New Photos Tells Us Why The Titanic Really Sank

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, after striking an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. This lead to the death of more than 1,500 passengers and crew.

How Did the "Unsinkable Ship" end up at the bottom of the ocean?

And why was the ship going through an iceberg field at top speed?

It's wasn't just risky to build the Titanic, it was expensive as well.

A new shipyard had to be built just so they could build her. The shipyard in Belfast took up an equivalent of four city blocks.

White Star Line chairman and managing director J. Bruce Ismay was under tremendous pressure to turn the struggling cruise line company around. The White Star Line was trying to keep their heads above water as they placed their bets in the transatlantic shipping wars.

One of White Star Line's main rival was Cunard Line. Cunard Line boasted that they had the fastest ships and White Star Line went for size.

Chief designer Thomas Andrews oversaw the construction and design of the RMS Titanic. He had to cut corners after Ismay informed him that he had to cut the budget. The company wanted the ship out on the water as soon as possible and as cheap as possible.

Andrews was adamant about the integrity of the steel and the number of life boats there needed to be, but Ismay dismissed his concerns. 

It's too bad Ismay didn't listen to Andrews.

The Coal Strike of 1912, led to the labor conflicts, the White Star Line was under tremendous pressure, and the pressure mounted.

The coal strike also led to a rise in coal prices. Which didn't help with the budget for the Titanic.

The rise in coal prices were because there was a shortage of coal due to the strike. This might be why the Titanic was going full speed in an iceberg field. They were short on fuel. To slow the ship down, only to speed it back up, took more coal burning than a ship running at a continuous speed. 

When RMS Olympic,which was made with the same material and in the same ship yard as the Titanic, struck the Royal Navy’s HMS Hawk, the HMS Hawk left a gaping hole in the RMS Olympic’s bow and left cracks beyond the puncture.

The steel was substandard and the faulty metal on the ship tore easily. Steel workers advised Ismay that it’s best to use “special” steel, he informed the steel company that “ordinary” steel would suffice.

Fast forward to 2017, a photo album, belonging to Titanic enthusiast Steve Raffield, was discovered in an attic that held never before seen photographs of the Titanic before its maiden voyage. Raffield was flipping through the album, he saw something odd in one of the photographs.

Raffield blew up the photos and realized there was a 30-foot scorch mark on the Titanic’s haul, where one of the boilers was. This means it was a burn that came from inside the ship.

The coal bunkers were three stories high and house 1.5 tons of coal. When the coal was stored, something heated the coal reserve, and the coals caught fire and the Titanic began to burn. The Titanic was burning from the inside.

John Dilley was an eye-witness to the Titanic‘s coal fire, an engine room worker, he saw what was happening first hand and his accounts are chilling.

“There were hundreds of tons of coal stored there. We made no head-way against it … we didn’t get the fire out … from the day we sailed, the Titanic was on fire …”

Eleven men combated the coal bunker fire to no avail. The fire continued to burn when it departed from its port from Belfast to Southampton, where it would receive over 2,200 passengers ready to board and take sail across the Atlantic. 

None of the passengers knew there was a fire burning in the ship, in fact Ismay made sure no one knew. His reputation and the Star Line's reputation couldn't handle another delay, let alone a fire on board before it even took of on it's maiden voyage.

The coal might have been on fire days, if not heated for weeks before the flame was found and the Titanic left for Southampton.

Once a fire starts to burn, it’s extremely hard to put out. With that much quantity of coal, the fires can burn anywhere between 1,000 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, the equivalent of molten lava. That melts steel.

Besides the bunker is one of the ship’s bulkheads, the ship’s water-tight compartments, so if the ship took on water, the water would only fill in the designated compartment.

With a fire getting up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit, it puts continuous heat and pressure on steel, the metal became brittle and weak. No longer will it hold upon impact and very prone to shattering. The bulkhead that was most affected was the last stronghold before reaching the boiler room. If the fourth bulkhead leading to the boiler room was damaged, nothing would protect the furnaces. 

The fire still burning when the Titanic left Southampton,  warped the metal around the ship’s boiler room’s bulkhead. It looked like a buckled wave of metal, and between the welding seam of the water-tight compartment, was a hole. All the crew could do was make a patch repair and hope that they could get the Titanic to port.

The only way the fireman and furnace workers could lessen the coal fire was to shovel away the coal into the furnaces. And with the furnaces burning hot, the ship was racing across the Atlantic at top speed (23 knots) and straight into an iceberg field.

Even though the crew received several iceberg warnings, didn’t want to stop in fear of being stranded in the middle of the ocean. It was rumored this pressured the captain to keep top speed.

Why did the Titanic sink so quickly?

The Titanic struck the iceberg with the starboard side of the ship. The iceberg scraped along the haul. It tore like tissue paper and the water quickly filled the water compartments. The water gurgled in and filled the bow of the ship. The compartments held,but not for long.

The fourth compartment groaned under the weight of the Atlantic as it pressed against the brittle and weak steel. It was the last barrier before the water could reach the engine room.

After he received word that the Titanic sank, Ismay sent a telegram for all the hired fireman who worked the Titanic to scatter inland, that their presence was not needed for the inquiry.

Shortly after the Titanic sank, a inquiry was underway and Ismay found himself on trial. Ismay claimed that all the fireman on the Titanic had perished in the Atlantic.

At the trial, the high court judged ruling over the inquiry, John Charles Bigham, aka Lord Mersey, was presented evidence of a coal fire was burning below the decks of the Titanic. He said the evidence was irrelevant and was recorded to have looked impatient and seemed to want to get the investigation over with.

160 firemen fired to embark with the Titanic‘s maiden voyage, only 8 stayed on after seeing the fire.