A century later: six unofficial versions of the sinking of the Titanic. Why did the Titanic sink? Add your price to the base Comment

Many decades have passed since that terrible disaster, and no one doubted what exactly sent the magnificent Titanic to the bottom of the ocean. When the "unsinkable" ship, the largest, most luxurious ocean liner of its time, crashed into an iceberg on its very first voyage in 1912, it carried more than 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers to the bottom with it. As the ship glided deep into the North Atlantic, so did the secrets of how and why it sank.

Titanic is a British transatlantic steamship, the second Olympic-class liner. Built in Belfast at the shipyard "Harland and Wolf" from 1909 to 1912 by order of the shipping company "White Star Line". At the time of commissioning, it was the largest ship in the world. On the night of April 14-15, 1912, during the first flight, it crashed in the North Atlantic, colliding with an iceberg.

The Titanic was equipped with two four-cylinder steam engines and a steam turbine. The entire power plant had a capacity of 55,000 liters. With. The ship could reach speeds of up to 23 knots (42 km/h). Its displacement, which exceeded the twin steamer Olympic by 243 tons, was 52,310 tons. The ship's hull was made of steel. The hold and lower decks were divided into 16 compartments by bulkheads with sealed doors. If the bottom was damaged, the double bottom prevented water from entering the compartments. Shipbuilder magazine called the Titanic virtually unsinkable, a statement widely circulated in the press and among the public. In accordance with outdated regulations, the Titanic was equipped with 20 lifeboats, with a total capacity of 1,178 people, which was only a third of the ship's maximum load.

Titanic (on the left in the photo) in the port
Titanic in port

Two government investigations that were conducted in the wake of the disaster agreed that it was the iceberg, and not the defects and weakness of the ship itself, that sank the Titanic. Both commissions of inquiry concluded that the ship went to the bottom as a whole, and not in parts. There were no major breaks. The blame for the nightmarish disaster fell solely on the unfortunate captain of the ship, I. Smith, who also died along with the entire crew. Smith was blamed for the fact that the Titanic was rushing at a speed of 22 knots (41 km) through a dangerous ice field well known to sailors - in dark waters, off the coast of Newfoundland. The Titanic incident was over, it seemed, once and for all.

Titanic in front of the ocean
Tail section of the Titanic

The clues lay at the bottom of the sea

However, doubts and questions about what could sink the seemingly indestructible ship remained. In 1985, when oceanographer Robert Ballard, after many years of searching, finally found the remains of the ship at a depth of about 4 km on the ocean floor, he discovered that in fact the Titanic had split in half on the surface of the ocean before sinking.

Why did it split in half? experts wondered. Was the invincible Titanic weak in design?

Oil painting "The sinking of the Titanic"

Several years have passed since the discovery of Ballard, and now the first wreckage of the ship is raised from the ocean floor. A new hypothesis for the death of the Titanic is the low-grade steel used in the construction of the ship. However, a group of researchers came to the conclusion that it was not the steel that went to the skin of the ship, it was low-grade. Of poor quality were the rivets, the most important metal pins that held together the steel plates of the ship's hull. What's more, the recently found pieces of the bottom of the Titanic clearly indicate that the ship's stern never rose high into the air, as many Titanic experts, including Cameron, initially believed. In fact, the ship broke into pieces and sank, floating relatively flat on the surface of the ocean - a clear sign of flaws in its design, which were hidden after the disaster.

With the construction of the "Titanic" hurried

"Titanic" was created in a short time - in response to the production of a new generation of high-speed liners by a competitive company. The Titanic and its smaller siblings, the Olympic and Britannic, were the most grandiose ships in the history of shipbuilding. They were real colossi! - 275 meters from bow to stern! - even tall skyscrapers gave in to them. Specially equipped to withstand the threats of the North Atlantic, including huge waves and sudden collisions, these sister ships were also - as a matter of course - the safest. The Titanic could keep afloat even if 4 of its 16 watertight compartments were flooded - a real miracle for a ship of such gigantic size!

Titanic at sea

On the night of April 14, 1912, however, in just a few days of the Titanic's maiden voyage, its Achilles' heel played its sinister role. The ship was not nimble enough to avoid the iceberg that the lookouts (at the time, the only way to spot an iceberg) were shouting about at the last minute and in pitch darkness. The Titanic did not directly collide with the fatal iceberg, but drove over it on its right side. The ice tore holes in the ship's steel plates, flooding six "watertight" compartments.
Two hours later, the Titanic overflowed with water and sank.

Frame from the movie "The sinking of the Titanic"

Achilles' heel of the Titanic

Experts continued to look for explanations for the death of a ship equipped in accordance with all safety rules. And they came across a potentially weak link: more than three million rivets that fastened the ship's hull. Taking a sample of 48 of these metal rods, raised from the ocean floor, scientists found in them a high concentration of "dross" - sediment from melting. Because of this scale, the metal becomes brittle and may crack.

Not because of cheapness, but because time was running out, the builders of the Titanic began to use low-grade material. When the Titanic hit the iceberg, the weak steel bars in its bow cracked, exposing the seams in the hull and hastening the ship's demise. It is no coincidence that the water, flooding six compartments fastened with low-grade steel rods, stopped exactly where the high-grade steel rivets began.
Thus, one of the secrets carried away by the Titanic to the bottom of the ocean was discovered. If all the rivets that held the Titanic were made of stainless steel, the disaster could have been avoided. Not without reason, immediately after the death of the Titanic, two other giant ships - the Olympic and Britannic, built at the same shipyard and simultaneously with the Titanic - were urgently and comprehensively strengthened: the steel plating of the hull doubled and were raised much higher than the bulkhead . The shipbuilding company clearly recognized defects and unacceptable miscalculations in high-speed - just to keep up with competitors! - the race to build the Titanic, tried her best to fix them and hide them from experts, insurance agents and all inquisitive mankind.

In 2005, a new expedition went to the site of a long-standing disaster. And very soon I found an answer to all the questions that worried everyone. This time, the divers did not look at the main wreck on the seabed, but took a little to the side, where they found two large fragments from the bottom of the ship. When they began to analyze the jagged edges of these fragments of the bottom, they came to a startling conclusion. It was impossible for a ship to split in the way that experts believed for decades - with the stern rearing over the ocean at a 45-degree angle, and before the ship's hull broke in two. From these significant bottom wrecks it can be judged that their split was interrupted in the middle - a sure sign that the ship then listed at a small angle (about 11 degrees), that her stern was still buoyant when it cracked. If the rear of the ship were to rise out of the water at a 45-degree angle, as stunningly depicted in Cameron's film, the stern would quickly break away from the ship's hull and solid bottom fragments found at the bottom would be torn in two.

James Cameron and a team of scientists tried to reconstruct the course of events from the Titanic's collision with an iceberg to its complete sinking:

The tilt of the ship is a matter of life and death

It would seem, what does it matter how exactly the ship broke into pieces? For the passengers on the Titanic, it was a matter of life and death. In the cinema, the stern of the ship rises up and then goes, along with the whole hull, to the bottom. This is a long dramatic performance. In reality, the ship listed quite a bit as the water flooded the bow, and the passengers on board had a false sense of security.

The passengers and many of the crew did not understand the gravity of the situation. When the water flooded the bow of the hull sufficiently, the ship, while remaining afloat, broke in two and sank in minutes.

Interestingly, most of the survivors confirm this unexpected course of events. Charlie Jugin, the Titanic's chef, was standing close to the stern as the ship began to sink, but he didn't see any signs of the hull breaking. There was no suction funnel, no colossal splash. Jugin said that he calmly sailed away from the ship without even getting his hair wet.

Farewell, cinematic romantic "Titanic"!

Unlike Cameron's film, a giant wave did not come from the crash site - none of those sitting in the lifeboats noticed it when the stern of the ship disappeared under water. One of the former passengers of the Titanic told how he slipped into the water, turned around - and did not see the ship.

So, farewell to the heartbreaking image of the Titanic with its stern raised high, plastered with doomed passengers, their common death cry, and now the ship plunges into the water at a steep angle! Unfortunately or fortunately, nothing like that actually happened.

Although some of the lifeboat occupants saw the ship's stern high in the air, this may have been an optical illusion. At an 11-degree tilt with the propellers sticking out in the air, the Titanic, already a twenty-story building, seemed even higher, and its roll in the water even steeper.

Could the Titanic be stronger, more enduring? Undoubtedly. High-quality steel rivets and a tighter, double-skinned hull could have prevented disaster, or certainly kept the ship afloat many times longer.

Titanic (RMS Titanic) is a British steamer of the White Star Line, the second of three Olympic-class twin steamers. The largest passenger liner in the world at the time of its construction. During the first voyage on April 14, 1912, she collided with an iceberg and sank at 2:20 am the next day - 2 hours and 40 minutes after the collision. There were 1,309 passengers and 898 crew members on board, for a total of 2,207 people. Of these, 712 people were saved, 1495 died. The Titanic disaster became legendary, several feature films were shot based on its plot.

Laid down on March 31, 1909 at the shipyards of the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company in Queens Island (English) (Belfast, Northern Ireland), launched on May 31, 1911. In addition to the fact that at the time of its construction, the Titanic was the largest passenger liner, it took a record amount of fat, locomotive oil and liquid soap to lubricate the gangway guides to launch the ship - 23 tons. The ship passed sea trials on April 2, 1912. On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the ship, the Titanic Museum was opened at the Harland and Wolf shipyard.

titanic: the whole truth about the sunken ship

Technical characteristics of the liner

Gross tonnage 46,328 registered tons, displacement 52,310 tons with a draft of 10.54 m (many sources indicate a displacement of 66 thousand tons, but this is not true.

Length 269 m, width 28.19 m, distance from the waterline to the boat deck 18.4 m.

Height from the keel to the tops of the pipes - 52.4 m;
Engine room - 29 boilers, 159 coal furnaces;
The unsinkability of the ship was ensured by 15 watertight bulkheads in the hold, creating 16 conditionally watertight compartments; the space between the bottom and the flooring of the second bottom was divided by transverse and longitudinal partitions into 46 watertight compartments.
Maximum speed 23 knots.

Watertight bulkheads, marked from bow to stern with the letters "A" to "P", rose from the second bottom and passed through 4 or 5 decks: the first 2 and the last 5 reached deck "D", 8 bulkheads in the center of the liner reached only the deck "E". All bulkheads were so strong that they had to withstand significant pressure when getting a hole.

The Titanic was built to stay afloat if any 2 of its 16 watertight compartments, any 3 of the first 5 compartments, or all of the first 4 compartments were flooded.

First 2 bulkheads

in the bow and the last in the stern were solid, in all the rest there were sealed doors that allowed the crew and passengers to move between compartments. On the flooring of the second bottom, in the bulkhead "K", there were the only doors that led to the cooling chamber. On decks "F" and "E" in almost all bulkheads there were airtight doors connecting the rooms used by passengers, all of them could be battened down both remotely and manually, using a device located directly on the door and from the deck to which it reached bulkhead. To batten down such doors on the passenger decks, a special key was required, which was available only to the senior stewards. But on deck "G" there were no doors in the bulkheads.

In bulkheads "D" - "O

”, Directly above the second bottom in the compartments where the machines and boilers were located, there were 12 vertically closed doors, they were controlled from the navigation bridge with the help of an electric drive. In case of danger or accident, or when the captain or the watch officer deemed it necessary, the electromagnets, on a signal from the bridge, released the latches, and all 12 doors fell under the influence of their own gravity and the space behind them turned out to be hermetically closed. If the doors were closed by an electric signal from the bridge, then it was possible to open them only after removing the voltage from the electric drive.

In the ceiling of each compartment was a spare hatch, usually leading to the boat deck. Those who did not have time to leave the room before the doors closed could climb its iron ladder.

British Code of Navigation requirements

In formal accordance with the current requirements of the British Merchant Shipping Code, the ship had 20 lifeboats, which were enough to board 1178 people, that is, for 50% of the people on board at that moment and 30% of the planned load. 65 people were placed in one boat, but the sailors of the Titanic in the first minutes after the collision sent boats with only 20 passengers. The chief engineer of the ship, seeing this, told the sailors that 65 people fit in the boat. The team did not agree, fearing that the boat might not withstand the overload. Only after the engineer convinced the team of the reliability of the boats (which, according to the results of all checks, could withstand the weight of 70 adult men), the boats began to fill up completely. There were also "collapsible boats" used by some officers (Charles Lightoller was one of them).

The Titanic had 8 steel decks

, located one above the other at a distance of 2.5-3.2 m. The topmost one was a boat, under it there were 7 others, indicated from top to bottom with letters from “A” to “G”. Only decks "C", "D", "E" and "F" ran the entire length of the vessel. The boat deck and the "A" deck did not reach either the bow or the stern, and the "G" deck was located only in the front of the liner - from the boiler rooms to the bow and in the aft - from the engine room to the stern cut. On the open boat deck there were 20 lifeboats, along the sides there were promenade decks.

Deck "A"

167 m long, almost all of it was intended for first-class passengers.

Deck "B"

170 m long was interrupted in the bow, forming an open space above deck "C", and then continued in the form of a 38-meter bow superstructure with anchor handling equipment and a mooring device. In front of deck "C" there were anchor winches for 2 main side anchors, there was also a galley and a dining room for sailors and stokers. Behind the bow superstructure there was a promenade (the so-called inter-superstructure) deck for third-class passengers 15 m long. On deck "D" there was another, isolated, third-class promenade deck. Along the entire length of deck "E" were the cabins of passengers of the first and second classes, as well as the cabins of the stewards and mechanics. In the first part of deck "F" there were 64 cabins for passengers of the second class and the main living quarters for passengers of the third, stretching for 45 m and occupying the entire width of the liner. There were 2 large salons, a dining room for third-class passengers, a swimming pool and a Turkish bath complex.

G-deck

captured only the bow and stern, between which the boiler rooms were located. The forward part of the deck, 58 m long, was 2 m above the waterline, gradually lowered towards the center of the liner and at the opposite end was already at the level of the waterline. There were 26 cabins for 106 third class passengers, the rest of the area was occupied by the luggage compartment for first class passengers, post offices and a squash court with a gallery for spectators. Behind the bow of the deck there were coal bunkers, which occupied 6 watertight compartments around the chimneys, followed by 2 compartments with steam pipes for reciprocating steam engines and a turbine compartment. This was followed by the aft part of the deck 64 m long with warehouses, pantries and 60 four-berth cabins for 186 third-class passengers, which was already below the waterline.

Titanic Size Comparison

Size comparison of the Titanic with the modern cruise ship Queen Mary 2, Airbus A-380, bus, car and person.
One was aft, the other was on the forecastle, each was steel with a teak top. On the front, at a height of 29 m from the waterline, there was a mars platform (“crow's nest”), which could be reached by an internal metal ladder.

Description

In front of the boat deck there was a navigation bridge, 58 m away from the bow. On the bridge there was a wheelhouse with a steering wheel and a compass, immediately behind it was a room where navigation charts were stored. To the right of the wheelhouse were the navigational cabin, the captain's cabin and part of the officers' cabins, to the left - the rest of the officers' cabins. Behind them, behind the front funnel, was the cabin of the radiotelegraph and the cabin of the radio operator. In front of the deck "D" there were living quarters for 108 stokers, a special spiral ladder connected this deck directly to the boiler rooms, so that the stokers could leave for work and return without passing by the cabins or saloons for passengers. In front of deck "E" there were living quarters for 72 loaders and 44 sailors. In the first part of the "F" deck there were quarters of 53 stokers of the third shift. Deck G contained quarters for 45 stokers and oilers. The abbreviation "RMS" in the name "Titanic" literally means "Royal Mail Ship". The ship had a standard ocean post office (Transatlantic Post Office) and a mail depot on decks F and G, staffed by 5 postal employees who were considered British civil servants. The postmaster was O. C. Woody. The Titanic Post Office had a standard calendar postmark with "Transatlantic Post Office 7" all around. This stamp was used to cancel postage stamps on letters and postcards sent from the Titanic, as well as to register registered letters in transit delivered to the Titanic from Southampton, Cherbourg and Queenstown.

Second bottom

located about one and a half meters above the keel and occupied 9/10 of the length of the vessel, not capturing only small areas in the bow and stern. On the second day, boilers, reciprocating steam engines, a steam turbine and electric generators were installed, all firmly fixed on steel plates, the remaining space was used for cargo, coal and drinking water tanks. In the engine room section, the second bottom rose 2.1 m above the keel, which increased the protection of the liner in case of damage to the outer skin.

Power of steam engines and turbines

Screws "Olympic" before launching. Identical were on the Titanic
The registered power of steam engines and turbines was 50 thousand liters. With. (actually 55 thousand hp). The turbine was located in the fifth watertight compartment in the stern of the liner, in the next compartment, closer to the bow, steam engines were located, the other 6 compartments were occupied by twenty-four double-flow and five single-flow boilers that produced steam for the main machines, turbines, generators and auxiliary mechanisms. The diameter of each boiler was 4.79 m, the length of the double-flow boiler was 6.08 m, the single-flow boiler was 3.57 m. Each double-flow boiler had 6 fireboxes, and the single-flow boiler had 3. In addition, the Titanic was equipped with four auxiliary machines with generators, each with a capacity of 400 kilowatts, generating electricity at a voltage of 100 volts. Next to them were two more 30-kilowatt generators. High-pressure steam from the boilers went to 2 triple expansion steam engines, which rotated the side propellers. From the machines, the steam then entered the low-pressure turbine, which drove the middle propeller. From the turbine, the exhaust steam entered the condensers, from where fresh water went back to the boilers in a closed cycle. The Titanic developed a decent speed for its time, although it was inferior to the competitor's turbo ships - Cunard Line.

The liner had 4 ellipsoid tubes

, size 7.3 × 6 m, height - 18.5 m. The first three removed smoke from the boiler furnaces, the fourth, located above the turbine compartment, served as an exhaust fan, a chimney for ship kitchens was connected to it. A longitudinal section of the vessel is presented on its model exhibited at the Deutsches Museum in Munich, where it is clearly seen that the last pipe was not connected to the fireboxes. The fourth chimney was purely decorative to make the ship look more powerful.

10,000 light bulbs, 562 electric heaters, mainly in first-class cabins, 153 electric motors, including electric drives for eight cranes with a total capacity of 18 tons, 4 cargo winches with a capacity of 750 kg, 4 elevators, each for 12 people, were connected to the distribution network. In addition, electricity was consumed by the telephone exchange and radio communications, fans in the boiler room and engine rooms, apparatus in the gym, dozens of machines and appliances in the kitchens, including refrigerators.

The telephone exchange serviced 50 lines.

The radio equipment on the liner was the most modern, the power of the main transmitter was 5 kilowatts, the power came from an electric generator. The second, an emergency transmitter, was powered by batteries. 4 antennas were stretched between the two masts, up to 75 m long. The guaranteed range of the radio signal was 250 miles. During the day, under favorable conditions, communication was possible at a distance of up to 400 miles, and at night - up to 2000.

radio equipment

arrived on board on April 2 from the Marconi company, which by that time had monopolized the radio industry in Italy and England. Two young radio officer officers assembled and installed the station all day, for verification, a test connection was immediately made with the coast station at Malin Head (English), on the north coast of Ireland, and with Liverpool. On April 3, the radio equipment worked like clockwork, on this day a connection was established with the island of Tenerife at a distance of 2000 miles and with Port Said in Egypt (3000 miles). In January 1912, the Titanic was assigned radio call signs "MUC", then they were replaced by "MGY", previously owned by the American ship Yale. As the dominant radio company, Marconi introduced its own radio call signs, most of which began with the letter "M", regardless of the location of the station and the country of home of the vessel on which it was installed.

Celebrities on the ship

Many celebrities of that time took part in the first trip of the liner, including the millionaire and large industrialist John Jacob Astor IV and his wife Madeleine Astor, businessman Benjamin Guggenheim, the owner of Macy's department store Isidor Strauss and his wife Ida, the eccentric millionaire Margaret Molly Brown, who received the nickname “Unsinkable” after the death of the ship, Sir Cosmas Duff Gordon and his wife, fashion designer Lady Lucy Duff Gordon, popular at the beginning of the century, businessman and cricketer John Thayer, British journalist William Thomas Steed, Countess of Rothskaya, military assistant to US President Archibald Butt , film actress Dorothy Gibson and many others.

Threat to shipping in the North Atlantic

The threat to shipping in the North Atlantic is icebergs breaking off from glaciers in western Greenland and drifting under the influence of currents. Ice fields (huge ice floes or accumulations of ice floes) originating in the Arctic Basin, as well as off the coast of Labrador, Newfoundland and in the Strait of St. Lawrence, and drifting under the influence of winds and currents.

The shortest route from northern Europe to the United States runs along the coast of Newfoundland, directly through the zone of fog and icebergs. In order to streamline navigation in the North Atlantic, in 1898, shipping companies entered into an agreement establishing 2 transatlantic routes, passing much to the south. For each of the routes, separate routes were determined for steamers moving west and east, separated from each other at a distance of up to 50 miles. From mid-January to mid-August, during the season of the greatest ice danger, steamers moved along the South Route. The rest of the year, the Northern route was used. This order usually made it possible to minimize the likelihood of encountering drifting ice. But 1912 turned out to be unusual. From the South Highway, along the western route of which the Titanic also moved, reports of icebergs came one after another. In this regard, the US Hydrological Service raised the issue of moving the route to the south, but the corresponding decisions were made belatedly, after the disaster.

The path of the Titanic and the place of its crash.

Wednesday, April 10, 1912
12:00 p.m. — The Titanic leaves the Southampton harbor and narrowly avoids colliding with the American liner New York. There are 2,060 people on board the Titanic (1,152 passengers).
19:00 - stop in Cherbourg (France) for disembarkation 24 and embarkation of 274 passengers and mail.
21:00 - Titanic left Cherbourg and headed for Queenstown (Ireland).
Thursday, April 11, 1912
12:30 pm stop at Queenstown for disembarkation 8 and disembarkation of 123 passengers and mail; one crew member, 23-year-old fireman John Coffey (John Coffey), deserts the Titanic for unknown reasons. On board, at the same time, he leaves all his documents.
14:00 - The Titanic leaves Queenstown with 1,337 passengers and 908 crew (2,209 people) on board.
Sunday, April 14, 1912
0900 hours - Caronia reports ice at 42°N, 49-51°W.
13:42 - "Baltik" reports the presence of ice in the area of ​​41°51'N, 49°52'W.
13:45 - America reports ice at 41°27'N, 50°8'W.
19:00 - air temperature 43 ° Fahrenheit (6 ° C).
19:30 - air temperature 39 ° Fahrenheit (3.9 ° C).
19:30 - The Californian reports ice at 42°3'N, 49°9'W.
21:00 - air temperature 33 ° Fahrenheit (0.6 ° C).
21:30 - Second Officer Lightoller warns the ship's carpenter and watchmen in the engine room that it is necessary to monitor the fresh water system - water in the pipelines may freeze; he tells the lookout to watch the appearance of ice.
21:40 - Mesaba reports ice at 42°-41°25'N, 49°-50°30'W.
22:00 - air temperature 32 ° Fahrenheit (0 ° C).
10:30 p.m. - Sea water temperature dropped to 31° Fahrenheit (-0.56°C).
11:00 p.m. — The Californian warns of ice, but the Titanic's radio operator cuts off the radio before the Californian can give the area's coordinates.
23:39 - At a point with coordinates 41 ° 46' north latitude, 50 ° 14' west longitude (later it turned out that these coordinates were calculated incorrectly), an iceberg was sighted at a distance of about 650 meters straight ahead.
23:40 - Despite the maneuver, after 39 seconds, the underwater part of the vessel touched, the hull received numerous small holes for a length of about 100 meters. Of the 16 watertight compartments of the ship, the first 5 were cut through.

Stages of the sinking of the Titanic

Monday, April 15, 1912
00:05 - The trim on the nose became noticeable. An order was given to uncover the lifeboats and convene the crew and passengers to the assembly points.
00:15 - the first radiotelegraph signal for help was transmitted from the Titanic.
00:45 - The first flare is fired and the first lifeboat (No. 7) is launched. The bow deck goes under water.
01:15 - Class 3 passengers are allowed on deck.
01:40 - the last flare is fired.
02:05 - the last lifeboat is launched (collapsible boat D). The bow of the boat deck goes under water.
02:08 - The Titanic jerks violently and moves forward. A wave rolls over the deck and floods the bridge, washing passengers and crew members into the water.
02:10 - the last radiotelegraph signals were transmitted.
02:15 - The Titanic lifts the stern high, exposing the rudder and propellers.
02:17 - Electric lighting goes out.
02:18 - The Titanic breaks in two as it sinks rapidly.
02:20 - The Titanic sank.
02:29 - At a speed of about 13 miles per hour, the bow of the Titanic crashes into the ocean floor at a depth of 3750 meters, burrowing into the sedimentary rocks of the bottom.
03:30 - flares fired from the Carpathia are noticed from the lifeboats.
04:10 - Carpathia picked up the first lifeboat from the Titanic (boat No. 2).
08:30 - Carpathia picked up the last (No. 12) lifeboat from the Titanic.
08:50 - Carpathia, taking on board 710 people who escaped from the Titanic, heads for New York.
Thursday, April 18, 1912
The Carpathia Arrives in New York

Iceberg

Photo of an iceberg taken by the chief steward of the German ship Prinz Adalbert on the morning of April 16, 1912. The steward was unaware of the disaster at the time, but the iceberg caught his attention because it had a brown streak at its base, indicating that the iceberg had hit something less than 12 hours earlier. It is assumed that it was with him that the Titanic collided.
Recognizing an iceberg in a light haze, the forward looking Fleet warned “there is ice in front of us” and struck the bell three times, which meant an obstacle straight ahead, after which he rushed to the telephone connecting the “crow’s nest” with the bridge. Moody's sixth mate, who was on the bridge, responded almost instantly and heard a cry of "ice right on the nose!!!" (English ice right ahead!!!). With a polite thank you, Moody turned to the officer of the watch, Murdoch, and repeated the warning. He rushed to the telegraph, put his handle on the “stop” and shouted “right to board”, at the same time transmitting the order “full back” to the engine room, pressed the lever, which turned on the closing of the watertight doors in the bulkheads of the boiler rooms and the engine room.

Photo of an iceberg taken from the cable-laying ship Mina, which was one of the first ships to find dead passengers and the wreckage of the ship. Presumably, the Titanic could have collided with this particular iceberg, since, according to the crew of the Mine, it was the only iceberg near the crash site.
According to the terminology of 1912, the command "right on board" meant turning the stern of the ship to the right, and the bow to the left (since 1909, Russian ships have already used natural command delivery, for example: "left rudder"). The helmsman, Robert Hitchens, leaned on the handle of the steering wheel and quickly turned it clockwise until it stops, after which Murdoch was told "Right rudder, sir!" At that moment, Alfred Oliver, the helmsman of the watch, and Boxhall, who was in the chart house, came running to the bridge when the bells rang out in the "crow's nest". A. Oliver, in his testimony in the US Senate, however, definitely stated that at the entrance to the bridge he heard the command "left rudder" (corresponding to turning to the right), and this command was carried out. According to Boxhall (British Inquiry Question 15355), Murdoch reported to Captain Smith: "I turned to port and reversed, and was about to turn to starboard to get around him, but he was too close."

It is known that binoculars for lookouts were not used on the Titanic, since there was no key to the safe with binoculars. He was taken in by Captain Blair's second mate when the captain kicked him off the team, taking on board a team member from the Olympic. It is possible that the lack of binoculars was one of the reasons for the crash of the liner. However, the existence of binoculars became known only 95 years after the shipwreck, when one of them was exhibited at the Henry Eldridge and Sons auction house in Devizes, Wiltshire. The second assistant to the captain of the Titanic was to be David Blair, for which he arrived on April 3, 1912 from Belfast to Southampton. However, the management of the White Star Line changed him at the last moment to Henry Wild, the first officer from the similar ship Olympic, because he had experience in operating such large liners, as a result of which Blair in a hurry forgot to hand over the key to the person who came to his place. However, many historians agree that the presence of binoculars would not have helped to prevent a catastrophe. This is also confirmed by the fact that the lookouts in the "crow's nest" noticed the iceberg before those on the bridge who had binoculars with them.

Lifeboat "Titanic"

D, taken by one of the passengers of the Carpathia
There were 2,207 people on board the Titanic, but the total capacity of the lifeboats was only 1,178 people. The reason was that, according to the rules then in force, the total capacity of lifeboats depended on the tonnage of the ship, and not on the number of passengers and crew members. The rules were drawn up in 1894, when the largest ships had a displacement of about 10,000 tons. The displacement of the Titanic was 52,310 tons.

But even these boats were only partially filled. Captain Smith gave the order or instruction "women and children first". The officers interpreted this order in different ways. Second mate Lightoller, who was in charge of launching the boats on the port side, allowed men to take places in the boats only if rowers were needed, and under no other circumstances. First mate Murdoch, who commanded the launch of the boats on the starboard side, allowed men to go down into the boats if there were no women and children nearby. So, in the boat number 1, only 12 seats out of 65 were occupied. In addition, at first, many passengers did not want to take seats in the boats, because the Titanic, on which there was no visible external damage, seemed safer to them. The last boats filled better, because it was already obvious that the ship would sink. In the very last boat, 44 seats out of 65 were occupied. But in the sixteenth boat that left the side there were many empty seats, there were 1st class passengers in it.

The crew did not even have time to lower all the boats that were on board. The twentieth boat was washed overboard when the front of the steamer went under water, and she floated upside down.

Rescue of passengers and crew

The CS Mackay-Bennett team pulls passengers' bodies out of the water
The report of the British Commission on the results of the investigation into the circumstances of the sinking of the Titanic states that "if the boats had been delayed a little longer before launching, or if the doors of the passage had been opened for passengers, more of them could have got on the boats." The reason for the low survival rate of class 3 passengers with a high degree of probability can be considered obstacles placed by the crew for the passage of passengers to the deck, closing the doors of the passage. People in boats, as a rule, did not save those who were in the water. On the contrary, they tried to sail as far as possible from the wreck, fearing that those in the water would capsize their boats or be sucked into the funnel from a sinking ship. Only 6 people were picked up alive from the water.

"Californian"

Serious criticism fell upon the crew of the SS Californian and personally on the ship's captain, Stanley Lord. The ship was only a few miles from the Titanic, but did not respond to her distress calls. The Californian radioed the Titanic to alert the Titanic of ice build-up - this was the reason for the Californian's shutdown for the night - but the warnings were ignored by the Titanic's senior wireless operator, Jack Phillips.

Evidence from a British investigation showed that at 22:10 the Californian observed the ship's lights to the south. Captain Stanley Lord and third officer S. W. Groves (who was released by Lord at 11:10 p.m.) later determined it was a passenger liner. , and that a port light appeared. By order of the Lord, Morse light signals were sent to the ship between 23:30 and 01:00, but no response was received.

Captain Lord retired to his cabin at 11:00 pm for a night's rest, but Second Officer Herbert Stone, while on duty, notified Lord at 01:10 am that an unknown ship had fired 5 missiles. Lord asked if they were company signals, i.e. colored flashes used for identification. Stone replied that he did not know and that the missiles were white. Captain Lord instructed the crew to continue signaling the ship with a Morse lamp and went to bed. Three more rockets were seen at 01:50 am, and Stone noted that the ship looked strange in the water, as if it was tilted. At 02:15 am, Lord was notified that the ship was no longer in sight. Lord asked again if the rocket lights had any color and was informed that they were all white.

The Californian eventually decided to react. At approximately 05:30 a.m., Chief Officer George Stuart woke up wireless operator Cyril Farmstone-Evans and informed him that rockets had been seen during the night and asked to contact the ship. In response, he received news of the sinking of the Titanic; Captain Lord was notified of this, and the ship went to provide assistance. It arrived much later than the Carpathia, which had already picked up the survivors.

As a result of the investigation, it turned out that the ship seen by the Californian was the Titanic, and that the Californian could have come to his aid if not for the actions of Captain Lord. Nevertheless, Lord declared his innocence until the end of his life, and many researchers still argue that the well-known relative position of the Titanic and the Californian make it impossible for the former to be the very “mysterious ship”, the theme of which “caused ... millions of words and… hours of heated debate”

In the early days, newspapers reported false information about the number of victims, based on conflicting rumors.
Almost all the women and children from cabins 1 and 2 were saved. More than half of the women and children in Class 3 cabins died as they had difficulty finding their way up through the maze of narrow corridors. Nearly all of the men also died. The tragedy of the Polsson family claimed the lives of Alma's mother and all her four young children, whom Father Niels was waiting in vain for in New York.

The fate of the passengers

338 men (20% of all adult men) and 316 women (74% of all adult women) survived, including Violet Jessop, Dorothy Gibson, Molly Brown, Lucy Duff Gordon, the Countess of Rothes and others. Of the children, 56 survived (slightly more than half of all children).

In May 2006, at the age of 99, the last American eyewitness who survived the crash of the Titanic died. This was reported by the Boston funeral home. She died yesterday at her home. Swedish-born Lillian Gertrud Asplund (Swed. Lillian Gertrud Asplund), who was five years old at the time of the disaster, lost her father and three brothers in her. Her mother and brother, who was then three years old, survived. They were third-class passengers and escaped in boat number 15. Asplund was the last to remember how the tragedy happened, but she avoided publicity and rarely spoke about this event.

The last passenger on the Titanic, Millvina Dean, who was two and a half months old at the time of the ship's sinking, died on May 31, 2009 at the age of 97. Her ashes were scattered to the wind on October 24, 2009 in the port of Southampton, from where the Titanic began its only voyage.

A kind of record belongs to the maid Violet Jessop, who survived the accident on all 3 ships of the Olympic class. She worked on the Olympic when it collided with the cruiser Hawk; escaped from the Titanic, and subsequently survived when the Britannic sank by hitting a mine during the First World War.

Distribution of victims by social status

Ownership Total number Rescued Rescued in % Victims Victims in %
I class 324 201 62 123 38
II class 277 118 42.6 159 57.4
III class 708 181 25.6 527 74.4
Team 898 212 23.6 686 76.4
Total 2207 712 32.26 1495 67.74

Vessel Country Tonnage Year Number of casualties Cause of death
Goya Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 5 230 1945, April 16 ~ 7 000 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Attack of the submarine L-3
Junyo-maru Flag of Japan.svg Japan 5 065 1944, September 18 5 620 United Kingdom Attack of the submarine HMS Tradewind
Toyama Maru Flag of Japan.svg Japan 7 089 1944 June 29 5 600 United States of America USS Sturgeon submarine attack
Cap Arkona Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 27 561 1945, May 3 5 594 Great Britain Air attack
Wilhelm Gustloff Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 25 484 1945, January 30 ~ 5 300…9 300 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
Armenia Flag of the Soviet Union (1923-1955).svg USSR 5 770 1941, November 7 ~ 5 000 Germany Air attack
Ryusei-maru (eng. SS Ryusei Maru) Flag of Japan.svg Japan 4 861 1944, February 25 4 998 United States of America Attack of the submarine USS Rasher
Doña Paz Flag of the Philippines (navy blue).svg Philippines 2 602 1987 December 20 4 375 Tanker collision and fire
Lancastria Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain 16 243 1940, June 17 ~4 000 Germany Air attack
General Steuben Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 14 660 1945, February 10 3 608 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Attack of the submarine S-13
Tilbeck War Ensign of Germany 1938-1945.svg Germany 2 815 1945, May 3 ~ 2 800 Great Britain Air attack
Salzburg Flag of German Reich (1935–1945).svg Germany 1 759 1942, October 1 2 086 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Attack of the submarine M-118
Bismarck War Ensign of Germany 1938-1945.svg Germany 50 900 1941, 27 May 1995 Great Britain battle with British ships
Titanic Flag of the United Kingdom.svg UK 52310 1912 April 15 1495 Iceberg impact
Hood, battlecruiser Naval Ensign of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain 41 125 1941, 24 May 1 415 Germany battle with German ships
Lusitania Flag of the United Kingdom.svg Great Britain 31 550 1915, May 7 1 198 Germany U-20 submarine attack
Among the disasters that occurred outside of hostilities, the Titanic ranks third in terms of the number of victims. The sad leadership is behind the Doña Paz ferry, which collided with an oil tanker in 1987. More than 4,000 people died in the collision and subsequent fire. Second place is held by the wooden paddle steamer "Sultana", which sank on April 27, 1865 on the Mississippi River near Memphis due to the explosion of a steam boiler and fire. The total death toll on the steamer exceeded 1,700, the largest disaster on a riverboat.

Looking for the wreckage

In 1994, a piece of ship plating was transferred to the laboratory of the Canadian Department of Defense in Halifax. The laboratory workers decided to subject it to the so-called impact test on Charpy samples, which determines the brittleness of steel. The essence of the test was as follows: a prototype, fixed in a special clamp, had to withstand the impact of a 30-kilogram pendulum. For comparison, a similar piece of steel used in modern courts was tested. Before testing, both samples were kept in an alcohol bath at a temperature of 1.7 °C (the same was the temperature of sea water at the site of the shipwreck). Modern steel passed the test with honor: as a result of the impact, the metal plate only bent in a V-shape, and the fragment of the Titanic was broken into two parts. Perhaps he became so fragile after lying at the bottom of the Atlantic for 82 years. Canadian researchers managed to get a sample of 80-year-old steel from the Belfast shipyard, where the Titanic was built at one time. He endured the impact test on Sharpy samples no better than his sunken brother.

The experts concluded that the steel used to cover the Titanic's hull was of poor quality, with a large admixture of phosphorus, which made it very brittle at low temperatures. If the skin had been made of high quality, tough, low phosphorus steel, it would have softened the force of impact to a great extent. The metal sheets would have simply bent inward and the damage to the hull would not have been so serious. Perhaps then the Titanic would have been saved, or at least would have remained afloat for a long time, sufficient to evacuate most of the passengers. Also, according to research data, the susceptibility of steel plating in cold waters to brittle rupture was revealed, which also accelerated the sinking of the vessel.

On the other hand, this test only proves that modern steel is much better than the one used at the beginning of the 20th century. It does not prove that the steel used to build the Titanic was of poor quality (or not the best) for its time.

In the first years of the 21st century, in a number of mass media, with reference to the latest studies of the ship's hull by deep-sea submersibles, the opinion was expressed that in a collision with an iceberg, the ship did not receive a hole, and its skin withstood the blow. The cause of death was that the hull rivets could not prevent the divergence of its sheets, and outboard water began to flow into the resulting long gap.

Research and tests

Conducted research and tests, analysis of procurement documents showed that wrought iron rivets were used as rivets, and not steel, as was originally planned. Moreover, these rivets were of low quality, they had a lot of third-party impurities, in particular coke, during forging, this coke collected in the heads, further increasing fragility. During the impact of the iceberg, the heads of cheap rivets simply broke, and sheets of 2.5-centimeter steel diverged under the pressure of ice.

Internal communication system

the liner was extremely unsatisfactory, there was no direct communication with the captain - he had to report all messages orally. Radio communication at sea in 1912 was still a novelty. Unlike the rest of the team, the radio operators did not work for the shipping company, but for the Marconi K ° company, for which the transfer of paid messages to especially wealthy passengers was a priority - it is known that in just 36 hours of work, the radio operators transmitted more than 250 telegrams.

The radio log from the Titanic did not survive

, but according to the surviving records from various ships that had contact with the liner, it was possible to more or less restore the picture of the work of radio operators. Reports of drifting ice and icebergs began to arrive already in the morning of the fatal date - April 14, the exact coordinates of the high-risk zone were indicated. The Titanic continued to sail on, without swerving off course or slowing down. At 19:30, in particular, a telegram came from the Mesaba transport ship: “I report ice from 42 degrees to 41 degrees 25 minutes north latitude and from 49 degrees to 50 degrees 30 minutes west longitude. I saw a large number of icebergs, ice fields. At this time, the senior communications officer of the Titanic, Jack Phillips, worked for the benefit of the passengers, transmitting an inexhaustible stream of messages to the Cape Ras station, while the most important message never reached the captain, lost in a pile of paper - the Mesaba radio operator forgot to mark the message as "Ice Report" with the prefix MSG, which meant "personally to the captain." This little detail overshadowed Philips' selfless work.

On the other hand, on April 14, in addition to this message, several more iceberg warnings were received from other ships. The captain took certain measures, in particular, the officers were warned of the danger verbally and in writing, and those looking ahead were ordered to look for the presence of icebergs. Therefore, it cannot be said that Captain Smith did not know about them.

The news about the absence of binoculars from the lookout was received with criticism (according to many testimonies, the binoculars were only on the Belfast-Southampton segment, after this stop Hogg, on the orders of the captain, for some reason folded them in his cockpit). There is an opinion that having binoculars looking ahead, despite a moonless night, would notice an iceberg not a quarter of a mile (450 m), but 2 or 3 miles (4-6 km). On the other hand, binoculars narrow the field of view, so they are used only after the lookout has noticed something, for a more detailed study of the alleged object. At the same time, lookouts without binoculars discovered the iceberg earlier than the watch officer who had binoculars. On the other hand, on the Titanic there was a special group of lookouts who had some experience. On many other ships, random sailors from the crew were placed as lookouts.

If there were even a slight wave or swell in the ocean, he would see white lambs at the “waterline” of the iceberg. As it later became known, the Titanic collided with a “black” iceberg, that is, with one that had recently turned over in the water. The side facing the liner had a dark blue color, because of this there was no reflection (an ordinary white iceberg under such a condition could be seen from a mile away).

The question of what prevented the senior on the bridge, the first assistant W. Murdoch, whose immediate duty was to constantly monitor the situation, to detect the iceberg himself in a timely manner, remains open: Murdoch died in a shipwreck. The captain of the Carpathia, Rostron, said that 75% of the objects in the sea are detected from the bridge earlier than from the "crow's nest". When his ship sailed at night to the site of the accident of the Titanic, all the icebergs on their way were seen from the bridge before they were discovered by the lookouts.

There is an opinion that if Murdoch had not given the order to reverse immediately after the command "left rudder", the Titanic would certainly have avoided a collision, since the reverse negatively affects the effectiveness of the rudder. In this case, however, the time required to execute the command is overlooked. This takes at least 30 seconds and the command was probably received with a delay; - commands for the engine room are rarely given along the route of the liner (the last one was given three days before), so no one is standing at the engine telegraph. The team simply did not have time to execute, otherwise the Titanic would have experienced a strong vibration, but no one mentions it. According to the testimonies of the survivors, the cars stopped and reversed after the collision, so this command had no practical significance.

There is also an opinion that the most correct decision would be to start only the left car in reverse. Running the propellers apart, that is, in opposite directions, would help speed up the turn and slow down the speed. The middle propeller was driven by a steam turbine that ran on the residual steam from the onboard machines; this turbine had no reverse gear. Thus, the stopped screw, behind which there was a single rudder of a very small area, created a turbulent flow in which the already inefficient rudder almost completely lost its effectiveness. Perhaps even, in order to avoid a collision, it would be necessary, on the contrary, to increase the speed of the middle propeller to increase the efficiency of the steering wheel. Moreover, the reverse takes a considerable time, and, therefore, there were practically no chances to quickly reduce the speed.

Attention should be paid to the fact that the accident occurred on the first flight.

The navigators had no experience in operating this vessel, which explains the untimely and inefficient maneuvering attempts. At the same time, Captain Smith, First Officer Wild, and First Officer Murdoch, who was on duty during the accident, had experience working on the Olympic built according to a similar project. In 1903, in a critical situation, Murdoch, with his timely and decisive actions, canceling the command of his superiors, saved the steamer Arabic from a collision.

There are also suggestions that the Titanic would have remained afloat if the rudder had not been shifted and the ship would have “rammed” the iceberg, taking a hit on the stem. The device of partitions was just aimed at the "survival" of the ship in a head-on collision, while the sides of the ship were not protected. “Wilding, a shipbuilder from Belfast, calculated that the bow of the ship would be indented by 25-30 meters, but the ship would not die. It would be instant death for those who were at the bow of the vessel at that time, but the inertia of the course would be rather slow, comparable to a car traveling at this speed, which had its brakes instantly pressed to the stop,” says Barnaby. However, Murdoch is justified by the fact that he did not have the ability to measure the distance to the iceberg and could not know that the maneuver he had taken would not succeed. Therefore, he can hardly be reproached for the fact that he did not give a command that would obviously kill people.

The liner was not designed to flood all the first five compartments. Such a design, although possible, is extremely expensive - the only ship built this way, the Great Eastern, was unprofitable. The unprofitability of this giant ship is confirmed by the fact that it was not found possible to use it for its intended purpose, and it went down in history as a cable ship used in laying the transatlantic telegraph cable. It is also impossible not to take into account the likelihood of risk. After all, apart from the Titanic, in peacetime, not a single ship suffered such damage.

High liner speed

Despite warnings about icebergs, the captain of the Titanic did not slow down or change route. But that was standard practice at the time. So, during the investigation into the death of the Titanic, Captain Gerhard C. Affeld, who commanded 5 transatlantic ships, showed that, having received warnings about icebergs, he never changed the route and reduced speed only in case of fog or bad weather. He studied the logbooks of the ships entrusted to him. According to these logs, other captains, having received warnings about icebergs, also did not change their route and, as a rule, did not slow down. On the other hand, not everyone followed this practice: the ship Californian closest to the Titanic, having reached the iceberg field, stopped at its border (and gave the Titanic a warning that was ignored).

Lookout Reginald Lee testified that he spotted the iceberg from a distance of "half a mile (926 m) maybe more, maybe less." The Titanic would cover half a mile in 80 seconds. Helmsman Hichens testified that by the time of the collision the ship had managed to turn 2 points. Since the windows of the wheelhouse were darkened so that the light did not interfere with the observation from the bridge, Hichens could not see the iceberg. An experiment on the twin steamer Olympic showed that a turn of 2 points would take 37 seconds, counting from the moment the command was given. The authors of the book Report into the Loss of the SS Titanic: A Centennial Reappraisal, published on the occasion of the centenary of the shipwreck, restore the timing of the accident, and put forward a version of the “lost 30 seconds” after the signal of the lookouts, who left Murdoch for then to visually detect an iceberg, assess the situation and make a decision.

The main subjective cause of death

there were outdated rules of the British Merchant Shipping Code, which made the number of lifeboats dependent on the tonnage of the ship, and not on the number of passengers. The rules were established in 1894 when the tonnage of passenger ships did not exceed 12,952 tons, and all ships of 10,000 tons and above fell into one category. For such vessels, regulations required that the lifeboats had enough space for 962 people. The tonnage of the Titanic was 46,328 tons.

The owners of the Titanic, formally fulfilling the instructions (and even slightly overfulfilling them, since the Titanic's boats had 1,178 seats, not 962), provided the ship with an insufficient number of boats. Despite the fact that there were enough lifeboats to board 1178 people, only 704 were saved. There were certain subjective reasons for this. For example, second mate Charles Lightoller, who commanded the launching of the boats on the port side, carried out Captain Smith's order "women and children first" literally: he allowed men to take places in boats only if rowers were needed and under no other circumstances.

Based on the stories of Charles Lightoller, his granddaughter Lady Patten put forward a new version of the death of the transatlantic liner. According to the writer, the Titanic did not sink because it was sailing too fast, because of which it simply did not have time to avoid a collision with an iceberg. There was plenty of time to dodge the ice block, but the helmsman, Robert Hitchens, panicked and turned the helm in the wrong direction. The ship received a hole, due to which it eventually sank. However, passengers and crew could have been saved if the Titanic had stopped immediately after the collision. In addition, the nearest ship was only a few miles from the liner. The manager of the company that owned the huge ship, Joseph Bruce Ismay, convinced the captain to continue sailing, fearing that the incident could cause him considerable material damage. He wanted to save the Titanic, but he thought only about the financial side of the matter. The rate of water entering the holds of the liner has increased exponentially. Water entered the hull at a rate of approximately 400 tons per minute. As a result, the ship sank in a matter of hours. About why the liner went down, Lightoller told only his relatives. According to Patten, her relatives feared for their reputation and therefore did not want to disclose the true causes of the 1912 disaster. “My relatives died a long time ago, and I realized that I was the only one in the world who knows about the true cause of the sinking of the Titanic,” the writer said.

A set of adverse factors

The cause of the collision and loss of the vessel was a combination of adverse factors:

The iceberg began to melt and, as a result, turned over and became almost transparent, due to which it was noticed too late.
The night was windless and moonless, otherwise the lookout would have noticed the "lambs" around the iceberg.
The speed of the steamer was too high, due to which the impact of the iceberg on the hull was of maximum force. If the captain had ordered in advance, when entering the iceberg belt, to reduce the speed of the ship, then perhaps the impact force on the iceberg would not have been enough to break through the Titanic's hull.
The non-transmission of several telegrams from neighboring ships by members of the radio room, busy sending private telegrams of wealthy passengers for money, about the dangerous proximity of icebergs to Captain Smith, which lowered his vigilance.
The best steel of the time, from which the Titanic was made, became brittle at low temperatures. The water temperature that night was +2 ... +4 ° C, which made the ship's hull very vulnerable.
The poor quality of the rivets that connected the plating sheets of the side of the ship, when an iceberg hit, the heads of forged iron rivets, which replaced the originally provided steel ones, crumbled due to their “porosity” due to the inclusion of foreign impurities in them.
The arrangement of partitions between the compartments was made based on a frontal impact, and the doors between the partitions simply could not withstand the pressure of water and broke under its pressure.
Lack of binoculars for the lookout.
The absence of red signal flares that indicated danger.

At the time of the sinking, the ships closest to the Titanic were: the Carpathia, the fishing vessel Samson and the Californian. Of these, the telegraph was installed on the Carpathia and the Californian.
The Carpathia was 49 miles from the Titanic. And it was this ship that was the first to arrive at the crash site 4 hours later and took all the surviving passengers from the boats.
The fishing schooner Samson was 17 miles from the Titanic. Fishermen were engaged in illegal catching of seals on this vessel. At the sight of white flares (they indicated attention) and because of the bright light of the liner, the captain of the Samson thought it was a coast guard signal and hurried to take the ship away. There were no red signal flares on the Titanic (they indicated danger and the captain who sees them is obliged to go there). If there were red flares on the liner, then the victims could have been avoided.
The ship "Californian" was 26 miles from the "Titanic" and at the sight of flares, the captain thought that fireworks were being set off there. At the same time, the ship's radio station did not function, since the only radio operator was resting after the watch. The next morning the captain told the story of the missiles to the telegraph operator. The telegraph operator began to check incoming messages, and five minutes was enough for him, and he understood everything about the sinking of the Titanic. For this, the captain of the Californian lost his rank for failing to provide assistance to a sinking ship.

Flood depth

On September 1, 1985, an expedition led by the director of the Institute of Oceanology in Woods Hall, Massachusetts, Dr. Robert D. Ballard, discovered the Titanic's place of occurrence at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean at a depth of 3750 meters.

The distance between the remains of the bow and stern of the Titanic is about 600 meters.

The remains of the ship were discovered 13 miles west of the coordinates that the Titanic transmitted in its SOS signal.

In April 2012, one hundred years after the shipwreck, the wreck acquired the protection of the 2001 UNESCO Convention for the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage. From now on, the states parties to the Convention have the right to prevent the destruction, looting, sale and unauthorized distribution of objects found at the shipwreck. They can take all necessary measures to protect the wreckage of a sunken ship, as well as to ensure that the human remains resting in them are properly treated.

Investigation of the site of the sinking of the Titanic

Research into the sinking of the Titanic was undertaken in August-September 2001 by Oscar-winning Titanic director James Cameron. Cameron and a group of scientists plunged to the Titanic on the Russian deep-sea submersibles Mir-1 and Mir-2. With the help of two small remote-controlled submersibles "Jack" and "Elwood" and CGI technology, the documentary "Ghosts of the Abyss: Titanic" (2003) was filmed, in which viewers can look inside the Titanic.

In addition, 12 dives on the same vehicles were carried out in September 1995 in preparation for the filming of the film Titanic. Footage of the exterior and interior of the wreck was used in the film.

Conspiracy theory

The similarity between the Olympic and the Titanic gave rise to a conspiracy theory, according to which it was not the Titanic that was actually sent on the tragic flight, but the Olympic. This became possible after the replacement of stern sheets with the name of the vessel, as well as all household and interior items bearing the name of the vessel (of which, in general, there were quite a few). According to supporters of the theory, this would explain many facts: the lack of binoculars for lookouts, reverse while avoiding the iceberg, high speed.

The theory is based on the assumption of fraud in order to obtain insurance. In 1911, when leaving for voyage 11, the Olympic collided with the British cruiser Hawk. At the same time, the latter miraculously remained afloat, while the Olympic escaped with minor damage. By that time, the White Star Line company was already suffering serious financial losses. The insurance for the ship could well cover all the losses, but the damage received in the collision with the cruiser was not enough to pay the insurance. It was necessary that the ship received even more damage (which, however, would not affect its buoyancy). Therefore, when passing through a dangerous area, the ship was deliberately exposed to the risk of colliding with an iceberg - the owners of the White Star Line company were confident that even if they received serious damage, the ship would not sink.

Despite the seemingly obvious absurdity of this version, it has become widespread, and it turned out to be very difficult to refute it. Against her, for example, was the fact that many passengers of the Titanic had previously sailed on the Olympic and would hardly have noticed the substitution. In addition, the presence on board the top officials of the White Star Line also testified not in favor of the conspiracy theory. Supporters of the conspiracy theory explained the presence of Bruce Ismay on board by his desire to divert suspicion from himself and confidence in the "unsinkability" of the ship. Actually, the conspiracy theory was debunked only after the parts were lifted from the ship, on which the number 401 (the building number of the Titanic) was knocked out, since the building number of the Olympic was 400. However, despite numerous counterarguments, the version of the conspiracy is still still continues to exist - evidence of this is a number of modern popular science articles and documentaries that defend this point of view.

The Titanic II will set sail in 2016
Australian billionaire Clive Palmer has announced his intention to build a replica ship, the Titanic 2 cruise ship.

It will be built at a Chinese shipyard and, recreating the look of the legendary vessel (there will be the same four steam pipes), it will at the same time be equipped with modern navigation and propulsion equipment, including a diesel power plant, bow bulb, side thrusters (thrust) and an enlarged rudder . The vessel is expected to be ready for its maiden voyage in April 2016.

Monument to the crew of the Titanic in Southampton

Main article: Titanic in culture
The crash of the liner has become one of the most famous disasters in the history of mankind. To some extent, the image of the Titanic has become a symbol of the death of something that seemed powerful and unsinkable, a symbol of the weakness of human technogenic civilization before the forces of nature. The catastrophe was widely reflected in art, especially mass art. The first film dedicated to the disaster - "The Survivor of the Titanic" - appeared already in May 1912, a month after the crash. In the same 1912, but before the catastrophe occurred, Morgan Robertson's book "Futility, or the death of Titan" ("Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan") was published, the action of which took place on board a passenger ship "Titan", similar in description and displacement to the "Titanic". In this book, the Titan dies after colliding with an iceberg in the fog while sailing from New York to the UK. As a result, a legend appeared about the “prediction” of the Titanic disaster by Morgan Robertson. This fact is reinforced by the fact that despite the publication of the book in 1912, it was written in 1898.

The film "Titanic"

The film Titanic, released in 1997 by James Cameron, was the world box office leader for 13 years ($1,845,034,188, including $600,788,188 in the US), but in 2010, the Titanic record was broken by the film Avatar ”, released by the same director; In April 2012, on the centenary of the disaster, Cameron released his old film in 3D.

In honor of the centenary of the sinking of the liner, the mini-series "Titanic" directed by Jon Jones was filmed. World premiere March 21, 2012.

"Titanic: Blood and Steel" is a 12-episode film, where the main characters will be the creators of the liner, previously called unsinkable, forced to work in an atmosphere of political and financial pressure. The world premiere took place on April 15, 2012.

The death of the ship was dedicated to many songs of performers and groups playing in different genres. In particular, in the song of the same name by the Austrian artist Falco (1992), the Titanic is regarded as a symbol of decadence, the end of an era, in the song of the Russian group Nautilus Pompilius from the album of the same name Titanic (1994), the floating ship appears as a symbol of death and doom.

Manufacturers "Revell" and "Zvezda" produce prefabricated plastic models-copies of the "Titanic".

You have already read and heard about the Titanic many times. The history of the creation and crash of the liner is overgrown with rumors and myths. For more than 100 years, the British steamship has been haunting the minds of people trying to find the answer - why did the Titanic sink?

The history of the legendary liner is interesting for three reasons:

• it was the largest ship for 1912;
• the number of victims turned the catastrophe into a global failure;
• finally, James Cameron, with his film, singled out the history of the liner from the general list of maritime disasters, and there were quite a few of them.

We will tell you everything about the Titanic, as it was in reality. About how long the Titanic is in meters, how much the Titanic sank, and who was really behind the massive disaster.

Where did the Titanic sail from and to?

We know from Cameron's film that the liner was bound for New York. The American up-and-coming city was to be the final stop. But far from everyone knows for sure where the Titanic sailed from, considering that London was the starting point. The capital of Great Britain was not in the ranks of seaports, and therefore the steamer could not leave from there.

The fateful flight began from Southampton, a major English port, from where transatlantic flights ran. The path of the Titanic on the map clearly shows the movement. Southampton is both a port and a city located in the southern part of England (Hampshire).

See how the route of the Titanic ran on the map:

Dimensions of the Titanic in meters

To understand more about the Titanic, the causes of the disaster must be disclosed, starting with the dimensions of the ship.

How many meters is the Titanic in length and in other dimensions:

exact length - 299.1 m;

width - 28.19 m;

height from the keel - 53.3 m.

There is also such a question - how many decks did the Titanic have? Only 8. Boats were located on the top, therefore the upper deck was called the boat deck. The rest were distributed according to the letter designation.

A - deck I class. Its peculiarity is limited in size - it did not lie down the entire length of the vessel;

B - anchors were located in the front of the deck and its dimensions were also shorter - by 37 meters of deck C;

C - deck with a galley, a mess for the crew and a promenade for class III.

D - walking area;

E - cabins I, II classes;

F - cabins II and III classes;

G - deck with boiler rooms in the middle.

Finally, how much does the Titanic weigh? The displacement of the largest ship of the early 20th century is 52,310 tons.

Titanic: the story of the crash

In what year did the Titanic sink? The famous disaster occurred on the night of April 14, 1912. It was the fifth day of the trip. Chronicles indicate that at 23:40 the liner survived a collision with an iceberg and after 2 hours 40 minutes (2:20 a.m.) it went under water.

Things from the Titanic: photo

Further investigations showed that the crew received 7 weather warnings, but this did not prevent the ship from reducing its speed limit. The iceberg was sighted directly ahead of us too late to take precautions. As a result - holes in the starboard side. Ice damaged 90 m of hull and 5 bow compartments. This was enough to sink the liner.

Tickets for the new liner were more expensive than for other ships. If a person was used to traveling in first class, then on the Titanic he would have to transfer to second class.

Edward Smith, the captain of the ship, began the evacuation after midnight: a distress call was sent, the attention of other ships was attracted by flares, lifeboats went to the water. But the rescue was slow and uncoordinated - there was an empty place in the boats while the Titanic was sinking, the water temperature did not rise above two degrees below zero, and the first steamer arrived only half an hour after the disaster.

Titanic: how many people died and survived

How many people survived on the Titanic? No one will say the exact data, as they could not say this on the fateful night. The list of Titanic passengers initially changed in practice, but not on paper: some canceled the trip at the time of departure and were not crossed out, others traveled anonymously under assumed names, and others were listed as dead on the Titanic several times.

Photos of the sinking of the Titanic

It is only approximately possible to say how many people drowned on the Titanic - about 1500 (minimum 1490 - maximum 1635). Among them was Edward Smith with some assistants, 8 musicians from the famous orchestra, large investors and businessmen.

Classiness was felt even after death - the bodies of the dead from the first class were embalmed and placed in coffins, the second and third classes were given bags and boxes. When the embalming agents ran out, the bodies of unknown third-class passengers were simply thrown into the water (according to the rules, unembalmed corpses could not be brought to the port).

The bodies were found within a radius of 80 km from the crash site, and due to the current of the Gulf Stream, many were dispersed even further.

Photos of dead people

Initially, it was known how many passengers were on the Titanic, although not completely:

crew of 900 people;

195 first class;

255 second class;

493 people of the third class.

Some passengers left at intermediate ports, some called. It is believed that the liner went to the fatal route with a staff of 1317 people, of which 124 are children.

Titanic: scuttling depth - 3750 m

The English steamer could accommodate 2,566 people, of which 1,034 seats were for first-class passengers. The half-load of the liner is due to the fact that transatlantic flights were not popular in April. At that time, a coal strike broke out, this disrupted coal supplies, schedules and changes in plans.

The question of how many people escaped from the Titanic was difficult to answer because the rescue operations took place from different ships, and the slow connection did not provide fast data.

After the crash, only 2/3 of the delivered bodies were identified. Some were buried locally, the rest were sent home. In the disaster area, bodies in white vests were found for a long time. Of the 1,500 people who died, only 333 bodies were found.

How deep is the Titanic

When answering the question about the depth at which the Titanic sank, one must remember about the pieces carried by the currents (by the way, they learned about this only in the 80s, before that it was believed that the liner sank to the bottom entirely). The wreckage of the liner on the night of the crash went at a depth of 3750 m. The bow was thrown 600 m from the stern.

The place where the Titanic sank, on the map:

In which ocean did the Titanic sink? - in the Atlantic.

Titanic lifted from the bottom of the ocean

They wanted to raise the ship from the moment of the crash. Initiative plans were put forward by relatives of the dead from the first class. But 1912 did not yet know the necessary technologies. The war, lack of knowledge and funds delayed the search for the sunken ship for a hundred years. Since 1985, 17 expeditions have been carried out, during which 5,000 items and large plating have been raised to the surface, but the ship itself has remained at the bottom of the ocean.

What does the Titanic look like now?

In the time since the crash, the ship has become covered in marine life. Rust, painstaking work of invertebrates and natural decomposition processes have changed the structures beyond recognition. By this time, the bodies had already completely decomposed, and by the 22nd century, only anchors and boilers would remain from the Titanic - the most massive metal structures.

Even now the interiors of the decks have been destroyed, the cabins and halls have collapsed.

Titanic, Britannic and Olympic

All three ships were manufactured by the Harland and Wolf shipbuilding company. Before the Titanic, the Olympic saw the world. It is easy to see a fatal predisposition in the fate of the three ships. The first liner was wrecked as a result of a collision with a cruiser. Not such a large-scale disaster, but still an impressive failure.

Then the story of the Titanic, which received a wide response in the world, and, finally, the Gigantic. They tried to make this ship especially durable, given the mistakes of previous liners. He was even launched into the water, but the First World War disrupted the plans. The giant became a hospital ship called the Britannic.

He then just managed to carry out 5 quiet flights, and on the sixth there was a disaster. Having been blown up by a German mine, the Britannic rapidly sank. The mistakes of the past and the preparedness of the captain made it possible to save the maximum number of people - 1036 out of 1066.

Is it possible to talk about evil rock, remembering the Titanic? The history of the creation and crash of the liner were studied in detail, the facts were revealed, even through time. And yet the truth is only now being revealed. The reason the Titanic is attracting attention is to hide its true motive - to create a currency system and destroy opponents.

The sinking of the Titanic claimed the lives of 1,517 of the 2,229 passengers and crew (official figures vary slightly) in one of the worst maritime disasters in world history. 712 survivors were brought aboard the RMS Carpathia. After this disaster, a great resonance swept through the public affecting attitudes towards social injustice, radically changed the way passengers were transported following the North Atlantic Passage, the rules for the number of lifeboats carried on board passenger ships were changed and the International Ice Reconnaissance was created (where merchant ships crossing the North Atlantic are still, with the help of radio signals, they transmit accurate information about the location and concentration of ice). In 1985, a major discovery was made, the Titanic was discovered at the bottom of the ocean and became a turning point for the public and for the development of new areas of science and technology. April 15, 2012 marks the 100th anniversary of the Titanic. It became one of the most famous ships in history, her image has remained in numerous books, films, exhibitions and monuments.

Crash of the Titanic in real time

duration - 2 hours 40 minutes!

The British passenger liner Titanic leaves Southampton, England on her maiden voyage on April 10, 1912. The Titanic was called to Cherbourg, France and Queenstown, Ireland, before heading west towards New York. Four days in transit, she hit an iceberg at 11:40 pm, 375 miles south of Newfoundland. Shortly before 2:20 am, the Titanic broke up and sank. More than a thousand people were on board at the time of the accident. Some died in the water within minutes from hypothermia in the waters of the North Antaltic Ocean. (Frank O. Braynard Collection)

The luxury liner Titanic, pictured in this 1912 photograph, left Queenstown for New York on her ill-fated last voyage. The passengers of this ship were included in the list of the richest people in the world, such as millionaires John Jacob Astor IV, Benjamin Guggenheim and Isidor Strauss, as well as more than a thousand immigrants from Ireland, Scandinavia and other countries seeking a new life in America. The disaster was greeted around the world with shock and outrage over the huge loss of life and violation of the regulatory and operational parameters that led to this disaster. The investigation into the sinking of the Titanic began a few days later and led to a significant improvement in maritime safety. (United Press International)

Crowd of workers. Shipyard Harland and Wolf shipyard in Belfast, where the Titanic was built between 1909 and 1911. The ship was designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, and was the largest ship afloat during her maiden voyage. The ship is visible in the background of this 1911 photograph. (Photo Archive/Harland & Wolff/Cox Collection)

Photo taken in 1912. In the photo, a chic dining room aboard the Titanic. The ship has been designed to be the last word in comfort and luxury, with an onboard gym, swimming pool, libraries, upscale restaurants and luxurious cabins. (Photo archive of The New York Times / American Press Association)

1912 photograph. Second class canteen on the Titanic. A disproportionate number of people - over 90% of those in second class - remained on board because of the "women and children first" protocols followed by lifeboat loading officers. (Photo archive of The New York Times / American Press Association)

Photo April 10, 1912, it shows the Titanic leaving Southampton, England. The tragic sinking of the Titanic took place a century ago, one of the causes of the death of, according to some, weak rivets used by the ship's builders in some parts of this ill-fated liner. (Associated Press)

Captain Edward John Smith, commander of the Titanic. He commanded the largest ship at that time making its first voyage. The Titanic was a massive ship - 269 meters long, 28 meters wide and weighing 52,310 tons. 53 meters separated from the keel to the top, almost 10 meters of which were below the waterline. The Titanic was higher above the water than most city buildings of the time. (The New York Times Archive)

First Mate William McMaster Murdoch, who is regarded as a local hero in his hometown of Dalbeattie, Scotland, but in the movie Titanic was portrayed as a coward and a murderer. At a ceremony to mark the 86th anniversary of the ship's sinking, Scott Neeson, executive vice president of film producers 20th Century Fox, presented a check for five thousand pounds (US$8,000) to Dalbeattie School as an apology for the painting to an officer's relative. (Associated Press)

It is believed that it was this iceberg that caused the accident of the Titanic on April 14-15, 1912. The picture was taken aboard the Western Union ship, Mackay Bennett, commanded by Captain DeCarteret. McKay Bennet was one of the first ships to reach the site where the Titanic sank. According to Captain DeCarteret, it was the only iceberg at the site of the sinking when it arrived. It is assumed, therefore, that he was responsible for this tragedy. A glimpse of a collision with an iceberg caused the Titanic's hull plates to buckle inward in a number of places on her board and opened five of her sixteen watertight compartments into which water gushed in an instant. Over the next two and a half hours, the ship gradually filled with water and sank. (United States Coast Guard)

Passengers and some crew members were evacuated in lifeboats, many of which were launched only partially filled. This photograph of a lifeboat from the Titanic approaching the rescue ship Carpathia was taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden and was on display in 2003, an exhibition of photographs that relate to the Titanic (bequeathed to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England, by Walter Lord). (National Maritime Museum / London)

Seven hundred and twelve survivors were brought aboard from lifeboats on the RMS Carpathia. This photo taken by Carpathia passenger Louis M. Ogden shows the Titanic lifeboat approaching the rescue ship, the Carpathians. The photograph was part of an exhibition in 2003 at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England named after Walter Lord. (National Maritime Museum / London)

Although the Titanic had advanced safety features such as watertight compartments and remotely activated watertight doors, she lacked enough lifeboats to accommodate all those on board. Due to outdated maritime safety regulations, she carried only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people - a third of her total passenger and crew capacity. This sepia photograph depicting the recovery of the passengers of the Titanic is one of the memorabilia about to go under the hammer at Christies in London, May 2012. (Paul Tracy / EPA / PA)

Members of the press interview Titanic survivors coming off the rescue ship, Carpathians, May 17, 1912. (American Press Association)

Eva Hart is portrayed as seven years old in this photograph taken in 1912 with her father, Benjamin, and mother Esther. Eva and her mother survived the sinking of the British liner Titanic on April 14, 1912, but her father died in the crash. (Associated Press)

People stand on the street waiting for the arrival of Carpathia after the sinking of the Titanic. (The New York Times / Wide World Photo Archive)

A huge crowd gathered in front of Star Line's White Office on Lower Broadway in New York City to get the latest news about the sinking of the Titanic on April 14, 1912. (Associated Press)

The editors of The New York Times at the time of the sinking of the Titanic, April 15, 1912. (Photo archive of The New York Times)

(Photo archive of The New York Times)

Two messages were sent from America by insurers to Lloyds in London in the mistaken belief that other ships, including Virginia, were coming to the rescue when the Titanic sank. These two commemorative messages are due to go under the hammer at Christies in London in May 2012. (AFP/EPA/Press Association)

Laura Francatelli, and her employers Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon and Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, standing on the rescue ship, Carpathians (Associated Press / Henry Aldridge & Son / Ho)

This vintage seal shows the Titanic shortly before leaving for its maiden voyage in 1912. (New York Times Archive)

A photograph released by Henry Aldridge and Son/Ho auctioned in Wiltshire, England on April 18, 2008 shows an extremely rare Titanic passenger ticket. They were auction handling the complete collection of Miss Lilian Asplund's last American Titanic Survivor. The collection consists of a number of important objects including a pocket watch, one of the few remaining tickets for the Titanic's maiden voyage and the only example of a direct emigration order the Titanic thought to exist. Lillian Asplund was a very private person, and because of a terrible event, she became a witness that on a cold April night in 1912, she rarely spoke about the tragedy that claimed the lives of her father and three brothers. (Henry Aldridge)

(National Maritime Museum / London)

Breakfast menu aboard the Titanic, signed by survivors of the disaster. (National Maritime Museum / London)

The nose of the Titanic at the bottom of the ocean, 1999 (Institute of Oceanology)

The image shows one of the Titanic's propellers at the bottom of the ocean during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. Five thousand exhibits planned to be auctioned as a single collection on April 11, 2012, 100 years after the sinking of the ship (RMS Titanic, Inc, via The Associated Press)

Photo August 28, 2010, released for the premiere of the exhibition, Inc-Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, shows the starboard side of the Titanic. (Premier Exhibitions, Inc. Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute)

Dr. Robert Ballard, the man who found the remains of the Titanic almost two decades ago, returned to the site and calculated the damage from visitors and hunters for the "souvenir" of the ship. (Institute of Oceanography and Archaeological Research Center / University of Rhode Island Grad. Schools of Oceanography)

The giant propeller of the sunken Titanic lies on the floor in the North Atlantic in this undated photograph. The propeller and other parts of the famous ship were seen by the first tourists to visit the wreck in September 1998.

(Ralph White/Associated Press)

The 17-ton part of the Titanic's hull rises to the surface during an expedition to the site of the tragedy in 1998. (RMS Titanic, Inc., via The Associated Press)

July 22, 2009, photo of the 17-ton part of the Titanic, which was raised and restored during an expedition to the site of the tragedy. (RMS Titanic, Inc., via The Associated Press)

A gold-plated American Waltham pocket watch, owned by Carl Asplund, in front of a contemporary watercolor painting of the Titanic by CJ Ashford at the Henry Aldridge & Son Auctions in Devizes, Wiltshire, England, April 3, 2008. The clock was recovered from the body of Karl Asplund who drowned on the Titanic, and is part of Lillian Asplund, the last American survivor of the disaster. (Kirsty Wigglesworth Associated Press)

The currency, part of the Titanic collection, is photographed at a warehouse in Atlanta, August 2008. The owner of the largest trove of artifacts from the Titanic is offering a huge collection for auction in a single lot in 2012, on the 100th anniversary of the most famous shipwreck in the world. (Stanley Leary/Associated Press)

Photographs by Felix Asplund, Selma and Carl Asplund and Lillian Asplund, by Henry Aldridge and Son Auctions at Devizes, Wiltshire, England, April 3, 2008. The photographs were part of Lillian Asplund's collection of Titanic-related items. Asplund was 5 years old in April 1912 when the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage from England to New York. Her father and three siblings were among the 1,514 dead. (Kirsty Wigglesworth/Associated Press)

Exhibits at the "Titanic Artifact Exhibition" at the California Science Center: binoculars, comb, dishes and a broken incandescent light bulb, February 6, 2003. (Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images, Chester Higgins Jr./The New York Times)

Glasses among the wreckage of the Titanic were among the choicest artifacts of the Titanic. (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

Golden Spoon (Titanic Artifacts) (Bebeto Matthews/Associated Press)

A chronometer from the Titanic Bridge is on display at the Science Museum in London, May 15, 2003. The Chronometer, one of more than 200 items salvaged from the wreck of the Titanic, was on display at the launch of a new exhibit commemorating its ill-fated maiden voyage along with bottles of perfume. The exhibition took visitors on a chronological journey through the life of the Titanic, from its concept and construction, to life on board, and its plunge into the Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. (Alastair Grant/Associated Press)

Logo meter to measure the speed of the Titanic and a hinged lamp. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Titanic artifacts displayed in the media for preview purposes only, to announce the historical sale is complete. a collection of artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Titanic and showcasing highlights from the collection at sea by Intrepid, Air & SpaceMuseum January 2012. (Chang W. Lee / The New York Times)

Cups and pocket watches from the Titanic are displayed during a Guernsey auction press conference, January 5, 2012. (Don Emmert/AFP/Getty Images, Brendan McDermid/Reuters Michel Boutefeu/Getty Images-2)

Spoons. RMS Titanic, Inc. is the only company authorized to remove elements from the ocean floor where the Titanic sank. (Douglas Healey/Associated Press)

Gold mesh purse. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

The April 2012 edition of National Geographic magazine (on-line version available on iPad) sees new images and drawings of the Titanic wreck as it remains on the seafloor, gradually disintegrating at a depth of 12,415 feet (3,784 m). (National Geographic)

Two propeller blades peek out from the darkness of the sea. This optical mosaic is assembled from 300 high resolution images. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution)

First full view of the legendary wreck. The photo mosaic consists of 1500 high resolution images using sonar data. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

Side view of the Titanic. You can see how the hull sank to the bottom and where the iceberg's fatal impact points are. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

(COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

Making sense of this tangle of metal presents endless challenges to professionals. One says: "If you interpret this material, you must love Picasso." (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

The Titanic's two engines lie in a gaping hole in the stern. Wrapped in "rusticles" - orange stalactites made of iron - that eat the bacteria of these massive four-story structures, the largest moving man-made objects on Earth at the time. (COPYRIGHT © 2012 RMS Titanic, Inc; Produced by AIVL, WHOI)

For the first time, the Titanic hit the headlines as the largest ship in the history of mankind, and its first voyage was to make a long journey across the Atlantic in April 1912. As everyone knows, instead of a triumphant voyage, the history of shipping was supplemented by the greatest catastrophe. On its fourth day of travel 105 years ago, 643 kilometers off the coast of Nova Scotia, the ship collided with an iceberg and sank within 2 hours and 40 minutes. On that terrible day, 1,500 passengers died, who mostly died not from injuries or asphyxia, but from hypothermia. Few managed to survive in the icy water of the Atlantic Ocean, the temperature of which in April 1912 dropped to -2 ° C. Don't be surprised, water may well remain liquid in this cold, given that in the ocean it is a solution of salt with other nutrients, and not pure H2O.

But if you study the history of the Titanic more deeply, you will also find stories about people who, during an unforeseen catastrophe, acted decisively, avoided death and helped other drowning people. Over 700 people survived the disaster, although for some of them it was a fluke. Here are 10 stories of survivors of the most tragic disaster in the Atlantic.

10. Frank Prentice - Crew Member (Warehouse Assistant)

Just before the Titanic finally sank, the ship's stern briefly rose into the air perpendicular to the water level. At the same time, team member Frank Prentice, one of the last people on the ship, along with 2 of his comrades, decided to jump off the sinking liner into cold water. One of his colleagues hit the Titanic propeller during the fall, but Prentice managed to fly 30 meters to the very water, where the lifeless body of a friend was already waiting for him. Fortunately, Frank was soon picked up by a lifeboat.

Prentice's story is easy to verify, especially since his clock stopped at exactly 2:20, which is the exact time the Titanic finally sank into the waters of the Atlantic Ocean. Remarkably, Prentice survived another shipwreck a few years later while serving aboard the warship Oceanic during World War I.

9. Eight Chinese passengers from the third class

It may surprise you, but if you read the reports of the large-scale evacuation of the sinking Titanic, you will realize that at first it was a very civilized process. All the passengers obediently obeyed the orders of the crew of the ship, and many of them were glad to give their places in the lifeboats to women and children. They did it voluntarily and without coercion. Panic did not deprive people of prudence and honor. At least not all of them, and not all at once.

But if you want to know how passengers survived an early 20th century shipwreck with a more practical approach to testing, you might be interested to hear about the 8 Chinese immigrants who boarded the legendary ship all on the same ticket. It was a group of people from Guangzhou who lost their jobs due to the coal crisis and sailed home to Hong Kong.

In various immigration reports, their names have changed, but today this is no longer important. When the iceberg struck, seven of them crept into the lifeboats before the lifeboats were directed to the landing pads. The Chinese hid in boats under blankets, and for a long time remained unnoticed. Five of them survived. The eighth Chinese also suffered a shipwreck - he was picked up by lifeboat number 14 (which also saved Harold Phillimore, whom we will talk about a little later). Saving 6 people from a group of 8 comrades is a good statistic, but it is difficult to call their behavior heroic.

8. Olaus Jorgensen Abelzeth - Second Class Passenger

Olaus Jorgensen Abelseth was a Norwegian shepherd who worked on a livestock farm in South Dakota. He was returning from a trip home after visiting relatives, and in April 1912 boarded the Titanic with five members of his family.

During the evacuation from the Titanic, people were seated in lifeboats for certain reasons. An adult male could get on board a lifeboat only if he had a good experience in navigation, which would be useful for managing a craft in the waters of the open ocean. There were only 20 lifeboats, and each of them had to be attended by at least one experienced sailor.

Abelset had six years of sailing experience, a former fisherman, and was offered a place on another boat, but the man refused. And all because some of his relatives could not swim, and Olaus Jorgensen decided to stay with them to take care of the survival of his family. When the Titanic completely sank, and Olaus' relatives were washed into the water, the man remained afloat in the cold ocean for 20 minutes until he was rescued. When Abelset was in the boat, he actively helped rescue other shipwreck victims, pumping out the frozen ones in the icy water.

7. Hugh Woolner and Maurits Bjornström-Steffanszoon - First Class Passengers

Hugh Woolner and Mauritz Björnström-Steffansson were sitting in the smoking room when they heard about the iceberg collision. The gentlemen escorted their girlfriend to the lifeboats and helped the crew of the Titanic to get the women and children onto the lifeboats. Hugh and Maurits were on the lower deck when they decided to jump into the last boat while it was descending. Their jump was made 15 minutes before the final sinking of the Titanic, so it was a now or never attempt.

Bjornström-Steffanszoon successfully jumped into the boat, but Woolner was less fortunate and missed. However, the man managed to grab onto the edge of the boat, and his friend managed to stop Hugh while he hung over the ocean. Ultimately, Woolner was helped into the boat. It was a rescue full of drama.

6. Charles Join - crew member (chief baker)

Most of the victims of the Titanic crash died of hypothermia (hypothermia) within 15 to 30 minutes in icy water, but Charles Joughin is real proof that every rule has its exceptions. Join was drunk when the steamer hit an iceberg. Despite the extreme conditions and his drunken state, the baker greatly helped other drowning people, throwing deck chairs and chairs overboard the Titanic so that people had something to grab on to and not drown. After the liner finally submerged, Charles drifted in the area of ​​​​the crash site for more than two hours, until he was nailed to one of the rescue boats.

Survival experts attribute Joinin's success to the fact that the alcohol increased his body temperature, as well as the fact that, as the baker himself claimed, he tried not to submerge his head in ice water. Some critics doubt that the man was in the water for that long, but the fact remains that Join has witnesses from the lifeboat.

5. Richard Norris Williams - First Class Passenger

Richard Norris Williams was traveling with his father first class and together they sailed to a tennis tournament. After the iceberg collision happened, both of them kept their cool, demanding that the bar be opened, and spent some time at the gym. The Williamses even managed to help one passenger when they realized that it was not the time to chill.

As a result, Richard had a chance to watch how his father was covered by a chimney and swept into the sea by one of the waves that washed away the Collapsible A model collapsible boat into the ocean. It was one of the last 2 boats aboard the sinking Titanic, and the crew did not physically have time to prepare both these life-saving appliances for boarding people and properly launching them into the water.

Later, on board the British steamship Carpathia, the first to come to the rescue of the victims of the Titanic, doctors advised the surviving Norris to amputate both frostbitten legs. The athlete opposed the recommendations of the doctors, and contrary to the initial forecasts of the doctors, not only did he not lose his legs, but also restored their functionality. Moreover, the man returned to the sport of tennis and won a gold medal at the 1924 Olympics. In addition, he was decorated for meritorious service in the First World War.

4 Rhoda "Rose" Abbott - Third Class Passenger

Everyone knows the “women and children first” maritime rule, but not everyone knows how strict it was. If the boy was over 13 years old, he was no longer considered a child. This did not sit well with third-class passenger Rhoda Abbott, who was not going to give up her two sons, 13 and 16 years old. Abbott gave away a place on the boat so that she could stay with her children until the end. She was a woman of strong convictions, a member of the Christian humanitarian mission The Salvation Army and a single mother. Rhoda grabbed each child's hand and together they jumped over the side of the sinking ship.

Unfortunately, both of her sons drowned, and the mother-heroine surfaced without them. Like Richard Norris Williams, Rosa hopped aboard the capsized Collapsible A. Her legs suffered from hypothermia almost as badly as the legs of a tennis player. Abbott spent 2 weeks in the hospital, but that doesn't change the fact that she was the only woman alive after swimming in the icy waters of the Atlantic Ocean on the night of the Titanic crash.

3. Harold Charles Phillimore - crew member (steward)

The famous character of Rose Decatur, played by Kate Winslet in the James Cameron film, was fictional, but Harold Charles Phillimore, the steward, could be the prototype for this romantic story.

The man was found clinging to floating debris amidst a sea of ​​corpses as the last lifeboat arrived at the crash site in search of survivors. Phillimore shared part of a drifting wooden beam with another passenger, which in Cameron's story Rosa Decatur did not do, allowing the love of her life to die of hypothermia. After a tragic shipwreck, Harold Phillimore continued his nautical career, achieved outstanding success and earned medals for his service in the Navy during the First World War.

2. Harold Bride - Representative of Marconi Wireless

Harold Bride was one of two telegraph operators of the British company Marconi Wireless, whose task was to provide communication between the ship's passengers and the mainland. Bride was also responsible for navigational messages and warnings from other ships. At the time of the crash, Harold and his colleague James Phillips were allowed to leave their post in order to escape as soon as possible, but both of them kept the Titanic in touch with the rest of the world until the last minutes of the legendary steamer.

The telegraph operators worked until the water began to fill their cabin. Then they realized that it was time to leave the ship. Colleagues boarded the last lifeboat, known as Collapsible B. Unfortunately, during the launch, she turned upside down, and all her passengers were in freezing water. Harold Bride got so bad in his legs that he struggled to climb a rescue ladder aboard the British steamship Carpathia when it arrived at the scene of the accident to help the surviving victims.

On the way to his rescue, Harold swam past a dead body, which turned out to be his comrade James Phillips, who died that terrible night from hypothermia. Subsequently, Bride did not enjoy talking in public about what happened because he was "deeply affected by the whole experience, especially the loss of his colleague and friend Jack Phyllis."

1. Charles Lightoller - Captain Second Rank

Charles Lightoller began his maritime career at the age of 13, and by the time he served on the Titanic as a captain second rank, he had seen a lot. Before entering into a contract with the British shipping company White Star, which owned the giant steamer, Lightoller had already survived a shipwreck in Australia, a cyclone in the Indian Ocean, and hitchhiking from western Canada all the way to England after participating in an unsuccessful exploration for gold deposits in the Yukon (Yukon) .

When the Titanic hit the iceberg, Lightoller was one of the first to launch lifeboats into the water. At about 2:00 (20 minutes before the liner was completely flooded), his superiors ordered him to get into the boat and save himself, to which Charles bravely replied something like this: “no, I’m damn unlikely to do it” (not damn likely).

In the end, he ended up in the water, swam to the overturned Collapsible B, which we already mentioned above, and helped maintain order and morale among the survivors. The officer made sure that the boat did not capsize again with all the passengers on board, and seated people so that no one was washed away into the icy ocean.

Captain Second Rank Charles Lightoller was the very last person to jump from the Titanic into the Atlantic Ocean, and he was taken aboard the Carpathia almost four hours after the rescuers from other ships appeared. In addition, he was the most senior among all the surviving crew members, and, according to the charter, participated in the hearings of the US Congress on the tragic sinking of the Titanic.