Unveiling the Truth Behind the Sinking of the Titanic
Why did the Titanic, boasted as unsinkable, sink on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg and quickly sinking to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, causing the loss of over 1,000 lives? Behind all this, was it due to human negligence or inherent fatal flaws in the ship itself?As the largest and most luxurious passenger liner of its time, the Titanic was 269 meters long, 28 meters wide, and weighed 46,000 tons. It featured 16 watertight compartments and state-of-the-art automatic watertight doors to prevent water ingress in case of damage. The ship's hull was constructed with over 2,000 steel plates, 3 cm thick, riveted together with more than 30,000 iron rivets. However, these iron rivets became brittle in the cold, planting a safety hazard in this dream liner.
On April 14, 1912, the Titanic set sail on its maiden voyage with over 2,000 passengers aboard. Unbeknownst to all, the ship would strike an iceberg and sink rapidly in the Atlantic Ocean just four days later. But why did this happen? Engineers had conducted various impact tests during the design phase, suggesting that the ship could withstand damage to its first six compartments before it would sink. So, how did a single iceberg manage to defeat the most advanced liner of its time so quickly?
Firstly, the Titanic was traveling at a high speed, powered by 29 boiler rooms supplying two steam engines and a new turbine engine, providing over 45,000 horsepower. This propelled the ship to sail at 43 km/h through the dark, cold ocean. Secondly, the lookout's height of 27 meters offered a 19 km view during the day, but at night, even with the moonlight, the low-lying icebergs were visible only when they were very close. When there was no light, the ship's own illumination was insufficient, and icebergs could only be spotted at a very short distance. Thus, when the crew spotted the iceberg, the Titanic, traveling at full speed, had less than a minute to evade it. Despite the captain's immediate order to turn, the ship's steering was not agile enough. Although the bow avoided a direct hit, the side struck the iceberg, and the impact, combined with the cold, caused the rivets to snap, tearing a huge gash and breaching four compartments.
But why did the ship sink in just over two hours, given it had 16 compartments? Initially, this puzzled researchers until a French-American team discovered the wreck at a depth of 3,600 meters south of Newfoundland in September 1985. The Titanic, designed with large open spaces for ballrooms and dining halls, had compromised watertight compartment design, leaving gaps at the top. As the ship tilted, water cascaded into the next compartment, and the crew's pumps couldn't compete with the influx. The bow sank lower, causing the ship to lift and eventually split in two, with both sections sinking to the bottom of the sea.
In other words, if the compartments had fully sealed off the water, the Titanic could have drifted for days, buying time for rescue. In the end, only 700 passengers survived, while 1,517, including the world's richest man at the time, Astor IV, were lost at sea, forever.