A Titanic Failure

On its maiden voyage, the RMS Titanic carried some of the wealthiest people in the world, over a thousand immigrants, and a crew of about 900. One hundred years ago this past Sunday the ship broke apart and sank in the North Atlantic after colliding with an iceberg. Over two-thirds of the people on board were lost – about 1,500 out of 2,200. Its designers and owners called Titanic “unsinkable.” Today its remains are under 12,500 feet of water.

The fateful and only voyage of Titanic has been the subject of about 200 books, seven major motion pictures, two Broadway plays, and seven artifact exhibitions.

For its day, the ship was a high-tech marvel. It was just short of nine football fields in length, about a football field in width, and the top of its funnels (stacks) was about the height of a 17-story building above the keel. Its 90-foot wide control panel centralized the management of all lighting, fans, generators, and condensers that turned steam into water for the boilers, and desalinized sea water into drinking water. All of the on-board clocks could be reset by the Captain on the bridge as the ship passed from one time zone into another. Powered by three 40-foot high steam engines with four 9-foot diameter pistons, which consumed 600 tons of coal per hour, Titanic’s three propeller screws could push the ship at a top speed of 24 knots (28 mph).

A trip from England to America could be made in five days. For the 325 first-class passengers, it was sheer luxury. They brought their pets and servants. The evening meal was signaled by bugle, whereupon the pampered travelers descended the grand staircase in white tie, gloves, and gowns to enjoy an 11-course meal. There were 22,000 bottles of wine, beer, and liquor on board. The cost of a one-way first class promenade suite was $4,350 – about $105,000 in 2012 dollars. But even third-class accommodations were comfortable and the food was good and plentiful – often better living conditions than those passengers had at home.

There were four elevators, nine decks, and a few of the first class suites had telephones, although ship to shore calls were not possible. Communication from the ship depended on a wireless telegraph system which was state-of-the-art for its day. The transmitter’s antenna was strung between masts 250 feet above the ocean surface. Whereas most ships of the day could transmit Morse code 100 to 150 miles during the day, Titanic could transmit 500 miles during the day and 2,000 miles at night. Because of this capability, Titanic was able to communicate its distress call to every ship in the North Atlantic.

The novelty of the wireless system caused it to be overused by passengers in first-class and second-class accommodations. The night before the fateful collision, the transmitter had malfunctioned, and the time required getting it up and running again caused a backlog of messages. This backlog would contribute to Titanic’s undoing on the night of April 14, 1912 when the British ship Californian, steaming about 12 miles away, sent a wireless message to the Titanic’s Captain at 7:30p that “three large bergs” had been sighted. At 9:40p another message from the Mesaba was received by the Titanic wireless operator reporting, “Saw much heavy pack ice and great number large icebergs. Also field ice." The wireless operator, Jack Phillips, never reported this message. He was too busy sending unimportant passenger messages.

Then at 10:30p the Californian again transmitted that it was halting until daybreak when its Captain would be able to see the ice field. The Californian was so close to Titanic that its transmitter power spilled over that message into Jack Phillips headphones, drowning out the outgoing message Phillips was sending. "Shut up! Shut up! I'm working Cape Race,” Phillips signaled the Californian’s operator, meaning he was working the relay station at Cape Race, Newfoundland. Rebuffed, the Californian’s operator went off duty, leaving the wireless unattended when disaster struck about an hour later.

The winter of 1911-1912 had been unusually warm, causing icebergs, ice chunks, and flat slabs to break off of Greenland’s glaciers. Some icebergs were floating mountains eight miles wide and 50 miles long. Although they were a menace, and ships had collided with them several times each year, no ships had gone down in the decade before Titanic. Two days into its voyage, Titanic had received a total of seven iceberg warnings. There was no moon on April 14 and sonar and radar were still far into the future. The Titanic was steaming just below top speed – about 24 mph – relying completely on the eyes of two men in the crow’s nest. With its speed and displacement, Titanic would have needed to spot an iceberg a mile distant in order to turn the massive ship enough to avoid the submerged part of an iceberg. Without a moon, such visibility was impossible Just after 11p, the Titanic’s Captain left the bridge for the chartroom and then his stateroom.

At 11:40p one of the lookouts spotted an iceberg and frantically phoned the bridge where First Officer Murdock was in command. Told there was an iceberg “right ahead,” he ordered the helm to come hard to port (left) and to reverse engines. Not only did it take about 30 seconds to reverse the screws, doing so made the rudder less maneuverable. Had Murdock maintained speed and come to port, it is possible that the iceberg could have been averted. As it turned out, the ship skidded down the side of the iceberg causing large chunks of ice to fall on the foredeck. Before the ship could be brought to a full stop, serious damage was done below the waterline where the submerged part of the compacted ice split several sections of the starboard side for a length of 300 feet popping rivets and opening the ship to sea water from the forepeak to the first boiler room.

Captain Smith was on the bridge almost immediately. Since this was the maiden voyage, representatives of the ship’s builder were on board. A quick examination revealed that six of the water tight compartments were taking water. If it had been five, the ship could have stayed afloat. The sixth spelled its doom. Already there was 14 feet of water in the forward compartments. The bulkheads that made the compartments “water tight” extended vertically from the keel to above the waterline but not all of the way to the main deck. Therefore, as the weight of incoming water caused the ship to “nose down” water would spill over the top of the bulkheads. As this happened the seventh compartment flooded and then the eighth and so on until the ship sank. After surveying the damage and making a few calculations, the builder’s chief engineer estimated Titanic would sink in 90 minutes – maybe two hours.

The ship’s crew got the bilge pumps going, but they could only pump out 1,700 tons of water per hour and the ship was taking on almost 9,000 tons per hour. But driving the bilge pumps at full speed might buy enough time to allow ships to come to Titanic’s rescue. The wireless operators began sending out frantic distress and flares were fired from the decks. The flares were seen by the bridge of the Californian, which was stopped on the eastern side of the ice pack – the same side as Titanic. Its wireless operator had gone to bed and there was no night operator. Its Captain was off the bridge and was not summoned.

Captain Arthur Rostron of the Carpathia was 58 miles south of the unfolding tragedy and steaming eastward when his wireless operator notified him of the distress message. He backtracked turning north, shutting off the heat and hot water in his ship in order to maximize engine efficiency and speed. Weaving its way through the southern fringe of the ice field, Carpathia would not arrive on the scene for four hours.

Aboard Titanic, Captain Smith may have wanted to avoid panic among the passengers by not announcing the ship’s situation, but his delay is formulating a plan to get the passengers off is inexplicable. He had 40 years of experience at sea, 27 of those in command. Someone of that experience would have organized his officers, given them orders, and personally supervised to assure that his orders were being implemented in this desperate situation. Yet, even though he had been told he had a maximum of two hours before the ship sank, forty minutes passed with nothing done to save the passengers. Perhaps it was because Smith knew there weren’t enough lifeboats for even half those aboard.

Steam was being released by the boiler crews to prevent their explosion when the cold sea water reached them. The steam was venting through the funnels, making conversation on the bridge almost impossible. Still, Second Officer Lighttoller, who would survive the disaster, yelled to Captain Smith, “Hadn't we better get the women and children into the boats, sir?” Smith nodded and said to “put the women and children in the boats and lower away.”

Lightoller took charge of boarding the lifeboats on the port side while First Officer Murdoch took the starboard side. However, each officer had a different understanding of the evacuation order. Lighttoller thought he had been ordered to board only women and children, whereas Murdoch allowed men to board if space was available. The boats would hold 68 people. Unfortunately, most left the ship only partly filled. Had all of the boats carried their capacity, an additional 500 people could have been saved.

One of the problems was the passengers themselves. Many had been in bed when told to go to the boat decks. Some refused. Others refused to leave the comfort and heat of the ship to get in the boats, believing that Titanic was unsinkable. Lifeboat drills had not been conducted, contributing to confusion. The crew wasn’t trained in emergency procedures – convinced as the ship’s Captain was that evacuation would be unnecessary for this ship.

At 45 minutes past midnight, the first lifeboat rowed away from Titanic on the starboard side with 28 passengers. Ten minutes later, the second boat rowed away on the port side. It also had only 28 passengers, among them Margret “unsinkable Molly” Brown.

A passenger who made it aboard a later lifeboat was stewardess Violet Jessop. Four years later, she would have to make a similar escape when she abandoned the sinking of Titanic’s sister ship, Britannic, during the First World War.

At this point, over an hour had passed since the collision and most of the people who had boarded into the boats were first and second class passengers. Many of the third class passengers failed to make it up to the boat decks. Those who did had the help of heroic stewards, some of whom went back several times to lead additional groups. Without the help of stewards, the maze of upper deck passageways was difficult to navigate by third class passengers who didn’t use them during the voyage. Consequently, the loss of life among the third class was higher than first and second class.

Latter day revisionist historians have tried to make the case that class distinction and discrimination deprived third class from the lifeboats as evidenced by the death rates. But US immigration law compelled the segregation and barrier control of incoming immigrants to prevent infectious diseases from being spread among other passengers. Moreover, steerage passengers had to disembark at Ellis Island. Compounding their fate, many third class passengers spoke no English and could neither understand nor follow directions. Proof of that as an explanation for the high death rate among third class is the fact that many English-speaking Irish survived.

Some couples refused to be separated even if it meant dying together. Ida Straus, the wife of Macy's department store co-owner Isidor Straus, told her husband: "We have been living together for many years. Where you go, I go." They pulled a pair of deck chairs together and sat down to await their end. One of the wealthiest men aboard, industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim, shed his life vest and sweater for a top hat and evening dress so that he would go down with the ship dressed like a gentleman.

The wealthiest man aboard Titanic, 47-year old John Jacob Astor IV, bade his 18-year old wife, Madeleine, goodbye and lighted a cigar as she rowed away. She would struggle with guilt, as many did, for having survived the disaster. After a few years, she renounced the Astor fortune and married a childhood sweetheart. Later divorcing him, she took up with an Italian boxer, who all too often thought she was a punching bag. Madeleine died almost 30 years after escaping the Titanic, still a relatively young woman. The cause of death was listed as heart failure, although friends believed it was an overdose of sleeping pills.

Life was not easy for many who made it safely off the sinking ship. They were afflicted with guilt and depression and at least ten committed suicide.

At 1:40a J. Bruce Ismay, the managing director of the ship line that owned Titanic, slipped aboard one of the last boats to leave the ship. After the disaster he resigned from the company and went into seclusion with his wife. But he found no peace because everyone who recognized him accused him of cowardice.

The last rocket flare was fired at 1:50a. The bow of the ship was below water. The bulkheads began to snap with the strain, and the front portion of the ship broke free at 2:20a just aft of the third funnel. As it did, the stern rose and then settled back, but not before pitching many of the passengers who had sought safety on the aft end into the sea.

The Carpathia arrived just after 4a, its Captain surveying the horror around him. As the sun rose, “all around us were dozens and dozens of icebergs, some comparatively close, others far away on the horizon, towering up like cathedral spires,” he said, convinced “that some other Hand than mine was on that helm during the night.”

Formal boards of inquiry were assembled on both sides of the Atlantic eager to fix blame. A major focus of investigation was the dearth of lifeboats, which in the years since the accident, many have blamed on penny-pinching owners of the Titanic. For the number of passengers it carried, 48 boats would have been needed.

But in his testimony to the British Board of Trade inquiry, Alexander Carlisle, the managing director of the shipyard where Titanic was built, stated that he had proposed the need for more lifeboats to J. Bruce Ismay, the owner’s managing director. It was rejected, not for economic reasons, or because they would block the view of passengers on the promenade deck, as some historians have proposed, but because the British government regulated the required number of lifeboats. Government safety rules were based on displacement, not passengers. All vessels displacing more than 10,000 tons were required to carry 16 lifeboats. Titanic displaced over 45,000 tons and carried 20 plus four inflatable rafts. Of the 39 British vessels in service at the time which displaced more than 10,000 tons, 33 didn’t have enough lifeboats to save every passenger. As larger ships were built, the Board of Trade had simply failed to revise its lifeboat regulations during the preceding 20 years.

The problem with government regulations continues even today. Government is quick to pass new regulations and laws but fails to keep those that are on the books.relevant with the demands of the day. Look at the laws and regulations we have. They are a crazy quilt of patch jobs because politicians get reelected for passing new laws and regulations, not for revising those in existence. Left alone, most businesses would manage their risk exposure to avoid lawsuits for failing to do so. But as every business owner or senior management team learns, it is expected to comply with the regulations and the laws – not with the objective for their existence.

One would be hard pressed to show any thing which has gotten better when government took over the reins of managing it. The tragic loss of life in the Titanic accident is an example.