Titanic. The day common sense failed everyone

[paintman]

look i'm not trying to say no one would have panicked. but with all the crew men on board, not all were required to lower boats. They were navy men most of them. Captain Smith should have made more effort to organize his men and come up with a solution when Andrews first told him their wasn't enough boats

 

[The Heik]

*snip*

All we can do about this tragedy is learn what they did wrong in the situation. I certainly did. I learned to take the plane, because the plane has a very restricted amount of passengers, so all the rafts and other life-preserving materials on-board will never be exceeded by the need for them. Also, it highly unlikely to run into an iceberg at 35,000 feet.

Neah, instead you'll nose dive into the water at near mach 1 and cease to exist on impact...... I think I'll take the boat

You don't know much about aerodynamics do you? A plane doesn't just fall out of the sky if an accident occurs. Even if all it's engines suddenly burst into flames, the thing is aerodynamic enough to stay in the air for quite a while until it crashes (gravity provides quite a bit of air movement for the plane). In addition, the standard tactic for pilots when a plane crashes is to pull the nose up and deploy all the flaps just before impact, causing the plane to slow down rapidly, making the actual impact relatively soft.

Also, in terms of safety, a plane is the safest mode of transport, period. There are over a million aircraft flights per day worldwide, however, the number fatalities is measured at under a hundred lives per decade. Compared to auto accidents, that number in the tens of thousands of deaths per year (and that's only in Europe), or boats, that number in the hundres in North America alone, flying in a plane is bar none the safest way to travel

 

[TitanAtlas]

*snip*
You should take in consideration that the ship itself sinking didnt took more than 29 minutes, and it had hundreds and hundreds of people in it... *snip*

It took 2.5-3hrs to sink, plenty of time. However the boads weren't launched until 2hrs after the ship hit the iceberg. Those 2 hours could have been better used.

yes could be in better use, with hundreds and hundreds of people paniking everywere.... im sure they wouldv been able to build a raft in such short notice....

sorry for the sarcasm but its true.... there were far too many people, and not enough time to come with a suitable solution...

 

[RicoADF]

*snip*

All we can do about this tragedy is learn what they did wrong in the situation. I certainly did. I learned to take the plane, because the plane has a very restricted amount of passengers, so all the rafts and other life-preserving materials on-board will never be exceeded by the need for them. Also, it highly unlikely to run into an iceberg at 35,000 feet.

Neah, instead you'll nose dive into the water at near mach 1 and cease to exist on impact...... I think I'll take the boat

You don't know much about aerodynamics do you? A plane doesn't just fall out of the sky if an accident occurs. Even if all it's engines suddenly burst into flames, the thing is aerodynamic enough to stay in the air for quite a while until it crashes (gravity provides quite a bit of air movement for the plane). In addition, the standard tactic for pilots when a plane crashes is to pull the nose up and deploy all the flaps just before impact, causing the plane to slow down rapidly, making the actual impact relatively soft.

Also, in terms of safety, a plane is the safest mode of transport, period. There are over a million aircraft flights per day worldwide, however, the number fatalities is measured at under a hundred lives per decade. Compared to auto accidents, that number in the tens of thousands of deaths per year (and that's only in Europe), or boats, that number in the hundres in North America alone, flying in a plane is bar none the safest way to travel

First off, planes have fallen from the sky and thus crashed in far from ideal conditions (I actually said that from an incident on air crash investigations I had watched which came to mind and it hit the water at high speed and was destroyed on impact). I wasn't comparing safety of them, just being sarcastic/having a joke.

yes could be in better use, with hundreds and hundreds of people paniking everywere.... im sure they wouldv been able to build a raft in such short notice....

sorry for the sarcasm but its true.... there were far too many people, and not enough time to come with a suitable solution...

That better use of time I mentioned, was in regards to actually filling the boats and not sending them out with just 12 people out of a capacity of like 65. Some organisation would have helped saved hundreds more.

 

[Macgyvercas]

Snip

Of course, the Britannic never carried passengers. She was coverted to a hospital ship at the start of WWI and sank due to a mine (or possibly a torpedo, there's been debates) in 1916.

The reason you need something far more sturdy than the 'raft' you're picturing is that when the ship sinks it'll smash anything smaller and suck it down with it.

Ordinarliy, that would be the case. However, as I stated earlier, the Titanic sank so slowly that a suction whirlpool was nonexistant.

Though it does make sense to think that it would, seen as it is the norm for a suction whirlpool to occur.

 

[dkorole]

They could have floated on the several thousand doors,the ship sank slowly,they could have lowered doors off the back while it slowly went under inch by inch and paddled away.

 

[GenericAmerican]

I read through all 3 pages of this thread and all I can say is, what happened, happened; debating it gets us no where.

Remember, hindsight is 20/20.

*Also, about the under tow caused from the ship. It's said that the ship went down slow enough not to cause any notice pull in the water. With that being said, if something does go down fast, it will pull you under. I.E. Submarine sinking pirate vessel by doing an emergency dive.

 

[Rawne1980]

How would you get such Macguiver-esque rafts down to the water? It's rather a long drop. The actual lifeboats had specific pulley systems for that purpose.

The boat was sinking, you could just wait for the water to get to a reasonable level to jump into.

Standing at the edge, "jump now Bob".

Plus there is the fact that you are going to die. I believe standing around and waiting for a lifeboat in an orderly fashion would be the last thing on people's minds.

On Topic.....

Considering the people that were supposed to be qualified in navigating the Titanic to start with seem to have missed a giant bloody iceberg i'm just going to go ahead and assume the ship was full of numpty's.

 

[Doclector]

Honestly, they shouldn't have had to. The company sacrificed safety for asthetics when they cut the number of lifeboats.

As for the film, it makes me angry. Why? Good effects, good historical accuracy, good everything, all ruined by making some dumbass romance plot that stupid people now insist ACTUALY HAPPENED the centre of the whole plot. Why? Was the human tradegy of the titanic not enough to hold up a film? Why couldn't they follow numerous characters? Why, gorramit, why!? And if they had to centre on anyone why the hell did it have to be on a romance plot? Why couldn't it have been a family? That's way more plausible and relatable seeming as class constraints, although still present, aren't that strong anymore.

It really angers me. Half the damn film is spent building up this dumb romance.

 

[Doclector]

As for the film, it makes me angry. Why? Good effects, good historical accuracy, good everything, all ruined by making some dumbass romance plot that stupid people now insist ACTUALY HAPPENED the centre of the whole plot. Why? Was the human tradegy of the titanic not enough to hold up a film? Why couldn't they follow numerous characters? Why, gorramit, why!? And if they had to centre on anyone why the hell did it have to be on a romance plot? Why couldn't it have been a family? That's way more plausible and relatable seeming as class constraints, although still present, aren't that strong anymore.

It really angers me. Half the damn film is spent building up this dumb romance.

You act as if the movie was supposed to be about the Titanic, James Cameron wanted to do a love story and the Titanic was an epic setting for it to take place. That's like if you were watching The Great Escape and you complained about how they're only focusing on this one group of guys instead of the entire war.

One group of guys escaping from a POW camp=Impressive. Love story=happens all the gorram time. The overall event makes the romance plot seem really f***ing insignificant, at least to me it does, which to be fair, I'm a massive romance cynic, and the titanic is an incredibly interesting historical event to me. To see it shoved to side stage for a romance plot is just...dumb to my eyes.

 

[Nielas]

EDIT: Oh an Rose also would have died in real life, you've got people around her who have already turned into popsicles, she's half submerged in the freezing Atlantic Ocean with no survival gear at all, but she lives just fine.

This is exactly what I thought when I read the OP. The problem is not that people could have survived like Rose did but that Rose should have died like all those other people did.

I would think that many of the passengers tried to make a make-shift raft out of the debris that was floating around but even those who succeeded died of hypothermia before they were rescued.

The only reason Rose survived was because they needed her to narrate the story in the framing device.

 

[Ray Newton]

In the days of the Titanic, oil was not used for cooking and frying. They used thick fat, or lard. That is what Channel swimmers cover themselves with against the cold. It has also been found that fat people can withstand the cold water better than thin. There would be plenty in the kitchens in large containers (possibly wood ones).

I would have gone down to the kitchens and covered myself with the fat. You
could have used bed sheets to make a 'rope' both for binding wooden items, especially furniture together. The 'rope' would also help to lower yourself down. People have escaped tall buildings doing this.

Anything is better than standing, and singing while the boat goes down.

Deck chairs are often found floating after a sinking - bind these together. Covered in fat, a bottle of rum taken from the bar, some food, a wooden raft and you have a chance.