WHAT Caused the Crash?
Below is a list of reasons that have been proved to have caused the sinking of the Titanic:
- Some of the rivets used to secure the metal plate sides of the ship had high levels of slag in them. Slag is the unwanted friction that is removed from the iron to make the iron stronger. But, because the Titanic was under so much pressure to quickly build their ship, they bought the quicker, cheaper, low-grade rivets from their suppliers instead of waiting for the "slag-less", quality rivets to be ready. About half of the rivets had high traces of slag in them. Slag makes the metal form into brittle quicker, which is weaker metal. When rivets with slag in them were placed under high pressure, they split and broke much quicker than the rivets without slag in them. If they had only used quality rivets with no slag in them, perhaps the ships sides and rivets could have withheld the impact of the iceberg.
- While designing the Titanic, Thomas Andrews had originally planned to put 40 llifeboats onboard the Titanic. But when him and J. Bruce Ismay met up to discuss the final details of the Titanic before construction began, Ismay told Andrews to only put 16 lifeboats on deck. This was not illegal in any way, the most lifeboats a large ship normally required were 12. But because ships this size had never been made until then, they did not know how may lifeboats should be required.
- The crew of the Titanic was never fully trained on how to release the lifeboats, so when they were told that they had two hours to get as may people on the lifeboats before the ship sunk, they panicked. At first, the crew members only loaded the lifeboats half-way; scared that if they fully loaded them they would break or be too heavy to lower. At some points while the Titanic was sinking, the crew members began fully loading the lifeboats, but sometimes came close to dropping the lifeboats on top of eachother in a rush.
- While designing the Titanic, Thomas Andrews had originally planned to put 40 llifeboats onboard the Titanic. But when him and J. Bruce Ismay met up to discuss the final details of the Titanic before construction began, Ismay told Andrews to only put 16 lifeboats on deck. This was not illegal in any way, the most lifeboats a large ship normally required were 12. But because ships this size had never been made until then, they did not know how may lifeboats should be required.
- The crew of the Titanic was never fully trained on how to release the lifeboats, so when they were told that they had two hours to get as may people on the lifeboats before the ship sunk, they panicked. At first, the crew members only loaded the lifeboats half-way; scared that if they fully loaded them they would break or be too heavy to lower. At some points while the Titanic was sinking, the crew members began fully loading the lifeboats, but sometimes came close to dropping the lifeboats on top of eachother in a rush.