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LIghtoller's Granddaughter: "No one should have died on Titanic"

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darkwing_duck1

Vice Admiral
This is BIG. Yes, nothing can be done about it now, but learn the lesson of history:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100922/lf_nm_life/us_britain_titanic_book

LONDON (Reuters) – The Titanic hit an iceberg in 1912 because of a basic steering error, and only sank as fast as it did because an official persuaded the captain to continue sailing, an author said in an interview published on Wednesday.


Louise Patten, a writer and granddaughter of Titanic second officer Charles Lightoller, said the truth about what happened nearly 100 years ago had been hidden for fear of tarnishing the reputation of her grandfather, who later became a war hero.


Lightoller, the most senior officer to have survived the disaster, covered up the error in two inquiries on both sides of the Atlantic because he was worried it would bankrupt the ill-fated liner's owners and put his colleagues out of a job.
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Eh, it can really just be added to the list of things that went wrong with that ship.

I mean, it's already common knowledge that reversing the engines and trying to turn the ship was a fatal mistake. Had they done one or the other, they probably would have been okay, but doing both ended up causing even more damage.
 
It's more than that. Ismay killed those people as surely as the North Atlantic. NO ONE had to die, but he pushed Smith into continuing on.
 
As more reasons are uncovered over time it is just a sad reminder that what really sank that ship was hubris.
 
darkwing_duck1 said:
It's more than that. Ismay killed those people as surely as the North Atlantic. NO ONE had to die, but he pushed Smith into continuing on.
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Just as there's no good reason why there was a far smaller lifeboat capacity than passenger capacity, for instance. As I said, there was a long list of mistakes made aboard and about that ship, this is just a couple more for that list.
 
It seems to me that this is the CRITICAL one though. The situation was salvageable vis a vis loss of life if Ismay had not convinced Capt Smith to not stop.
 
The steering commands were changing at the time, much like SOS and CQD distress signals. What was missing at the time, though I doubt it would have been instituted, was a general order that said this is the system we're going to use and then an order in an emergency would not have been confused.

As for Ismay, the guy was a tool and it will give everyone great pleasure to realize he died in disgrace.
 
I've heard this being said many times for years now, hardly "new", though we've some second or third hand word-of-mouth here. Whatever, I don't think it would've made much difference the ship's engines were in reverse (meaning the water flow wasn't past the rudder to greatly effect movement) and the rudder was a bit too small for the ship's size. Even if he had turned the correct direction it's likely Titanic still wouldve struck the iceberg in some way (no way of knowing what the "topography" of the iceberg was below the waterline.) Infact, some people have theorized the best thing for the ship to do would've been to hit the iceberg head-on. Which, yeah, would've likely resulted in some injuries from the crash but the ship would've more likely have survived the impact enough to continue the trip to New York.
 
Did they even consider that? Avoiding it competly must have been the top priority when they saw it.
 
darkwing_duck1 said:
It seems to me that this is the CRITICAL one though. The situation was salvageable vis a vis loss of life if Ismay had not convinced Capt Smith to not stop.
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Well I'd say hitting the iceberg was pretty darn CRITICAL, too. The entire Titanic disaster was a farce of human error, that much has been known for years - and all we have here really is more hearsay.
 
yes yes...the stupid "steering was reversed back then" crap.

Walter Lord already shot that theory down. It was common practice in 1912 and Hitchins had served on this kind of ship pretty much his whole career.

If Titanic had stood still, she would have survived at least until the rescue ship came and no one need have died
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Umm. No.

5 forward compartments were open to the sea immediately following the impact with flooding in the 6th. The filling and collapse of the bulkheads is consistent with the 2:40 timeline.

This ships designer, Thomas Andrews was onboard at the time reported to the officers that it had 2 hours.

...sorry Louise...try again...
 
Leviathan said:
yes yes...the stupid "steering was reversed back then" crap.

Walter Lord already shot that theory down. It was common practice in 1912 and Hitchins had served on this kind of ship pretty much his whole career.

If Titanic had stood still, she would have survived at least until the rescue ship came and no one need have died
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Umm. No.

5 forward compartments were open to the sea immediately following the impact with flooding in the 6th. The filling and collapse of the bulkheads is consistent with the 2:40 timeline.

This ships designer, Thomas Andrews was onboard at the time reported to the officers that it had 2 hours.

...sorry Louise...try again...
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The nature of the damage was such that she could have remained afloat much longer without the added water pressure from forward movement speeding up the flooding.

That was the point. Yes, the ship would have sunk BUT she would have stayed afloat long enough for Carpathia to reach her first.
 
The likelihood is that, had the shipped rammed the iceberg head on, the damage would have been severe, but the flooding would probably have been a lot less than it actually was.
 
Leviathan said:
Umm. No.

5 forward compartments were open to the sea immediately following the impact with flooding in the 6th. The filling and collapse of the bulkheads is consistent with the 2:40 timeline.

This ships designer, Thomas Andrews was onboard at the time reported to the officers that it had 2 hours.

...sorry Louise...try again...
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Agreed. Motion doesn't make a lick of difference. This is actually one of those fun "real physics is counterintuitive" scenarios.

Water was rushing in as quickly as it could into the hull breaches because of the difference in pressure between the air-filled hull and the icy water. Given that water (like any liquid) is really, really hard to compress further, letting the ship go at a full 20kts would only increase flow by 1% or something along those lines. It certainly wouldn't sink in half the time.

Captain Ice said:
The likelihood is that, had the shipped rammed the iceberg head on, the damage would have been severe, but the flooding would probably have been a lot less than it actually was.
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The Olympic Class was designed to survive a full head-on collision. Had Titanic hit the berg head-on, it would have damaged or completely destroyed the first 3 compartments, leaving #4 intact as an extra safety margin. Holing the first five was beyond spec,
 
STR said:
The Olympic Class was designed to survive a full head-on collision. Had Titanic hit the berg head-on, it would have damaged or completely destroyed the first 3 compartments, leaving #4 intact as an extra safety margin. Holing the first five was beyond spec,
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Exactly. Even if the ship were unable to get under way under her own power afterward, she would still have floated long enough to allow the rescue ships to arrive. Plus, steering directly into the iceberg would have allowed them to run all three engines at full reverse, thus reducing the severity of the impact.
 
She'd probably still be mobile. The impact would have been entirely absorbed by the bow of the ship. Though, the only example of a ship anywhere near Titanic's size that I can think of that had a head-collision was the USS Wisconsin. While that ship was built vastly stronger and more redundantly than RMS Titanic, the main repair issue was replacing the bow. Fortunately, the war had ended for the battleship Kentucky was completed, so they just used her bow.

Fun photos of the Wisconsin after her collision as well as the incomplete hulk of Kentucky.
http://www.usswisconsin.org/Collision/collision.htm

Note: The bow of WW2 American battleship's weren't armored. The design philosophy was that if it wasn't vital, don't armor it, so you can save the weight and armor for the vital areas that did need it. Which is why the escort wasn't sliced in half. So the damage to the battleship is similar in nature to what you'd see in a civilian ship.
 
Titanic was designed to survive a head-on collision at full steam. The collision may have opened up or damaged the first couple compartments, which would allow her to stay afloat, and would've tossed everyone inside the ship around but the ship would've stayed sea worthy enough to either remain afloat for rescue or to finish her crossing.
 
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