Who Sank The Titanic? - The Secrets Behind the History | Free Documentary History

[Music] the sinking of the titanic is 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 from the very day that she was designed she was almost doomed new scientific evidence reveals the chain of events that brought about the demise of a ship that was thought to be unsinkable and led to the death of over 1500 people the greatest maritime loss in modern history there was a lot of questions surrounding what role the materials played in the sinking of the ship for the first time scientists believe they have uncovered the last piece of the puzzle that has baffled experts for almost half a century a mystery that involves a fateful combination of design flaws and poor choice of shipbuilding materials that set the titanic on a collision course with death and destiny april 14 1912 in the dead of night on a flat calm sea an extraordinary event is taking place an iceberg with a mass of half a million tons drifts into the path of the titanic [Music] iceberg right ahead harder starboard [Music] they have seconds to react [Music] at 11 39 pm titanic scrapes the iceberg officers believe they have avoided disaster but below the water line it is another [Music] story [Music] news about the number of lives lost breaks one day after the disaster among the dead are some of the most wealthy and influential celebrities of the day as well as hundreds of poor immigrants dreaming of a new life in america grieving relatives of the victims in britain and the us are stunned and desperate to know how the impossible could have happened the titanic was designed to be the most luxurious and also the safest ship ever built even if rammed by another ship she was designed to stay afloat yet she took only two hours to sink after colliding with an iceberg now almost a hundred years later some questions still remain unanswered who or what was responsible and why did the mightiest ship of her time sink so quickly forensic mythologist jennifer hooper mccarty is piecing together the events that took place on that fateful journey she is re-examining forensic evidence recovered from the wreck along with survivor testimony and archive records from 1912. we have very little knowledge of what that impact was like what we do know is is only based on the survivor testimony from 1912. two weeks after the sinking of the titanic a british public inquiry is held a panel of judges will decide who was to blame for the disaster and loss of over fifteen hundred lives [Music] the key witness is bruce ismay the fifty-year-old chairman of white star the owner of titanic he is one of the few men who survived the maiden voyage wireless operator harold bride and second officer charles lighthaller also testify these three men's testimony are vital in deciding who was to blame 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 she was looked upon as a lifeboat herself two years before the scheduled launch date ismei met with his chief designer alexander carlisle the staircase needs to be much grander only bulkhead will have to be lowered is there a problem isn't she safe of course excuse me the bulkheads are partitions used to create watertight compartments in the hull of the ship each of which could be isolated and sealed off to contain flooding in the event of an emergency the higher the bulkheads the safer the ship as it would be more likely that water could be contained within any damaged compartments 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 belt kits in the height of the water tight compartments will be lowered to just three meters above the water line [Music] 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 cellar and this meeting with mysteries 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 ought to 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 16 16 while the design of titanic is being changed two thousand miles away nature is unleashing a terrible force a glacier made of ten thousand year old snow reaches the ocean a mass of ice weighing up to two million tons the equivalent of over five empire state buildings breaks free it is just one of forty thousand icebergs born each year along the greenland coast its chances of survival are small but this iceberg is different during the next two years a bizarre chain of events misjudgments and human errors would set this iceberg and the titanic on course to collide one month later the ocean currents carry it on an incredible journey 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 as the iceberg continues up the west greenland coast work begins on the titanic it will take two years to build and be the largest man-made moving object in the world shipbuilding is in transition machines are replacing men steel replacing iron the vast hull of the titanic is designed to be watertight by overlapping steel plates and three million rivets driven in using a hydraulic machine but the machine is so cumbersome it could be used only on straight sections of the ship at the curved area of the bow they had to drive rivets in manually but steel rivets were too tough to hammer in so instead they used wrought iron rivets which are much more malleable this will potentially weaken a small area of the bow section but is a widespread practice and nothing unusual has ever come of it [Music] in the summer of 1911 the iceberg is now 18 months old and heading towards baffin bay an area where most icebergs come to the end of their journey [Music] 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 but this iceberg manages to break free of baffin bay and continues its journey south over the next six months titanic is in the final stages of being fitted out an army of carpenters and craftsmen are at work creating the interior splendor of the ship [Music] the captain chosen for the maiden voyage is edward john smith the most experienced captain in the white star line it is to be his last voyage before retiring he was nicknamed the millionaires captain people like 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 march 1912 the olympic titanic sister ship returns to port for emergency repairs so the maiden voyage of the titanic is pushed back a month it will now be sailing in mid-april the month when most icebergs appear in the shipping lanes in the north atlantic against all odds the iceberg that fell into the sea two years earlier has made it as far south as the east coast of newfoundland and it's still a colossus with a mass of over half a million tons more than 10 times the weight of the titanic and it's drifting a further 17 kilometers a day directly into the path of the major shipping lanes titanic leaves belfast for southampton where it picks up its first passengers but the unexpected delay of the titanic's maiden voyage forces captain smith to make a last-minute reshuffle of his crew good afternoon gentlemen as you all know the olympic is currently laid up it has therefore been decided that the olympics chief officer mr wilde 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 means that murdoch and lightholer are both demoted second officer blair is asked to leave the ship blair is so keen to get off the ship he accidentally takes with him the key to his locker it's a crucial oversight his locker contains the binoculars for the lookouts in the crow's nest the day before its maiden voyage to new york the titanic is given its final check by a british board of trade inspector 16 standard lifeboats passenger capacity 65 70 if push comes to shove reducing the number of lifeboats to 16 means there is now only enough space for 1 000 people fewer than half on board the size of ocean liners had quadrupled in the 15 years before titanic set sail but the board of trades lifeboat regulations remain the same the titanic is approved 16 lifeboats is deemed satisfactory for over 2000 people rms titanic leaves southampton docks for new york with 600 crew and over 1500 passengers even though the titanic is the latest in luxury liners it isn't just carrying millionaires many are third class passengers emigrating to the united states in search of a new life one of those was melvina dean then a 10 week old baby traveling with her parents my father was going to open a tobacconist shop in kansas he spent all his money on that and then couldn't afford to do anything else but getting third class because it was such a luxury ship all the millionaires were on it and also the most important thing was they said it was unsinkable after picking up more passengers in france and ireland captain smith's plan is to cross the atlantic in six days he will need to cross the ocean at just over 19 knots the equivalent of 35 kilometers an hour [Music] captain smith is well aware of the risk from springtime icebergs to keep his ship out of harm's way he plots a southern route across the atlantic away from the known ice region the vast white iceberg continues to drift even further southward towards the grand banks despite being eroded by the sea it is still over four 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 but back in 1912 ships have to rely on ice warnings from other vessels and from their lookouts in the crow's nest the titanic is already over halfway across the atlantic her 200-foot tall masts support aerials that allow her state-of-the-art wireless system to communicate with other ships up to 600 kilometers away senior wireless operator jack phillips is starting to receive ice warnings from other ships that are further to the west of them the first ice warning of the day is from the liner the coronia it gives the location of an area of ice and icebergs that is one day away from the titanic jack phillips works 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 are not employed by the titanic but by marconi it was a long breakfast although they maintain communication with other ships sending passenger messages is how they earn 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 they've been closed in an envelope sir there's a lifeboat drill at 11am 11a yes sir sir mr captain smith thank you miss sarah right sir ice warnings are not unusual in spring and the ice region mentioned in the coronia message is a long way from the titanic i shall be at the church service mr murdock and then i shall be making my rounds yes sir i guess that means lifeboat drills cancelled the captain never gives a reason why he cancels the lifeboat drill in the event of an emergency the crew are unrehearsed while the captain is reading his sermon the iceberg is carried further south over the grand banks by the labrador current and is now less than 600 kilometers away it will soon hit another ocean current that makes its way along the east coast of the united states this current carries a block of warm water the gulf stream it can be as warm as 18 degrees celsius icebergs in these sea conditions will deteriorate quickly with a slapping of waves a medium iceberg might be gone in as little as 10 days the titanic is heading southwest towards the gulf stream it should be on a course that takes it out of the path of any icebergs the titanic receives the second ice warning of the day it is from the steamship baltic and gives the location of a region that contains icebergs the msg prefix would show it is so important it was for the captain's attention there will be five ice warnings during the day but this will be the last that the captain will receive two o'clock that afternoon the captain hands the message to isme anyone would think we're heading towards the north pole two weeks after the disaster the inquiry will attempt to prove that is may had wanted the captain to keep to schedule and ignore any ice warnings why do you think the captain handed you the marconi gram 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 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 is heading in a direction away from the iceberg but is about to change course at 5 30 pm captain smith had planned a change in course from a southwesterly direction to a westerly direction but because of the earlier ice warning from the baltic he delays the change in direction by 20 minutes to allow the ship to travel even further south towards a safe area of the gulf stream and away from the perilous ice region south 86 west mr hitchens steady she goes [Music] ironically he has now put the titanic on a direct collision course with the iceberg it's because in 1912 a phenomenon took place that allowed icebergs to travel further south than was ever thought [Music] possible the cold labrador current has moved around the iceberg to form a protective layer insulating it against the warming effects of the gulf stream and preventing it from melting now everything depends on the path the labrador current takes 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 as the iceberg pushes its way into the shipping lanes it's spotted by the californian who fires off iceberg warnings to the titanic while phillips rested in the cabin next to the wireless room his assistant bride is 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 wireless operators on the titanic serve two functions they relay weather reports and ice warnings but they are also expected to keep a tally of all the passenger messages they send [Music] at 7 20 p.m bride finishes his accounts and then intercepts the message from the californian it warns of three large icebergs seen at latitude 42 north longitude 49 west directly in the path of the titanic it's for the captain i'm going to the bridge [Music] but captain smith has already left the bridge and is now dining with passengers and you simply delivered it to an officer on the bridge it's for the captain 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 with no reason to change course titanic steams ahead straight into the path of the iceberg april 14th 1912 the titanic heads towards the united states with over 2 000 passengers on board not only was the sea flat calm but it was also a moonless night a rare combination of conditions that make it difficult to see icebergs in the distance as was the case for all passenger ships of the day there is no official procedure for slowing down for ice traveling at almost full speed the titanic will reach the iceberg in two hours [Music] but the officer's main concern is focused on 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 keep a sharp lookout for ice particularly small ice and growlers and pass that word until daylight sir what is a growler growler really is the worst form of ice it's a larger burg 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 judge that i could see a growler at a mile and a half or more probably two miles at 10 o'clock fleet and lee start their watch in poor visibility the lookouts are watching for growlers unaware that the danger ahead is from a large iceberg over its two-year journey the iceberg has reduced in size but it is still 30 meters high the same height as the crow's nest the titanic steams ahead at a top speed of 40 kilometers per hour captain smith checks 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 calm 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 berg 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 light follower 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 phillips is under a tight deadline and has only a two-hour window to send every passenger message while the titanic is in range of the cape race receiver at newfoundland he is interrupted by the fifth and the most critical ice warning of the day it is from another ship the ss masaba giving the precise location of an area containing icebergs that is now only 80 kilometers away from the titanic this would alert the captain that the titanic is heading straight towards the iceberg but the warning came without the critical msg prefix phillips interprets the message as non-urgent and goes back to sending passenger messages [Applause] the closest ship to the titanic the californian sends a message to say that they have stopped for the night because of ice but their wireless operator has not waited for phillips to stop sending his messages and overrides it with a powerful signal ah bloody idiot [Music] phillips replies to tell the californian to stop sending ice warnings while he is busy with passenger messages who is it california keeps sending weather reports i'm still planning through this lot you want me to take over when i go back to sleep you can take over at 12 i'm not working past midnight i'm knackered the californians response is to turn off its wireless equipment for the night the titanic has now lost radio contact with the only ship less than two hours away by 11 30 p.m the iceberg is just six kilometers away traveling at 40 kilometers an hour the titanic will collide with it in 10 minutes the earlier decision by officer blair to leave with the keys to the binoculars locker now comes into play lookouts fleet and lee have to rely on their own eyesight 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 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 if there had been glasses in the crow's nest would you have used them [Music] 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 yes [Music] it's a minor it's a major orion the iceberg is 100 meters away and closing in on the titanic but the lookouts still have not seen it because the sea is a flat calm without binoculars it's impossible for the lookouts to spot an iceberg until it's right on top of them [Music] ice bag right ahead [Music] harder starboard after putting the ship's engines into reverse murdoch's instinct is to steer away from the iceberg [Music] from the bridge it looks like they've had a lucky escape the collision is so gentle that many of the passengers and crew sleep through it forensic metallogist hooper mccarty will be pivotal in finding out why such a gentle collision results in such devastating consequences the first place to look will be the survivor testimonies and one in particular would catch her attention 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 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 shut all dampers what was the next thing that happened the crash happened before we had the [ __ ] where was this crash water came pouring in or two feet above the stockhold plate can you point to where that is on the ship the ship's side was torn from the third stokehold to the forward end this was the clue hooper mccarty had been looking for fireman barrett's testimony suggests that the damage wasn't due to fracture mid-plate or within the whole 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 to find out she decides to analyze all 46 rivets retrieved in 1998 during an expedition to the wreck of the titanic she makes an amazing discovery and gets closer to solving the mystery of what led to the sinking of the titanic hooper mccarty has been studying the rivets recovered from the wreck of the titanic 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 some are found to be made of steel some are made of iron hooper mccarty carries out a groundbreaking experiment for the very first time the effects of using iron rivets rather than steel are explored a section of the titanic's hull is reproduced 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 the test replicates the amount of pressure the titanic's hull was under during the collision as the iron rivets fail under the pressure of the iceberg they snap off one at a time the titanic's hull opens up like a zipper allowing huge amounts of water to flood in [Applause] 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 but as hooper mccarty continues with her experiments she realizes she is still missing a vital piece of information wrought iron is 30 weaker than steel but still it should have been strong enough to hold the hull together could something else have weakened the rivets to find out more she decides to examine the hundred-year-old rivets under an electron microscope she finds large particles embedded in the structure of the iron 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 these slag particles have the potential to make the rivets brittle and prone to fracture [Music] when the wrought iron rivets are hammered into place the slag particles are at a 90 degree angle it creates a weakness in the head of the rivets it is a defect that might have gone completely unnoticed if the ship hadn't struck the iceberg during the collision that night those weak rivets couldn't withstand that force and their heads pot fireman barrett was probably describing was a parted seam due to the popping of rivet heads 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 but hooper mccarty is still not satisfied why did the rivets used to build the hull contain so many impurities the next step in the search for clues leads her to the archives at the shipyard where the titanic was built she makes an amazing discovery i went to belfast and looked through the harland and wolf archives from ordering contracts i was seeing number three iron that was used instead of number four which was the standard at the time the builders of the titanic had not ordered number four the best and purest grade wrought iron but a number three a lower grade of iron with a much higher concentration of slag impurities this had a huge effect on the strength of the rivets in the hall of the titanic [Music] the critical issue is that with bad or poor quality wrought iron you end up with a 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 what hoopa mccarty couldn't find out is who authorized the purchase of the weaker batch of iron rivets and why what did we hit an iceberg sir i've closed the watertight doors you run the warning bell yes sir i said box all to look ready damage the watertight doors are shut off as soon as the collision takes place but with the rivets on the hull failing water is now breaching the gaps in the sides of the ship at midnight one of the ship's designers who is on the maiden voyage breaks the shocking 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 maddock shall i prepare the lifeboat sir yes but no need to panic the passengers i understand sir [Music] the majority of the crew and all the passengers believe that the damage to the ship is minimal unaware that the ship is 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 [Music] ismae's earlier decision to lower the bulkheads now has a dramatic effect with higher bulkheads the flooding in each compartment would have taken longer to fill and overflow into the next compartment with lower bulkheads the ship is now flooding rapidly but the designers didn't lower the front bulkhead because they believed it to be the crucial one they were anticipating any collision to be head-on if this happened the water wouldn't flood beyond the front collision bulkhead no one imagined an iceberg would collide with the bow it was the worst possible scenario this part of the ship wasn't designed to take the force of an impact i think if william murder 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 this design for the bulkheads made sense a hundred years ago the last time a ship had struck an iceberg was in 1879 when ss arizona plowed into one head-on the bow was badly crushed but she stayed afloat proving that the front bulkhead did its [Music] job at midnight bride is due to take over from phillips it is now 40 minutes after the collision they still have no idea how serious the situation is 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 shot me 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 should we read them go ahead we'll be in new york in two days send the regulation call for assistance now book horsham sensor the regulation call for assistance cqd come on man wake up i need our position 41 46 north 50 14 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 philips can reach every ship within the wireless range of 400 miles their best hope is the californian only 32 kilometers away and near enough to save everybody but after receiving the rude message from philips their wireless will remain switched off until morning who is it it's the frankfurt okay stand by the useless the titanic's powerful radio signal is reaching far afield the frankfurt is over 100 kilometers away they need to contact a much closer ship i don't know why the californians not responding 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 take this excuse me 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 [Music] even with only 16 lifeboats everyone can be shuttled to safety if the carpathia reaches the titanic within two hours the captain now knows the safety of his passengers is a race against time the titanic is badly damaged and taken on water fast one of the ships nearby the carpathia has picked up their distress signal and is on its way for the thousands of passengers it's their only chance of rescue 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 people don't pay to look at lifeboats 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 there's that point that captain smith suffered some sort of mental breakdown because at that point the command structure falls apart on board and we better start getting the passengers into the light boats sir sir yes women and children first yes let's do that sir light hauler will later misinterpret the captain's command with terrible consequences [Music] two-month-old melvina dean is 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 panic just one at a time into the lifeboat women and children only sir and then my mother say goodbye to my father 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 hold me and had to put me in a sack women and children only sir lightholer interprets captain smith's orders as women and children only fart away [Applause] and that allowed unnecessary deaths caused unnecessary deaths many of the lifeboats are launched half empty ismae is on the starboard boat deck helping women and children get into the last lifeboat 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 as she was being lured away there was no order to you to get in no none ismei is one of the few men to take a place in the lifeboats [Music] the last lifeboat leaves with over 1600 people left on board the titanic can stay afloat for only 30 more minutes time is rapidly running out the titanic is sinking in only 30 more minutes she will be on the ocean floor [Music] then 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 is still electricity on board phillips tries to stay in communication with the carpathia updating her of the titanic situation [Music] 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 means that many are left without bride will later tell of a stoker from the boiler room who was forced to take desperate measures please it's not moving let him rot captain smith is last seen in the bridge he will go down with a ship [Music] over two hours after the collision with the iceberg the titanic sinks to the bottom of the ocean [Music] bride is one of 1500 people that are 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 he was standing on the deck house so then you found yourself in the water what happened next i so away from the titanic 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 lighthaller manage to stay out of the water by clinging onto an upturned lifeboat they are eventually picked up by another lifeboat [Music] two hours after the titanic sinks the carpathia arrives in the early morning light to rescue passengers bride survives suffering only frostbite in his feet [Music] but the carpathia arrives too late for his friend and colleague phillips who dies in the sea of the 1523 that died on april 14 1912 only 328 bodies are recovered most are buried in a cemetery in halifax many of the bodies cannot be identified and are simply marked with a number they have found some of their bodies and took them to halifax but they never found my father's you know you're stopping and you wonder what happened to him if he jumped overboard or if he'd gone down the ship or you have no idea what's 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 roger that thank you you are clear to make sure this never happens again the international ice patrol is set up after the titanic tragedy 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 the 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 drop dropped up 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] the findings of the inquiry were that the ship was traveling at excessive speed in an ice region but that none of the crew were to blame they were only carrying out standard practice for the time it was recommended that in future the number of lifeboats on the ship should be enough for all persons on board i think the inquiry is a whitewash complete whitewash you have the the board of trade in effect um inquiring into a disaster that's largely of its own making the inquiry also decided that is may did not influence the captain over speed and was not at fault over the design of the ship the press was not so forgiving they branded ismea coward for taking a place in a lifeboat he resigns as chairman six months later and dies at the age of 74. despite the overwhelming evidence the inquiry makes no mention of the chain of events and decisions that caused the disaster the 16 lifeboats the height of the bulkheads the change in the ship's direction [Music] the wireless message that no officer would receive the wireless message that is ignored the californian switching off its wireless the lack of binoculars in the crow's nest and the iceberg that is born at the same time as the titanic and against all odds travels further south than is thought possible but it will take nearly a hundred 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 and led to the death of over 1500 people [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary - History

Views: 480,572

Rating: 4.7983389 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full Documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), History, History Documentaries, Free Documentary History, Titanic, RMS Titanic, White Star Line, Sinking of the Titanic, Who Sank the Titanic, My Heart Will Go On, James Cameron, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, the unsinkable molly brown, Titanic Documentary, Cunard Line, Blue Ribbon, North Atlantic, Iceberg, Iceberg Documentary, International Ice Patrol, SOS, Edward Smith

Id: T2NFMzbt0FE

Length: 68min 30sec (4110 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 27 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/Bellerophonix]

If it was smaller and lighter they probably would have been ok.

[u/leeuwerik]

And it wasn't hollow.

[u/RedSonGamble]

The iceberg was just being a bully. Countless lives were lost bc a the iceberg was jealous of our American sea Goliath and it rammed into it.

As the titanic was sinking the iceberg tried to ram the people in the water but luckily the sound of music from the ship drove it off. This is now why ships have giant speakers on them to scare away icebergs.

[u/TGirl26]

There were so many contributing factors that caused this tragic event. From the building of all they way to communication from the captain & crew.

[u/Ganon_Dragmire]

Realistically could that ice berg still exist?

[u/crayfl]

Makes sense