The Unsinkable Titanic

[Music] april the 10th 1912 rms titanic the largest man-made moving object in the world set off for its maiden voyage across the north atlantic [Music] five days later the world was stunned when she sank killing over 1500 passengers and crew the sinking of the titanic has become one of the most famous and tragic stories of all time but how she met her fate was not just the result of a collision between a liner and an iceberg it was caused by a freak combination of technical miscalculation human error and extraordinary bad luck from the very day that she was designed she was almost doomed a century after the sinking with the benefit of forensic analysis of the wreck and of the historical records this film reveals the chain of events that brought about the demise of a ship that was thought to be unsinkable and led to the greatest maritime loss in modern [Music] history [Music] icebergs are one of the most beautiful things you find in nature and yet every one of them is dangerous to the mariner it's early in the season but we think we are looking at a very active year with over 300 icebergs across 48 degrees north so far probably similar to what it was in 1912. roger that thank you you are cleared off clear it off okay the deflector doors are open one of the things we do every year is deploy wreaths as close to the position that the titanic sank as possible it is with a great respect and reverence that we commemorate the anniversary of the sinking of the rms titanic here in the north atlantic 96 years ago and we remember the importance of our mission we remember the over 1500 souls who perished on that fateful day april 15 1912 roger that thank you the fact that over 1500 people lost their lives is an awful thing as an unspeakable thing that we don't ever want to happen again [Music] news about the number of lives lost broke on april the 16th 1912 one day after the disaster grieving relatives of the victims were desperate to know how the impossible could have happened the titanic was designed to be the most luxurious but also the safest ship ever built even if she was rammed by another ship she would stay afloat yet she took only two hours to sink after colliding with an iceberg [Music] two weeks later a public inquiry was set up to find out if the disaster could have been avoided and if anyone was responsible for the loss of 1523 lives [Music] the chief counsel for the british government was the celebrated barrister sir rupert isaacs the key witness was bruce ismey the 50 year old chairman of white star the owner of titanic and one of the few men who would survive the maiden voyage [Music] also called were wireless operator harold bride and second officer charles lightholer the most senior officer to survive as most of the crew had died in the disaster these three men's testimony would be vital in deciding whether the ship's crew or the ship's owners had been negligent [Music] i gather that you yourself gave the instructions for the building of the titanic yes and of course you considered the question of floatability of the ship in cases of accident or emergency we did did you give any special consideration to the question of providing additional lifeboat accommodation i think the position was taken that the ship was looked upon as being practically unsinkable was looked upon as a lifeboat herself [Music] two years before the scheduled launch date is may had met with his chief designer alexander carlisle it was a meeting that would start the chain of events that would lead to disaster their first decision would compromise the structural integrity of the ship the staircase needs to be much grander the bulkhead will have to be lowered is there a problem isn't she safe of course excuse me each of the 16 compartments is watertight in the event of a leak each compartment can be sealed up by an electric power door operated from the bridge even if four compartments flood she'll stay afloat good let's lower the bulkheads then i want a great sweeping luxurious staircase the height of the watertight compartments would be lowered to only 10 feet above the waterline the boat deck should not be so cluttered cluttered yes cluttered people don't pay to look at life bets well i thought 48 to be a reasonable amount especially if the board of trade increased the requirements well let's not second-guess the british border trade shall we let's move on to the grand salon and this meeting with mr is may lasted four hours yes we talked about the whole of the decorations of the ship never mind the decorations we're talking about lifeboats well the lifeboat part is supposed to take about five or ten minutes how many lifeboats did you think there ought to be i thought that would be three on each set of davits and how many would that make all together 48 votes you thought there ought to be 48 yes whereas in point of fact how many were there sixteen sixteen [Music] while carlisle was changing his designs for the titanic two thousand miles away on the west greenland coast a glacier made of ten thousand year old snow reached the ocean a mass of ice then broke free from the glacier giving birth to an iceberg [Music] it was one of forty thousand icebergs born each year along the greenland coast [Music] one month later the newly created iceberg had started a journey that could last over two years and take it around baffin bay and to newfoundland but the chances of surviving the treacherous seas was slim tens of thousands of icebergs break off of greenland every year come down the coast of labrador and newfoundland and a very small percentage of those maybe only one to four percent will make their way to where they become a threat to shipping tracking the unusual path of these icebergs is a continual challenge for the ice patrol's oceanographer donald murphy people are often surprised to find out that when an iceberg comes off from the greenland glacier its first movement is not southward towards the shipping lanes but in fact it starts moving northward along the coast of greenland before its southward journey in april 1910 the iceberg continued its journey up the west greenland coast carried along by the ocean's current at the same time work began on building the hull of the titanic the largest ship in the world shipbuilding was in transition machine was replacing man and steel was replacing iron the builders of the titanic wanted the hull to be made of steel plates held together with steel rivets this was only possible using a large pneumatic riveting machine but this equipment was too bulky to be used in the curved areas of the ship so instead men had to seal the plates manually using wrought iron rivets which were easier to hammer into place [Music] it was a widespread practice and for nearly a century nobody suspected it had anything to do with the sinking of the ship but this all changed in 1996 after an expedition to the wreck of the titanic when they discovered for the first time that iron rivets had been used to make part of the hull jennifer hooper mccarty was part of a team at johns hopkins university in baltimore that began a forensic investigation of the rivets the first step in the forensic investigation was to find out what those rivets were made of and how that material would act under different mechanical tests to explore the effects of using wrought iron rather than steel a section of the titanic's hull was reproduced using steel plates held together by iron rivets we compared a wrought iron rivet to a steel rivet and found that with just very little movement of the steel plate five millimeters you would reach a point in the wrought iron rivet or when it would begin to fail [Music] so here we have a ship that's unsinkable that's state of the art for 1912 that's built with one and a half inch thick steel plates and wrought iron rivets in 1910 even though they knew that steel was stronger than iron the builders of the titanic thought that the iron in the bow section would be strong enough but it would prove to be a fatal flaw [Music] from the very day that she was designed she was almost doomed so this is the if you like you could put it as bluntly as this is almost the achilles heel of the titanic by may 1911 work on the hull was completed after checking that every steel plate and every seam was watertight it was launched into the wet dock nobody was aware of the weakness hidden away in the bow of the ship or the presence of an iceberg two thousand miles away [Music] by the summer of 1911 the iceberg was 18 months old and drifting around baffin bay an area where most icebergs come to the end of their journey only a tiny fraction would make it out into the atlantic ocean all along the path of the movement of an iceberg there are numerous bays and shallow water areas where icebergs can be trapped most of it is destroyed before it ever reaches as far south as the island of newfoundland over the next six months the titanic was in its final stages of being fitted out an army of carpenters and craftsmen were at work creating the interior splendor of the ship the captain chosen for the maiden voyage was edward john smith the most experienced captain in the white star line it was to be his last voyage before retiring smith was a very well-liked commander he was nicknamed the millionaires captain people like vanderbilt or guggenheim or even jp morgan would actually change their sailings and their travel arrangements so that they could sail in a ship commanded by captain smith in march 1912 the titanic sister ship the olympic return for emergency repairs and so work on the final stages of the titanic came to a standstill the maiden voyage had to be pushed back a month instead of march it would now be sailing in mid-april the month where most icebergs appear in the shipping lanes in the north atlantic despite only having a 1 in 100 chance of survival the iceberg had made it as far south as the east coast of newfoundland it still had a mass of over half a million tons and was drifting a further eight miles a day southward towards the shipping lanes on the 2nd of april 1912 the titanic left belfast for southampton where it would pick up its first passengers the unexpected delay of the titanic's maiden voyage forced captain smith into making a last-minute reshuffle of the crew a decision that would have profound consequences good afternoon gentlemen as you all know the olympic is currently laid up it has therefore been decided that the olympics chief officer mr wild will be joining us as chief officer so mr murdock you will now be first officer mr lighthouse you will be second officer mr blair i would like to have a word with you in private can you believe it the arrival of officers from the olympic meant that murdoch and lytollah were both demoted and blair was asked to leave the ship in his haste to disembark blair accidentally took with him the key to his locker which contained the binoculars for the lookouts in the crow's nest [Music] the captain's decision to reshuffle the crew had led to the first critical incident on board the ship the day before its maiden voyage to new york the titanic was given its final check by british board of trade inspector 16 standard lifeboats passenger capacity 65 70 of push comes to shove the size of ocean liners had quadrupled in the last 15 years but the board of trades lifeboat regulations had remained the same the board of trade wrote the regulations on life-saving and they did not keep those regulations up to date in light of ships like titanic the titanic was approved sixteen lifeboats was deemed satisfactory for over two thousand people two thousand miles away the iceberg was drifting towards 48 degrees north a line of latitude deemed critical by the international ice patrol most of the threat in terms of where the icebergs are begins at about 48 degrees north that's this magenta line going across the grand banks when there are more than a couple of icebergs south of 48 we start to get anxious about significant threat to ships [Music] the international ice patrol was set up after the sinking of the titanic to monitor the shipping lanes and worn mariners of any iceberg south of latitude 48 degrees north in 2006 we had zero icebergs cross 48 degrees north in 2007 we had 324 in 2008 in just the last three weeks we've had more than 300 the same anomaly occurred in april 1912. around 300 icebergs the greatest number for 50 years headed south into the shipping lanes [Music] at noon on april the 10th rms titanic left southampton docks for new york with 600 crew and over 1500 passengers the last living survivor is melvina dean then a 10 week old baby traveling with her parents [Music] like many of the families boarding the ship at southampton melvina's parents were looking forward to a new and prosperous life my father was going to open a tobacconist shop in kansas i imagine he spent all his money on that and then couldn't afford to could do anything else but getting first class because it was such a luxury ship all the millionaires and multimillionaires were on it and also the most important thing was they said it was unsinkable [Music] after picking up more passengers in france than ireland captain smith's plan was to cross the atlantic in six days he would need to cross the 3 000 mile ocean at just over 19 knots the equivalent of 22 miles per hour [Music] to avoid the springtime icebergs captain smith plotted a southern route across the atlantic this was standard practice for the time by going this far south captain smith would take the ship out of the known ice region the vast white iceberg had continued to drift even further southward towards an area known as the grand banks despite being eroded by the sea it was over ten times the size of the titanic approximately one-eighth of the mass of an iceberg is above the sea surface the classic term of course is just the tip of the iceberg most of the mass is below below the ocean surface and unseen what's above the surface is a relatively small portion of the ice during the months of march to august the iceberg patrolled as a reconnaissance of the grand banks ships coming across the ocean from europe to the united states or canada are going to take the shortest route possible our job is to make sure they get there safely if icebergs are in their path we need to provide that information to them so that they can deviate to the south we have fog or clouds about 70 percent of the time so that's where the radars come in we use a forward-looking radar and the side looking radar which looks 27 miles out if the seat is too calm and we are detecting too many things on the ocean surface for example fishing gear or a whale and we're not sure what it is using the radars we will descend down to 500 feet above the ocean surface to try to visually identify what that target is [Music] but back in 1912 ships had to rely on ice warnings from nearby ships and from their lookouts in the crow's nest [Music] because blair had left with a key to the binoculars locker lookouts fleet and lee had to rely on their own eyesight having been demoted from first officer to second officer charles lightholler was now responsible for the crow's nest is it not very desirable to have glasses provided for the lookout men that is a matter of opinion for the officer on watch i'm not talking about the opinion of offices in general but the particular opinion which you entertain as to the usefulness of glasses yes i uphold glasses can you explain to my lord my glasses were not provided for the lookout men on the titanic no i could not offer any explanation if it had been a matter in your discretion would you have provided them then had they been on the ship i might have done had your glasses on the bridge we had how many pairs a pair for each senior officer and uh prepare for the bridge so there would be from time to time during the whole course of the voyage a pair of glasses available on the bridge on the bridge which could have been handed up or given to the lookout man this oversight on lightholder's part would later be seized upon by the world's press [Music] 9 a.m sunday the 14th of april the titanic was already over halfway across the atlantic [Music] her 200-foot tall mast supported aerials that allowed her state-of-the-art wireless system to communicate with other ships up to 400 miles away senior wireless operator jack phillips was starting to receive ice warnings from other ships that were further to the west of them the first ice warning of the day was from the liner caronia it gave the location of an area of ice and icebergs that was one day away from the titanic [Music] jack phillips worked a shift system with his assistant harold bride you were appointed by the marconi company to serve as assistant wireless operator on the titanic yes was mr phillips the senior operator yes bride and phillips were not employed by the titanic but by marconi was a long breakfast although they maintained communication with other ships sending passenger messages was how they earned their money dear jenny roger has proposed said yes i'm frightfully worried i said yes to arthur before leaving love sis first of many no doubt lead anything before i turn him yeah you can take this to captain smith supposing a message comes to the marconi room for the captain what do you do i will take it along to the captain i suppose this would be a piece of paper yes it's a piece of paper it'd be enclosed in an envelope sir there's a lifeboat drill at 11am 11am yes sir sir mr captain smith thank you miss sarah right sir ice warnings were not unusual in spring and the ice region in the coronia message was a long way away from the titanic i shall be at the church service mr murdock and then i shall be making my rights yes sir yes that means lifeboat drills cancelled the captain never gave a reason why he canceled the lifeboat drill it was a decision that would cost many lives there would not be another drill in the event of an emergency the crew was unrehearsed [Music] while the captain was reading his sermon the iceberg was being carried further south over the grand banks by the labrador current and was now less than 300 miles away it would soon hit the gulf stream an ocean current that makes its way up from the east of the united states [Music] the gulf stream can be 15 18 degrees c in those ocean conditions an iceberg won't last very long the slapping of the waves deteriorates the iceberg at the water line and then ultimately pieces break off the medium iceberg might be gone in as little as 10 days the titanic was heading southwest towards the gulf stream in any normal year this would be too far south to encounter an iceberg but 1912 was not a normal year at midday on sunday april the 14th phillips received the second ice warning of the day it was from the steam ship baltic and gave the location of a region of ice that contained icebergs an area the titanic was heading towards the msg prefix would show it was for the captain's attention there would be five ice warnings during the day but this would be the last that the captain would receive at two o'clock in the afternoon the captain handed the message to isme anyone would think we're heading towards the north pole two weeks after the disaster the inquiry would attempt to prove that ismae had wanted the captain to keep to schedule and ignore any ice warnings why do you think the captain handed you the marconi graham as a matter of information i take it you knew of course that the proximity of icebergs was a danger you knew that much did you not there is always a danger with ice and you knew that you would be in the region of ice sometime on that sunday night yes and therefore it behooved those who were responsible for the navigation of the ship to be very careful naturally would it not be necessary to slow down for icebergs presumably so yes then what is the object of continuing at full speed through the night if you expect to meet ice why do you do it i presume that the captain would be anxious to get through the ice region he would not want to slow down upon the chance of a fog coming on so the object of it is to get through it as fast as you could i presume that if a man on a perfectly clear night could see far enough to clear an iceberg then he would be perfectly justified in getting through the ice region as quickly as possible despite the lack of evidence many american newspapers still believe that ismae had asked captain smith to go faster captain smith was commodore of the white star line he had been appointed to that position by bruce's may's father even somebody like bruce is may would be deferential to the word of captain smith captain is everything on board a ship he is god on board his word is the word of god the titanic was heading in a direction away from the iceberg but it was about to change course [Music] captain smith had planned a change in course from southwest to due west at 5 30 p.m but he delayed the change in direction by 20 minutes to allow the ship to travel further south and avoid the ice region reported in the baltics wireless message [Music] south 86 west mr hitchins [Music] steady as she goes the captain believed he was now navigating away from the ice but instead had unwittingly brought the ship on a collision course with the iceberg 6 pm sunday april 14th 1912. the titanic had just changed course and was now heading in a westerly direction across the atlantic the captain believed he was heading to a safe area of the gulf stream where there were no icebergs but in 1912 a phenomenon took place that allowed icebergs to travel further south than was thought possible the cold labrador current had pushed itself into the gulf stream forming a cold protective layer around the iceberg the labrador current goes where the gulf stream permits it to go depending upon the exact location of the gulf stream the cold water can move quite far to the south of the tail of the bank if the gulf stream is southward moving you have relatively cold water pushing very far south into the north atlantic ocean into the shipping lanes in recent years icebergs have moved as far south as the latitude of philadelphia the iceberg was 10 times the mass of the titanic and 130 miles away it had now been seen by the steamship californian which had sent a warning message to the titanic while phillips rested in the cabin next to the wireless room his assistant bride was manning the wireless although bride heard the message from the californian he did not respond although you knew that you were called you had something else to do yes what business was it that you were attending to at the time i was writing up the accounts although phillips and bride were well-trained wireless operators they were poorly paid and had to rely on sending passenger messages to earn their wages at 7 20 pm bride finished his accounts and then intercepted the message from the californian it warned of three large icebergs seen at latitude 42 degrees north longitude 49 degrees west [Music] it's for the captain i'm going to the [Music] bridge but captain smith had already left the bridge and was now dining with passengers had bride taken down the message earlier the captain would have received it and could have taken evasive action and you simply delivered it to an officer on the bridge it's for the captain yes which officer i can't remember none of the surviving officers recall ever seeing this vital message to this day nobody knows if the message was delivered at 7 30 the titanic steamed ahead at 24 miles per hour it would reach the iceberg in just over four hours even the sea conditions would play a hand in the ship's fate our take 55 captain smith checked the bridge before retiring for the night it's cold yes it is cold sir not much wind either no sir as a matter of fact it's a flat car yes a flat calm you both realized at the time that since it was a flat calm it would be more difficult to see the ice as far as the case of the burg is concerned yes it will be much more difficult naturally you wouldn't see the water breaking on it if there were no wind so you would not have that to look for [Music] there should be a certain amount of reflected light from the iceberg sir yes providing it remains clear if it becomes at all doubtful let me know at once you see can i say did i miss the lightbulb then you had both made up your minds at this time that you were about to encounter icebergs no not necessarily we knew we were in the vicinity of ice and although you crossed the atlantic for years and have ice reported and never see it at other times it it's not reported and you do see it had there been any discussion between you at all as to speed none you were going full speed ahead at this time yes about 21.5 knots you think yes you were not taking any measures to reduce the speed number lord so you were relying for safety entirely on the lookout man yes 9 45 pm the iceberg was 50 miles away there hadn't been any waves to erode it and because it was surrounded by cold water very little had melted away in the wireless room phillips had a two-hour window to send every passenger message while the titanic was in range of the cape race receiver at newfoundland but his work was interrupted by the fifth and the most critical ice warning of the day it was from another ship the ss masaba it gave the precise location of an area containing icebergs that was now only 50 miles away from the titanic [Music] the information would alert the captain that the titanic was heading straight towards the iceberg but the warning came without an msg prefix so philips interpreted the message as non-urgent and went back to sending passenger messages the unseen message from masaba was one more link in the chain of unfortunate events [Music] not only was the sea flat calm but it was also a moonless night a rare combination of conditions that made it difficult to see icebergs in the distance as was the case for all passenger ships of the day there was no official procedure for slowing down for ice traveling at almost full speed the titanic would reach the iceberg in two hours [Music] but unaware of its existence the officer's main concern was small low-lying icebergs called growlers all icebergs are dangerous but actually a small iceberg or a growler which might only be the size of a small car can be very dangerous granted the risk of a ship colliding with it is probably lower but the possibility that a ship would not see it is higher [Music] keep a sharp lookout for ice particularly small ice and growlers pass that word until daylight sir what is a growler a growler really is the worst form of ice it's a larger bird that is melted down or should i say a solid body of ice that is lower in the water and much more difficult to see than field ice or icebergs what was the ship's speed 21 knots 21 knots is about 700 yards a minute is your view that you could see a growler at a safe distance at night time going at that pace i judged that i could see a growler at a mile and a half or more probably two miles [Music] at ten o'clock fleet and lee started their watch the lookouts would keep a watch for growlers unaware that the danger ahead was from a large iceberg a hundred feet high the same height as the crow's nest [Music] in view of this accident if you were placed in similar circumstances would you still bang on at 21.5 knots well that looks like carelessness you know that we should recklessly bang on and slap her into an iceberg regardless of anything but undoubtedly we should not do that what i want to suggest to you is that it was recklessness in view of the abnormal conditions and in view of the knowledge you had that ice was in the immediate vicinity to proceed at 21.5 knots then all i can say is that recklessness applies to practically every commander in every ship that crosses the atlantic ocean also at ten o'clock murdoch arrived to take over the watch from lightholer a sea's like glass i've never seen anything like it must be off [Music] at 11 o'clock the iceberg was just 15 miles away [Music] while bride slept in the wireless cabin phillips was running out of time to send all of the passenger messages [Music] the closest ship to the titanic the californian sent a message to say they'd stopped for the night because of ice but their wireless operator had not waited for phillips to stop sending his messages and had overwritten it with a powerful signal ah bloody idiot [Music] philip's reply was to tell the californian to stop sending ice warnings while he was busy with passenger messages [Music] who is it california keeps sending weather reports i'm still plowing through this lot you want me to take over and i go back to sleep you can take over at 12. i'm not working past midnight knackered the californians response was to turn off its wireless equipment for the night the titanic had now lost radio contact with the only ship that was less than two hours away by half past 11 the iceberg was just four miles away traveling at 24 miles per hour the titanic would collide with it in 10 minutes anything no sir without binoculars the freezing air was making it hard for fleet to keep his eyes open two weeks later the public inquiry would try and establish who was to blame for the lack of binoculars in the crow's nest if there had been glasses in the crow's nest would you have used them yes constantly yes after all you are the man who discovered the iceberg yes if it was necessary to have glasses do you not think you should have gone to the bridge or telephone to the bridge and said i am told to keep a sharp lookout and i have not got any glasses they would know that but you did not call their attention to it no i did not do you think that if you had had glasses you could have seen the iceberg sooner certainly how much sooner do you think you could have seen it it's time for the ship to get out of the way so that it is your view that if you had had glasses it would have made all the difference between safety and disaster [Music] yes [Music] here's a minor it's a major orion at 11 39 the iceberg was only a thousand yards away but fleet still had not seen it [Music] smeared up there but anyone [Music] ice big right ahead [Music] harder starboard after putting the ship's engines into reverse murdoch's instinct was to steer away from the iceberg it was another decision that would seal the fate of the titanic [Music] [Applause] what did we hit an iceberg sir i've closed the watertight doors you run the warning bell yes sir i've said box all to look for any damage [Music] as a precautionary measure the engines were stopped the ship was so vast that it would take 20 minutes to assess the damage by midnight captain smith had received the damning news is anything to matter have we hit something i'm afraid so we've struck an iceberg how bad is it is she taking on water she's sinking mr esme but that's impossible in two hours she'll be at the bottom of the ocean can't we close off the compartments we have trapping hundreds of men below but it isn't working i don't understand she's supposed to stay afloat with four compartments flooding we're flooding in five compartments mr esme i'll be in the wireless room mr medic shall i prepare the lifeboat sir yes but no need to panic the passengers i understand sir [Music] the titanic would sink in two hours but if a nearby ship came to their assistance in time all 2 200 passengers and crew could be saved midnight 20 minutes after the collision with an iceberg the majority of the crew and all the passengers believed that the damage to the ship was minimal unaware that the ship was letting in water at 400 tons a minute the sheer volume of water was so much weight was drawing the bow of the vessel down and as each compartment went below the water the water flowed over into the next compartment the flooding the mathematical principles of the vessel as each compartment flooding and foundering was set if esme had not decided to lower the bulkheads then the ship would have flooded more slowly [Music] and if the ship had hit the iceberg head-on then she wouldn't have sunk at all i think if william murdoch had plowed directly into the iceberg titanic would have survived the main impact would have been taken by her collision bulkhead the steel wall right up to the weather deck the highest deck within the vessel the last time that a ship struck an iceberg was in 1879 when the ss arizona plowed into one head-on the bow was badly crushed but she stayed afloat [Music] for the next hundred years research groups would try to understand why the titanic took only two hours to sink jennifer hooper mccarty went back to the transcripts of the inquiry to understand why a glancing blow was so lethal we have very little knowledge of what that impact was like what we do know is is only based on the survivor testimony um from 1912. was the vessel still turning to port when she struck the bird can you tell us she went to pause all right and the iceberg hit her on the starboard bow could you give us some idea of what it looked like when it came it was a great big mass but you thought it was not anything very serious it was such a slight noise you thought it was nearly serious but not quite yes thank you god fleet believed the ship had merely scraped against the iceberg [Music] many of the passengers also thought the collision was insignificant some people barely felt it some explained it as sort of a glancing blow a shudder but not something that moved them across the ship the collision was so gentle that many of the passengers and crew slept through it fireman barrett was one of the most important pieces of testimony he talked about being standing in boiler room number six and seeing water coming in your name is frederick barrett yes now just tell us what happened that you saw in the stoke hold a red light goes on when the ship's supposed to stop well this red light came on i'm the man in charge of the watch i called out shots all dumpers what was the next thing that happened the crash happened before we had the they were shutting them when the crash came yes where was this crash what was it you felt or heard or saw water came pouring in while two feet above the stockhold plate can you point to where that is on the ship [Music] [Music] the ship's side was torn from the third stokehold to the forward end [Music] barrett was one of the few firemen that managed to escape before the bulkhead doors closed [Music] his testimony implied to hooper mccarty that the damage was not a failure of the main steel plates but where they were joined by the rivets fireman barrett's testimony suggests that the damage wasn't due to fracture mid plate or within the hole plates instead it suggests that there may be something wrong with the seams maybe the question was really in the the rivets the quality of the rivets her suspicions were confirmed when she analyzed the 46 rivets retrieved in 1998 during an expedition to the wreck of the titanic some were found to be made of steel and some were wrought iron hooper mccarty examined the 100 year old rivets under an electron microscope and found large impurities embedded in the structure of the iron she then tested the rivets to see how the impurities affected their strength when you look at wrought iron you see a combination of both iron or pure iron and these impurities that are caught in particles known as slag slag can actually strengthen the wrought iron in one direction but it can weaken it in the opposite direction in the perpendicular direction when the raw tine rivets were hammered into place the slag particles were turned by 90 degrees it created a weakness in the heads of the rivets it was a defect that might have gone completely unnoticed if the ship had never struck an iceberg during the collision that night those weak rivets couldn't withstand that force and their heads popped as a result the rivets next to them had to carry more load and those heads popped and so you get an unzipping of the seam along the starboard side what fireman barrett was probably describing was a parted seam due to the popping of rivet heads at midnight bride was due to take over from phillips it was now 40 minutes after the collision but they still had no idea how serious the situation was i finished the lot took me exactly three hours yeah well done have the engine stopped yeah apparently we've struck an iceberg looks like we'll be heading back to belfast great that means another shed load of messages sorry dearest i shall be coming to new york after all how much you make a lot mr marconi will be pleased captain smith is fast running out of options as to what to do but he has the miracle of wireless this new technology on board there's more here do you want to read them go ahead we'll be in new york in two days the regulation call for assistance now what shall sensor the regulation call for assistance cqd come on man wake up i need our position 41 46 north 5814 west i just get a bloody move on sir it may take a few minutes why not send sos it's the new call it's worth a try let me know as soon as a call comes through yes sir he's a clever boy then phillips could reach every ship within the wireless range of 400 miles the nearest the californian was only 20 miles away and near enough to save everybody but after receiving the rude message from phillips their wireless would remain switched off until morning [Music] who is it it's the frankfurt okay stand by rather useless the titanic's powerful radio signal was reaching far afield the frankfurt was over 100 miles away they needed to contact a much closer ship i don't know why the californians not responding all steamships followed established tracks across the atlantic it was nicknamed the transatlantic railway there were hundreds of ship movements every day so there was always an opportunity of remaining in radio contact with another vessel or even seeing another vessel you could call up assistance if you if you needed it it's the carpathian they're putting about and heading for us [Music] sir she's from the carpathia sir she's turned around and coming along as quickly as she can no other ships the frankfurt has told us to stand by we're trying the californian but she's not replying thank you mr bride sir anything the olympic might be on its way captain smith did not want any lifeboats to be launched until a rescue ship was close by even with only 16 lifeboats everyone could be saved if the carpathia reached the titanic within two hours she's 58 miles away sir carpathia's top speed is no more than 15 knots she's four hours away sir but we can only stay afloat for another two hours perhaps you'd better return to the boat deck mr murdock captain [Music] people don't pay to look at life bets [Music] the titanic would sink in less than two hours but a new piece of evidence has recently come to light which shows that she could have stayed afloat longer had it not been for a decision made when she was built [Music] for some unknown reason the builders of the titanic did not order the purest grade of wrought iron called best best or number four but a lower grade of iron called best or number three this lower grade of iron would have had more slag impurities and so the heads of the rivets would have been even weaker it was a small decision but one that would have terrible consequences the critical issue is that with bad or poor quality wrought iron you end up with the weakness at the head of the rivet if you have good wrought iron you don't have that same weakness it will break the rivet will fail but it's going to last a little longer and 1500 people their lives would have been saved and then a boat could have gotten there and rescued people before the ship was doomed captain smith knows exactly how many are on board he knows exactly how many spaces he has in the lifeboats and he knows exactly how long titanic has to live a very great many of the passengers on board are going to die it's that point that captain smith suffered some sort of mental breakdown because at that point the command structure falls apart on board we better start getting the passengers into the lifeboats sir sir yes women and children first yes let's do that sir lightholer would later misinterpret the captain's command with fatal consequences [Music] melvina dean was one of the few third class passengers to make it into a lifeboat now 96 she is the last living survivor lots of people thought the ship was unsinkable so they just stayed my father was very quick on the uptake he got us immediately up on deck you can't just stand around here okay no need to turn it one at a time into the lifeboat women and children only sir and then my mother say goodbye to my father she was so brokenhearted and they'd only be married about four years and so she's so brokenhearted that she would never speak about it because i was small they couldn't help me and had to put me in a sack women and children lightholer interprets captain smith's orders as women and children only hunt away and that allowed unnecessary deaths caused unnecessary deaths captain smith did not make sure that those lifeboats were properly filled and he should have done [Music] we didn't know there weren't enough lifeboats oh no we had we had no idea about that it was only when we read it in the papers that we knew there wasn't enough lifeboats and yet they say one or two were there empty [Music] izmey was on the starboard boat deck helping women and children get into one of the last lifeboats did you see how many passengers were put into this lifeboat no i did not see at the time did she appear to be full she was very full fairly full after all the women and children were in walk away and after all the people that were on the deck had got in i got in as she was being lured away there was no order to you to get in no none controversially ismey was one of the few men that took a place in a lifeboat [Music] at 1 50 a.m the last lifeboat left there was still 1 700 people on board 1 50 am the ship could stay afloat for only 30 more minutes but phillips continued to send out distress signals [Music] when you've done your full duty you can do nothing more abandon your cabin it's every man for himself now the captain said we are to leave just a moment while there was still electricity on board phillips tried to stay in communication with the coppathia updating her of the titanic situation damn it what is it the frankfurt's interfering with the carpathian signal although there are enough life jackets to go around the chaos on the ship meant that many were left without bride would later tell of a stoker from the boiler room who was forced to take desperate measures please it's not moving let him rot [Music] captain smith was last seen in the bridge he would go down with the ship [Music] so [Music] [Music] at 20 past two in the morning the titanic finally sank to the bottom of the ocean bride was one of the 1500 people who were plunged into the icc how did you come off from the boat deck i was swept off with a collapsible boat and was the water rising all the time yes and then the water was flush with the boat deck yes and swept this boat off into the sea and you with it yes the last i saw in phillips you were standing on the deck house so then you found yourself in the water what happened next i saw away from the titanic [Music] when somebody goes in the water especially very cold water the first thing they're going to experience is panic and shock as soon as you're subjected to water temperatures that are freezing or near freezing as they undoubtedly were that night disorientation and exhaustion and unconsciousness are likely within the first 15 minutes and survival is only likely for 15 to 45 minutes your core temperature starts to go down it's just a matter of time before hypothermia sets in whether you die because of the cold or you drown it's it's an awful way to die the best thing that somebody can do is to get out of the water if you can both bride and lightholer managed to stay out of the water by clinging onto an upturned lifeboat they would eventually be picked up by another lifeboat [Music] two hours after the titanic sank the carpathia arrived in the early morning light and began rescuing passengers [Music] bride survived suffering with only frostbite in the feet [Music] the carpathia arrived too late for his friend and colleague phillips who died in the sea of the 1523 that died that night only 328 bodies were recovered most were buried here at fairview cemetery many of the bodies could not be identified and was simply marked with a number [Music] they had found some of their bodies and took them to halifax but they never found my father's you know you're something you wonder what happened to him if he jumped overboard or if he'd gone down the ship or you have no idea what happened which is quite awful it was mostly men who died but that doesn't mean it was only men that was part of the tragedy that there were women and children in the water and not in the lifeboats was was a part of that tragedy there were quite a few children and women who did not make it into the lifeboats the findings of the inquiry were that the ship was traveling at excessive speed in an ice region but none of the crew were at fault they were only carrying out standard practice at the time [Music] it was recommended that in future the number of lifeboats be based on the number of passengers and not tonnage but the inquiry made no mention of the british board of trade's out-of-date safety regulations [Music] i think the inquiry is a whitewash complete whitewash you have the the board of trade in effect inquiring into a disaster that's largely of its own making the inquiry found that ismae had not influenced the captain over speed and was not at fault over the design of the ship he resigned as chairman six months later he died at the age of 74. the inquiry was not able to solve the mystery of why the ship sank so quickly nor could it conclude how a chain of events and decisions caused the disaster the 16 lifeboats the british board of trades outdated regulations the height of the bulkheads the key to the binoculars locker the change in the ship's direction the wireless message that no officer received the wireless message that was ignored the californians switching off its wireless the lack of binoculars in the crow's nest and the iceberg that was born at the same time as the titanic and against all odds had traveled further south than was thought possible but it would take nearly 100 years to reveal the fatal flaw located in the hull of the titanic which caused her to sink so quickly just two hours away from rescue you

Channel: Naked Science

Views: 3,725,389

Keywords: unsinkable, titanic, science, documentary, greatest, infamous, disaster, history, film, misjudgement, human, error, misfortune, largest, liner, passengers, crew, historic, movie, research, eyewitness, testimonies, reconstruction, true, story, debunk, myth, ship, luxurious, safest, sink, collision, iceberg, inquiry, maritime, deep, sea, british, voyage, officer, survive, captain, negligence, designer, structural, sank, bulkhead, invstigation, lifeboat, naval, treacherous, design, ocean, hull, building, wreck, mechanical, failure, weakness, fate

Id: rnb75tuyy4c

Length: 74min 4sec (4444 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 15 2022