The Titanic did not go down because of an evil iceberg—there’s more to what really made it sink, according to new evidence.
The Iceberg Is Only the Tip of the Iceberg
New-York-bound Titanic left Southampton, England, in April 1912, but never reached destination. The famous tragedy of the sunk ship is almost always associated with a massive iceberg. What if that was only part of the truth? What if, the notorious iceberg was actually only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what we know? New findings shed light on what apparently happened, says researcher Senan Molony.
A Song of Ice & Fire
The real culprit would not even be ice, but its opposite: fire, argues Molony; the latter is an Irish author who has studied the history of the Titanic over the years. Fire and ice and negligence would have come together to sink the ship; such has been revealed by photographs recently obtained. These findings were depicted in a documentary aired in the UK on January 1, entitled ‘Titanic: The New Evidence’.
“The official Titanic inquiry branded [the sinking] as an act of God,” says Molony in a statement to The Times. “This isn’t a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking. It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice, and criminal negligence.”
Fire Mark on Ship
According to the theory, a fire started in the vessel even before the maiden journey—this would have happened at the site of construction at Belfast. Such has been deduced from the photographs which were taken before Titanic left the port of Southampton: they show a dark mark making 9 metres in length on the hull of the ship.
This fire would have distorted the hull’s steel, rendering it brittle. This allegedly damaged the hull, thereby rendering the ship more vulnerable to sustaining damage upon hitting an iceberg. Molony believes this is also probably the spot where the ship struck the iceberg.
What led to the fire leading to the damage caused by the iceberg was negligence: Molony says that it was known back then that a fire had broken out in the ship, but this fact was concealed from the public because it would have prevented the maiden journey from happening; the ship had already been scheduled to leave the port on April 10, and a further delay was unwanted by those responsible.
Fire & High Speed
This is not a completely new theory. Back in 2004, professor Robert Essenhigh from Ohio State University mentioned that the ship might have been going full steam because of a need to control a fire in the coal bunker; keeping such fires under control and putting them out necessitate the rapid transfer of coal from the bunker to the steam engine boiler, thus explaining the high speed of the ship. This would have eventually led to a fire that could no longer be put out when the ship reached the iceberg.
Essenhigh did caution that his theory was speculative. However, he did argue that it was not far-fetched either.
Regardless, the majority of researchers believe that a fire happened at some point, and the new findings hint at this occurring well before the journey began.