How could the disaster of the Titanic be avoided?

Answer 1

Two possibilities immediately come to mind.

First, if the number of watertight sections had been increased and -- more importantly -- their heights not reduced as a compromise for the sake of the more opulent upper passenger decks, then the Titanic might not have been sunk by the glancing collision she experienced.

Secondly, however -- and more simply -- if the officer in command as the Titanic approached the iceberg (William M. Murdoch) had resisted the natural urge to try to avoid a collision but instead had ordered her into reverse and left her on course for a direct collision, then the Titanic most likely would not have sunk. This is because the glancing blow caused by his attempt to avoid a collision caused the edge of the iceberg to tear into five of the Titanic's watertight sections, one more than the loss of four she was designed to survive. If, instead, she had been allowed to ram the iceberg head-on at reducing speed, then the first one or two watertight sections would have been near-totally destroyed, but the remaining intact sections would've meant the ship would've remained afloat.

But, let's face it, who in that urgent situation would've thought to do anything other than try to avoid the collision? Very few of us, I imagine. After all, allowing a ship to collide head-on with the iceberg will surely damage her, whereas if she could just sneak past it on one side...

Tragic.

Even after the titanic hit the iceburg there was a chance that the crew could slow the sinking of the titanic. They could have done this by using a sail. (all ships up to and including the queen mary carried sailes) What they could have done is got the sails and draped them over the bow where the hole was and the inrushing water would have party stopped the water coming in. If they had done this there may have been the time to wait for ships to arrive. This way of slowing a ships sinking was used only 3 years before the titanics sinking abord another white star liner the Republic. They used a sail to block the hole and it taken 40 hours for it to sink enough time for 3 ships to arrive.

If murdoch had not closed the watertight doors and instead letting them be open and let the water flood all the way around in the ship and they had stopped the ship as soon after they hit. Then the ship would have stayed afloat untill the help arrived. Besides if captain smith had sailed to the ship that was near they could also have received help. And if there was a little damage control on the small hole in the 5 compartment then the ship could probably been saved
Yes, maybe if they had a searchlight. Then they wouldn't have hit the iceberg in the first place. Also, if they had more lifeboats, more people could have been rescued.

Answer 2

First Officer William Murdoch saw the iceberg and then ordered the ship to turn to starboard (this was correct) but then he put the engines in reverse. This slowed the turn of the ship and it was not fast enough and Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 (Nobody knows if the first officer put the engines full astern because the fourth officer says when he walked onto the bridge the engines were on full astern but the chief engineer said the engine order telegraph went from full ahead to stop.)

If the Titanic had hit the iceberg head-on (not turned at all) then it would have stayed afloat. The iceberg would have crushed the first two compartments (about 200 people would have been killed) but the ship would have stayed afloat, because five compartments have to be breached for it to sink.

What the first officer could have done to avoid the ice burg was to leave the starboard engine going full ahead and stop/reverse the port engine with the helm hard over. If he did this the Titanic would have turned faster.

Answer 3

Quite simply,:the crash of Titanic was caused by many many factors and the collision itself was a one-in-a-million crash. Theoretically, if anything at all was different, it would not have happened the way it did.

Answer 4

Well, no, I guess. Since the action has already happened, there's no way you can avoid it anymore. The past is the past. Let us no concentrate on it so much because we have to worry about things that are happening right now and those that are coming next. Yes, there were several chances to avoid it or at least to decrease the number of people who died, but all of those chances were turned down for one reason or another. Unfortunately, if it had not happened as it did, nothing would have been learned by the collision and sinking, until the same thing happened to a different ship.

Answer 5

Several things. If the captain had taken the iceberg warnings seriously. If the owner of the White Star Line, Bruce Ismay (who was on board) wasn't wanting to make the ship arrive in New York early just to get a huge amount of money.

Answer 6

The events leading up to the collision-and-sinking of Titanic were a million-to-one so many things could have conspired to avert the collision but one thing was her construction being delayed while repair work was done on Olympic.

Answer 7

Yes, if the ship wasn't going at maximum speed in order to arrive ahead of schedule, then they could have had more time to turn around the iceberg and avoid hitting it.

Answer 8

the captian was warned of the iceburg but wanted to stay on schedule.