findingDulcinea: American men “were less likely to politely line up for lifeboats, and most of them were in first-class compartments, which were closer to the lifeboat deck.” Savage found no evidence, though, that Americans “behaved rudely in their effort to leave the Titanic,” according to findingDulcinea.