All language subtitles for Historys.Greatest.Mysteries.S05E12.The.Sinking.of.the.Titanic.1080p.HULU.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H264-WhiteHat_track3_[eng]

[dramatic music]

- Tonight, one of the most
legendary disasters in history.

[foghorn blares]

- When we talk about Titanic,

we're talking about the largest

manmade moving
object of her time.

- Literally hundreds of
people shouting for help

in the water in the darkness.

- Questions persist around
what really happened

that fateful night and why.

- Was it just the iceberg

or did other things
happen that led to it?

- Whose decision was
it to travel faster?

- Titanic did suffer
a large bunker fire

that began in Belfast.

- Now we explore
the top theories

behind this iconic
ship's tragic end.

- They're basically looking
for a shadow in the dark.

- No one knew that
these photos existed,

but they may reveal
something about Titanic

that we never knew before.

- Can new evidence
reveal more about how

and why the Titanic sank?

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] On
April 10th, 1912,

the Titanic set sail from the
English port of Southampton

on its maiden
voyage to New York.

This is the golden
age of ship travel

and Titanic is the
era's crown jewel.

- Titanic, to put
it lightly, massive.

It's as long as
four city blocks.

It is 17 stories tall.

It is as wide as a
four-lane highway.

- She is a hundred feet longer

and thousands of tons heavier
than any ship ever built

- [Laurence] On board,

Titanic is carrying
just over 2200 people,

1,316 passengers,
and 885 crew members.

- If you're a first
class passenger,

you had access to things like
a squash court, ballrooms,

Turkish bath.

This is the ship

that has a first ever
swimming pool aboard it,

four different restaurants,

everything ranging from a
Parisian cafe to a dining saloon

that could hold about
500 people in it.

- As passengers walk on board,

they're greeted with a
large grand staircase,

which would be something one

would see in a great hotel

rather than onboard a ship.

- Second and third
class passengers

don't have as much
access to these amenities

as first class does.

However, there is running
water in every single cabin

in the ship, which
is a huge luxury.

- [Laurence] But it's
below the passenger decks

where we find the Titanic's
technological wonders.

- The Titanic is full of
advanced technological features

from 30-foot tall steam engines
that power the propellers

to advanced safety features

including remote controlled
watertight compartments.

- If the ship had a collision,

the watertight doors
could be closed

and only that compartment
would fill with water.

The other compartments
would be safe

and the ship would
continue to float.

[telegraph tapping]

- Titanic also has
a very modern thing,

which is a wireless set

so she can communicate
several hundred miles

with other ships
and also to land.

This was really the beginning
of the modern radio.

- [Laurence] The ship is
so technologically advanced

that its owner and operator,
the White Star Line

is confident enough
to make a bold claim.

- The Titanic, the
unsinkable ship,

God himself will not be
able to sink this ship.

- [Laurence] On the
evening of April 14th,

the Titanic is cruising
through the North Atlantic,

about two and a half
days away from New York.

- The sea was completely
calm like a mirror.

The stars were setting
right down to the horizon.

In fact, some of
the passengers said

that they could see
the stars reflected

on the surface of the water.

- [Laurence] Then
just before 11:40 PM

something ominous
emerges from the dark.

- Titanic's lookouts are
staring ahead at the calm ocean

and then they
notice a dark object

coming out of the
haze in front of them

and they ring the
bell three times

to indicate to the bridge

there's an object dead ahead.

In charge of Titanic that
night is First Officer Murdoch.

He is the first
officer on the bridge

also staring ahead
with his binoculars.

As soon as they hear the
warning of the bells,

Murdoch gives the order harder
starboard to turn the ship

to the left hand side

and immediately Titanic
slowly starts to turn.

- [Laurence] And
then just 37 seconds

after the iceberg
is first spotted,

Titanic makes contact.

[hard impact and metal grinding]

- She misses the berg that
she can see above the surface,

but unfortunately a spur
of the berg under the water

scrapes along Titanic's hull.

The impact of the iceberg
is in fact so slight

that most passengers
sleep through it

and some who were already awake

just regard it as a small bump.

[water gushing]

- [Laurence] But it's much
more than a small bump.

- Immediately Murdoch knows
he had hit an iceberg.

He orders the watertight
compartments to be sealed

and the watertight
doors to be lowered.

- [Laurence] But the water
continues to pour into the ship

and five minutes later,
Titanic's engines shut down.

At 12:05, 25 minutes
after hitting the iceberg,

Captain Smith orders
the first lifeboats

to be prepared for launch.

- They're very well aware

that they do not have enough
lifeboats for everyone

and there had been
no lifeboat drills.

There was no way to really
get the proper information out

to the passengers in a way

that would facilitate a
orderly evacuation of the ship

without incurring panic.

Here you are in the
middle of the ocean.

It's freezing cold out.

You're on this enormous ship.

You gotta have a leap of faith
to get in a very small boat

and leave that ship.

- People are scrambling

and panicking all
across the deck

as the final lifeboat
is about to depart.

They're realizing that there
is no other means of escape

at this point.

- The bow is now moved deeper
and deeper into the water

and slowly we begin
to see the stern

or the back of the ship
come up out of the water.

- At about 2:18 AM
the front of the ship,

because it's full
of so much water

is dipping in
underneath the surface.

The pressure of all the
water from the front

mixed with the weight of
the propellers in the back

causes the ship to snap in half.

[dramatic music]

- After Titanic breaks in half,

her stern comes right up
into almost vertical position

and then slowly slips
beneath the waves.

On the surface there is panic.

There are lifeboats
rowing away from the scene

to avoid suction and now
there are 1,500 people

in the water in the darkness.

- [Laurence] Rescue
ship Carpathia

reaches Titanic's coordinates

at 3:30 AM only to
miss the sinking ship

by a little more than an hour.

They rescue 706 survivors
from the lifeboats.

Two thirds of Titanic's
passengers and crew are gone.

News of the sinking makes
headlines around the world.

- There's no doubt that
the ship struck an iceberg.

What everyone wants to know

is how this seemingly unsinkable
ship could suddenly sink

beneath the Atlantic
within three short hours.

- [Laurence] Within
days of the tragedy,

the US Senate launches an
inquiry to answer that question.

A parallel investigation soon
follows in Great Britain.

- Both investigations

are looking at one potential
contributing factor

to the sinking of Titanic,

which is the speed at which
the boat was traveling.

- The Titanic's
projected rate of speed

for the voyage was 18 knots.

Yet the inquiry finds that
it entered the iceberg field

operating at 23 knots,

which then leads
to the question,

whose decision was
it to travel faster?

Captains often do something
that's called banking time,

which means when
conditions are good,

they'll travel faster

so they can either
arrive ahead of schedule

or be ahead of schedule in
case of inclement weather

that might make them slow
down and use more caution.

- Until Sunday night, Titanic
was ahead of schedule.

They had no problem with
weather, no problem with fog.

The ocean was calm, everything
was going their way.

- [Laurence] Despite
these perfect conditions,

Titanic received six messages

from other ships warning
of icebergs ahead.

- But despite all of
these warnings, again,

'cause it was nice weather,

because the ocean
ocean was calm,

Titanic decided to just
steam straight ahead

at the same speed that
they were maintaining

for the majority of the trip.

- [Laurence] As
investigators question

why the Titanic didn't
avoid the iceberg,

one answer seems to be speed.

[dramatic music]

Soon the managing director
of the White Star Line,

Bruce Ismay, finds
himself under scrutiny.

Ismay was a passenger on
the Titanic and survived.

- Ismay is this
incredibly wealthy

and influential businessman
that wants to dominate

in the shipping
market in England,

and so that's why
he builds Titanic.

The problem with Ismay

is that he's also
incredibly ambitious.

- One of the things that
comes out in the inquiry

is that one of the
first class passengers

actually overheard Bruce
Ismay urging Captain Smith

to put on all possible boilers

to arrive in New
York a day early.

Ismay also boasted to the
first class passengers

that they were planning on
arriving in New York a day early

to make a big splash.

- [Laurence] When it's
Ismay's turn to testify,

he insists that he never

specifically ordered
Captain Smith

to speed up.

- Ismay's response
to these claims

is that he sees no reason

why commander should
not go full speed

provided he can see ice
in time to avoid it.

- Public sentiment is not
very kind towards Ismay

for that statement,

but it's also not
kind towards him

because it's later found out
that he jumped into a lifeboat

and left women and
children behind on the deck

of the Titanic as it sank.

- This caused the public
really to blame Bruce Ismay

for the excessive
speed of the Titanic.

Ismay himself did actually say

that he regretted surviving
the Titanic disaster.

- The Senate
investigation concluded

that Captain Smith was
moving at high speeds

through the ice fields

and that was a
contributing factor

to the sinking of the ship.

The British inquiry thought

that this was merely
a freak accident

that captains can maneuver
ships all the time at full speed

through ice fields
after ice warnings.

And so Ismay and the captain
were essentially absolved

of any guilt.

- But as historians study
Titanic more and more,

they start to notice that there
might be more to the story

than what originally appears.

- Despite all the
factors from the inquiry

and what historians and
archaeologists have studied

over the years, the
question still remains,

if the ship was that
massive, and that unsinkable,

and that technologically
advanced,

could an iceberg really
be the root cause

of the ship sinking?

- [Laurence] Both the
US and British inquiries

blamed the Titanic's sinking
on the ship's high speed

in the face of numerous
iceberg warnings.

Even so, questions remain.

- The night of the 14th of
April, 1912 is totally clear.

The water is calm,
the stars are bright.

The stars are even setting
down to the horizon.

- [Laurence] But in this area,

even perfectly clear
weather can be deadly.

- There's no moon
up at the time.

The moon phase was such that
it was coming up much later

in the morning and so it's dark.

It was very dark.

- The meteorological
records of the time

and also from log books of
other ships in the area show us

the Titanic sank in this very
cold part of the Atlantic

called the Labrador current.

The Labrador current
carries icebergs

that originate in Baffin Bay

and then they come all the
way around Newfoundland

and then they come down
what's known as Iceberg Alley,

where they then mix into
the much warmer Gulf Stream

and it's sending these
really large bergs deep

into the North Atlantic.

- The last few winters
had been fairly mild

and this actually
creates more icebergs

'cause there's melting
and there's fractures

and the ice falls
off these ice sheets

and falls into the ocean.

- The tip of the iceberg that
you can see above the water

is a small fraction of
this enormous block of ice

that's huge like a
sail under the water

and it's being dragged along
by the Labrador current

and it's bringing these enormous
icebergs much further south

than normal into
the Gulf Stream.

- Normally in a typical year,

you'd see around 125
icebergs in this area,

but in 1912, specifically
around April of 1912,

they saw around 400 icebergs,

which was the most that they
had seen in about 50 years.

- Seven minutes of
steaming time beyond

where Titanic collided,

there is a barrier of ice
that's three miles wide

and 30 miles long,

and in fact, this barrier
of field ice is suppressing

the swell in the North Atlantic

and it's cutting off the waves.

It's extremely rare
to have conditions

that calm on the North Atlantic.

Normally where you have ice
mixing with the warmer water

of the Gulf Stream,
you get fogs.

But that night they had an area
of very, very high pressure

and that was keeping
the air crystal clear.

- [Laurence] The night
is almost too clear

and that makes the
crew very wary.

- Reginald Lee, who was
on the crow's nest said,

"A clear starry night overhead,

but at the time of the accident

there was a haze extending
more or less round the horizon.

It was a dark mass that
came through that haze."

- The iceberg that
sinks the Titanic

is pretty large in scale.

It's 50 to a hundred feet
tall and 400 feet long.

So you would think
seeing this object,

you would notice it
coming from miles away.

So what happened that night

that the crew almost
missed it entirely?

[dramatic music]

- Early in the evening,
the officer of the ship

starts to realize
that we have dropping

both seawater temperatures
and air temperatures,

and this suggests
the presence of ice.

You can't see it perhaps,
but you know it's out there.

- The electric lights on the
Titanic started forming frost

on the outside of them,

so they started to look like
little ice crystals basically,

that's how cold it
had suddenly gotten.

- As the ship is
approaching ice,

we're getting the
situation where we're,

we have a separation

of layers of air

and so near the surface of
the water, near the ice,

the air is rather cold,

warmer air rises above and
you get a layered effect

and then you do get some
flow of air between them.

- When you have cold
air and warm air meet,

it forms a kind of lens,

and that lens, what it can do
is it can bend light around it

and create images that
might not actually be there.

- It was behaving in the
opposite way to a desert mirage.

In a desert, you have
a very hot surface

and the light actually
bends slightly upwards

and that brings the
sky onto the ground

and that's why people
in the desert think,

oh, there's water over there,
when there actually isn't.

But the Titanic was
so cold where it sank

that in fact the light
was bending downwards

around the curvature
of the earth

and this was raising
the horizon upwards,

which appeared as a haze
all around the horizon

caused by the molecular
scattering of light

and the depth of air
that you can see through.

- This haze, sometimes it's
referred to as the fata bromosa,

a fairy fog.

If you've ever been fishing on
a lake early in the morning,

you're gonna see a haze
across the top of the water.

Most of us think of
mirage as a false image

and it's not a false image,

it was just a hindrance
to seeing the iceberg.

- The haze around the
horizon was the same color

as the berg,

so instead of seeing
the white iceberg

against the dark night,

they're seeing the white
iceberg against a white mist.

- Captain Smith is well
aware of the situation.

At one point before he retires,
he mentions to the officers

that if any haze
was observed at all,

no matter how slight,
he should be awakened.

That never happened.

- [Laurence] Adding to
the confusion that night,

the lookouts weren't
using binoculars.

- There were binoculars
on the Titanic,

they were stashed
away in a locker.

Problem was the one crew
member that had the key

to the locker had been
reassigned to another ship

at the last minute so no
one could access the locker,

open it up and get ahold
of those binoculars.

Had they had the binoculars,

it is possible that
that magnification

could have been used

to cut through that
optical illusion

and had them see the iceberg
far enough in advance

so that they could have
made their way around.

- [Laurence] But
not everyone agrees

that binoculars would've helped.

- Binoculars were for
inspecting an object

that you'd already detected

and in fact the best
way to spot ice at night

is with the naked eye

because it gives you a
broad field of vision.

The officers had
binoculars, by the way,

because their job was to inspect
what the lookouts detected,

so at the detection end
you don't need binoculars.

Had Titanic's lookouts
had binoculars,

it would've narrowed
their field of vision

and they may have picked
up the iceberg later.

- In 1909, construction
begins on the Titanic

in Belfast, Ireland.

It's designed to be not
only the most lavish ship

on the seas, but
one of the safest.

- Titanic's construction
starts in 1909

and its design specifically
had safety features

that were new and innovative
for the time period,

which really led to the
media calling her unsinkable.

- Titanic's builders
and her owner

boast on the maiden voyage

that Titanic can
be sliced crosswise

into three separate pieces
and each individual piece

will float.

- Part of the design of
the Titanic was to allow it

to be a massive lifeboat in
the event that damage occurred,

they could shut the
four compartments

or however many compartments
had been punctured

and eventually the passengers

could be rescued
within that time.

- However, historians contend

that there was one small mistake

with the design of the ship.

[dramatic music]

- Titanic is a massive
800-foot-plus long ship

separated by steel walls
known as bulkheads.

Those walls separated the
watertight compartments

in the ship by which there
were 16, close to double

the number of water
tank compartments

or compartments that you'd
see in your typical ship.

- If you've ever walked
through a submarine,

you have a door that
you have to hunker down

and walk through and then
they can close that door.

That's a bulkhead.

The same type of bulkhead
that was on Titanic.

- The bulkhead has two purposes.

One, to contain any water

that might make it into the
ship in case of a puncture

and to actually
strengthen the hull.

- It's engineered
such that if the ship

were to be hit in one of
those watertight compartments,

they could close the
doors on either side of it

and only that compartment
will fill with water.

Worst case scenario, if it
hits on a bulkhead wall,

it would fill two
watertight compartments.

Titanic is so special

that if any of the first
four watertight compartments

or all four are compromised,
the ship would still float.

- [Laurence] But there's
one critical weakness

in the design.

- Titanic's watertight
bulkheads were not carried

all the way up and they were
not capped by a watertight deck

because that would've interfered

with crew and passengers being
able to move about the ship

and also it would've
interfered with cargo loading.

- They didn't want
to ruin the design

and the experience
for the passengers

by placing the bulkhead
walls all the way up

through the deck,

that means that at any point
if one compartment floods

and it goes above the waterline
and above the bulkhead,

it can flow into the
next compartment.

- [Laurence] On the night
of April 14th, 1912,

the bulkheads are
put to the test.

[hard impact and metal grinding]

- Titanic hits the iceberg,

it scrapes across the right
side of the ship, opens it up,

water starts rushing into
the front compartments.

The watertight doors are shut,

but water starts flowing
into the other compartments

that are not protected
by those bulkheads.

The squash courts,
the mail room,

and even the boiler rooms

are starting to
fill up with water.

- There is water pouring
in the side of the ship

and Thomas Andrews,

the ship's designer,

goes down and sees all
the water coming in.

- Because of Andrew's
familiarity with the Titanic,

he's able to tell from
the moment of impact

until that moment how much
water has come into the ship.

He's able to take
that water flow rate

and calculate how
long it will take

to fill the four bulkheads

and then he notices

that it's in watertight
compartment number five,

and that the pumps
aren't handling it.

That's when he comes
to the conclusion

that the ship is
going to founder.

- [Laurence] According
to survivors,

approximately 45 minutes
after the collision,

Andrews informs the captain

that the first five
compartments are now flooded.

- The captain and the
designer then proceed down

to the engine room to
talk to the chief engineer

to try to figure out what can
be done and what can be saved.

- As water flowed into the
forward compartments of Titanic

that were damaged
by the iceberg,

this weight of water
caused the bow to dip down.

And of course,

because the bulkheads didn't
have a watertight deck

on the top,

it meant that water spilled
over from one bulkhead

into the next, into the next,

rather like an ice cube tray.

- The weight of the
water is forcing the bow

of the ship down and
the ship begins to tilt.

Passengers begin to feel it
and as the weight gets heavier

and heavier, that
angle increases.

- Now the heaviest parts of
the ship are the two engines

in the rear.

So you have a large
heavy concentration here

due to the engines,

but you have a large
heavy concentration here

due to the water.

- And so basically you
have an issue of weight

and displacement and eventually

the ship can't fight it anymore.

[dramatic music]

- [Laurence] Some
argue that the Titanic

would've been better off
with no bulkheads at all.

- The ship builders believed

that they had
thought of everything

when building the Titanic,
but they were sadly mistaken.

- What they didn't anticipate

was that an iceberg collision

could scrape along the side
of the ship and cause damage

in six compartments.

They were imagining it
might be a head-on collision

or a puncture.

- This design feature
ends up being the problem

because with all of this water
that's seeping into the front

because it's got
nowhere else to go

because it's being sealed off,

this causes the front
of the ship to dip

below the water line
and ultimately sink.

Had there not been any
bulkhead walls there,

the dispersion of water
might've been much more even

because it wasn't going
from adjacent compartment

to adjacent compartment, it
would've taken longer to sink,

which meant more people
could have been saved.

That design was a catastrophe
waiting to happen.

- The Titanic's tragic story
captures the imagination

of the public and
experts of all kinds,

who still seek answers about
how and why the ship sunk

decades after its demise.

In 1985, more than 70
years after the tragedy,

explorer Bob Ballard makes
the discovery of a lifetime,

the remains of the Titanic

two and a half miles
down on the floor

of the Atlantic Ocean.

- So Ballard's find
begins a whole new era

in the story of the Titanic,

and allows us for the first time

to try to understand
what really happened.

- Other explorations
head down to the ship

and they end up bringing
up about 5,000 artifacts

for scientific exploration.

- Expeditions in the late
nineties brought back

a lot of material
including steel and rivets.

I was lucky enough to be able
to examine those materials

along with my colleague
Dr. Tim Foecke

at the National Institute
of Standards and Technology.

- In their book "What
Really Sank the Titanic,"

they posed their theory
as to what they believe

actually led to the Titanic
sinking as rapidly as it did.

[dramatic music]

- Titanic's hull is built like
a patchwork quilt of steel

where you have big steel plates

and these are stitched
together by metal rivets.

- A rivet is essentially
a two-headed nail,

so plates would be placed
together with pre-punched holes

and a rivet would be
passed through that hole

and then hammered on
each end to create a head

and effectively a
watertight seal.

- [Laurence] The Titanic's
hull is held together

by 3 million six-inch long
rivets.

These are traditionally
made of steel.

As Foecke and Hooper
examine Titanic's rivets

under a microscope, they
make a stunning discovery.

- Titanic was built using
two types of rivets,

wrought iron and steel.

Steel was used in
the middle section.

That makes sense because
the center section

of the Titanic is going to
feel the highest stresses

during its voyage.

In the bow and the stern,
they used wrought iron rivets

and when we think
about the collision

what's important

is understanding how
and where it happened.

It happened in
the starboard side,

low on the hull of the ship

but across the bow and six
compartments all in an area

that was wrought iron rivets.

- Wrought iron traditionally
is a much softer metal

than steel, not to
mention in these rivets

they also find a high percentage
of what's called slag.

- Slag is a byproduct of
how we create wrought iron

and it helps to mix and remove
impurities from the iron

when it's created.

In traditional wrought
iron that's used

for ship building, bridges,
fire escapes, the Eiffel Tower,

this material has
about 2 to 3% slag.

On Titanic, the wrought
iron had 9% on average

up to 12%, which is
three to four times

what you would normally see.

It can create weakness
exactly in the places

where you need it to be
holding the ship together.

- [Laurence] So why would
the builders of the Titanic

use rivets made of impure irons
that might not be as strong?

- There was a lot of stress
and there was a lot of pressure

to complete the
Titanic on schedule.

In order to do that, they had
to find ways to source iron

and steel as rapidly
as they could.

In 1901, they stopped
requiring testing of iron

for ship building.

Iron was easy to source,
faster to source,

and they knew that they
could rivet it up quickly.

- So the rivet itself
is half the tale.

The second half of the tale
is how many rivets are used.

The more rivets you put,

the more effective
that joint strength is

to the strength
of the steel plate

that it's trying to connect.

In the places up forward
where damage was observed,

there are less rows of rivets,

so right off the bat you have
a weaker joint to begin with.

Add to that, now you have these
potentially weakened rivets

or poorly manufactured rivets

and you have a place
where the seams may fail

with less force than
might have been expected.

- The wrought iron material on
Titanic under the microscope

has particles of slag
that, in some cases,

are so small you can't see
them with the naked eye.

So when we think
about the disaster

and the role that
materials played

in one of the most
famous ship sinkings,

we're literally talking about
microscopically small material

that could have taken down a
ship that was 800 feet long.

- [Laurence] These findings
lead the two scientists

to a new realization.

- During the collision
with the iceberg

as it hit the starboard side,

it's hitting and straining
sections of the ship

where there's
wrought iron rivets.

The rivet's already
under a lot of strain

because it's holding
those plates together,

so it doesn't need
much for the iceberg

to begin that glancing blow
that then causes one head to pop

and then the rivets next to it

are holding more of those plates
and then they begin to pop.

So you can imagine
a series of rivets

whose heads are popping almost
like the opening of a zipper

along the side of the ship.

When we did computer modeling

to look at how steel rivets
perform versus wrought iron,

we saw the steel could
withstand five times the stress

before it would pop.

- So the question that comes
out of this understanding

is were these weakened rivets

potentially part of the failure,
part of the sinking story?

It's possible they were.

- [Laurence] After countless
expeditions to the wreck,

scientists think they
know what contributed

to the Titanic disaster.

Then in 2012, an
unexpected treasure

is found hidden in
an English attic.

- A bunch of old
photos are found,

many of which are
of the ship Titanic

during the last days
of its construction.

These photos were taken by
a man named John Kempster

who was the chief electrical
engineer at the shipyard

where Titanic was being built.

No one knew that
these photos existed,

but after looking at them

it may reveal
something about Titanic

that we never knew before.

- The photos are
sold at auction,

but before that, Irish
journalist, Senan Malony,

is able to study them in detail.

- There's some discoloration
on the exterior hull

of the ship in and
around the area

in which the damage occurs

that causes the
sinking of the Titanic.

- At first, he just assumes

that it's maybe like a
reflection off of the water,

but in other photos
he starts to see

the same black streak appear

and he thinks this might
possibly be the culprit.

- At the time of the
Titanic's sailing,

oil had not yet become
a fuel of choice.

Coal in the form of coal
bunkers were how we stored

the chemical energy to drive
the ship through the water.

- Titanic carries
6,600 tons of coal

in these 30-foot-high bunkers

that sit next to
the hull of the ship

as well as the
interior bulkhead.

Coal is shoveled into
these gigantic boilers

of which there are 29
of them aboard the ship

and they're thrown in
there by these stokers.

[sound of shoveling]

- In April, 1912,

when Titanic set sail
on her maiden voyage,

there was a coal strike

and so coal had
been transshipped

from a number of other vessels.

- Titanic stoker, John
Dilley, survives the accident

and afterwards he
tells a report of it.

Even before Titanic set sail,

a coal fire had started
in one of the bunkers

and it continued to smolder
and continued to be ablaze

even after the Titanic
took off for sea.

- Every boiler front and
furnace was very accessible

to the local supply of coal.

This place, these
coal bunkers adjacent

to this watertight bulkhead

and so that becomes a
concern when the fire begins.

- Malony theorizes
that the black streak

on the side of the ship

is because of an uncontrollable
fire in the coal bunkers.

- Maybe this burning fire
could have damaged the steel

of either the hull

or the adjacent
watertight bulkhead

that separated boiler room
six from boiler room five.

And if that's the case,

perhaps a failure of either of
those two structural elements

could have contributed, if not
caused, the ultimate sinking

of the Titanic.

- [Laurence] Records
show the Titanic's coal

had been loaded into the bunkers

three weeks before she set sail.

Malony believes it's possible
that's when the fire started.

- One kernel of coal can heat up

and because it's trapped within
these giant 30-foot bunkers,

it can smolder for
quite some time

before being detected,

which could ultimately lead
to it starting and spreading

a much larger fire.

From the bowels of the ship

right at the very
bottom of the ship,

there's no place to
dump coal overboard.

There's no place to just
dump it into the water.

- [Laurence] The
stokers on the ship

are left with only one choice.

- Bunker fires in ships
can be very dangerous

because the coal
burns very, very hot

so that if you
play a hose on it,

it just evaporates the water.

So the best way to extinguish
a bunker fire on a ship

is by raking out the coal
and putting it on the boiler.

It took Titanic's firemen
four days to rake out

all the burning coal before the
fire was fully extinguished.

- [Laurence] With the
coal bunker empty,

the crew can see the damage
caused by the coal fire.

- A stoker tells investigators,
after the sinking,

that one of the bulkhead
walls was red hot at the time.

It is possible that
that amount of heat

could have very well
discolored the metal wall

within the ship, which
leads to that black mark

that Malony saw in those photos.

- Other stokers talked
about seeing that steel

of the bulkhead being red hot.

Steel when it achieves
a certain temperature

can change phase.

It changes its form
and can become brittle.

- [Laurence] Malony's theory

is that this fire-
damaged bulkhead

is the key to the
sinking of the Titanic.

- In the bulkhead wall
that's been damaged

by the coal bunker fire,

we now have the final two
compartments that flood

as a result of the collision.

So you can imagine that the
stress caused by oncoming water

and the flooding of
water as it gushes

through the starboard side,

maybe the bulkhead wall was
already weakened or embrittled

because of that coal bunker fire

and may have failed
sooner than expected.

- [Laurence] But why would the
Titanic have knowingly set sail

with an ongoing coal fire?

- Malony suggests
that the ship set sail

because the White Star Line
was already receiving bad press

due to the fact that
the maiden voyage

had been delayed by
about three weeks.

- [Laurence] Not everyone
believes the coal fire

was burning hot enough to
cause any structural damage.

- If Malony's coal
fire theory is true,

the damage to the interior
watertight bulkhead

should have caused the
water pressing against it

to damage the
structural integrity

and the bulkhead would've
collapsed right away.

But we know due to
testimony of the crew

that the bulkhead did not
give way for over two hours.

- The coal bunker
fire on the Titanic

was located directly under
the first class swimming pool.

If the fire had reached
1800 degrees Fahrenheit,

the passengers on that deck

would have definitely
felt that temperature.

In addition, the stokers,

the people working
around the engines

that were coming in
and out of that room

would've needed protective
gear to get that close.

It's just hard to imagine that
it would have gotten that hot

and we wouldn't have
seen or heard anything

from the passengers on the ship.

- So maybe if coal
was burning that hot,

it could have
damaged the bulkhead

and it could have
compromised the ship,

thus leading to its sinking.

But at the end of the day,

regardless of damaged
bulkhead or not,

when the Titanic hit that
iceberg, its fate was sealed.

[waves crashing]

- [Laurence] The question of
what really caused the Titanic

to sink after the
iceberg collision

has been asked since the day
the infamous ship went down.

- By the time the Carpathia
pulls into New York,

the press are waiting,
the public's waiting,

the politicians are waiting.

How could something so
grand, something so large,

the pinnacle of technology
of our day disappear

in two and a half hours

and with 700 people
surviving out of 2,200?

This is hard to imagine.

People want answers.

- [Laurence] From excess
speed, to structural flaws,

to a secret fire,

if any one of those was managed,

could the tragedy
have been prevented?

- When disasters like the
Titanic sinking occur,

we often want to point
blame at one person,

one specific factor.

- Could it have
just been one thing

or was it a perfect storm of
multiple different factors

that contributed to

this sinking event of
epic proportions?

[dramatic music]

- There were many mistakes

that could have
easily been avoided,

everything ranging from high
speeds, to structural issues,

to a secret fire, just
layer upon layer of issues

that compounded on
top of each other.

- Like almost any accident.

There is a cascade of
events or situations

that occurred to
bring us to the point

where the failure occurs.

- It's not one thing that causes
it, but a series of things.

- One analogy might be if you
throw a rock down a mountain,

you might be able
to stop the rock,

but once it becomes an
avalanche, it's game over.

- It took decisions,
it took flawed material,

it took bad environmental
conditions, mother nature,

to bring all these things
together in one place

and cause an accident.

- This was a perfect
combination of many events

all happening at the same
time at the very same place.

- [Laurence] More
than 110 years later,

all the theories and
evolving evidence

haven't dampened the
passionate curiosity

surrounding the
Titanic's demise.

- People are still
fascinated by it.

When you think of all the people
on Titanic, rich and poor,

and crew and passengers,

it's a bit like a
microcosm of humanity.

And then the iceberg
lurking in the darkness

almost represents the
awesome power of nature

and the universe.

So really, the story
of the Titanic

speaks to the human condition.

- There's probably more
down there than we realize.

As a disaster it leaves
us wanting to know more.

- Carpathia rushed to
the scene, saved 712,

and it's those people we
have to remember today.

The 1496 who did not survive
all still have stories to tell.

- Titanic is always gonna
be one of those instances

that is constantly studied,
constantly picked over.

As technology
continues to improve

and advance,

who knows what new discoveries
we might make about Titanic

as it sits at the bottom
of the Atlantic Ocean?

And ultimately we might end
up finding the real reason

why Titanic sank to the bottom
of the ocean so quickly.

- If the wreckage
could be raised,

we might answer more
lingering questions

about the Titanic's final hours.

Until then, so much
remains a mystery.

And with Titanic's hull
predicted to collapse

by the year 2030, battered
by deep sea currents

and consumed by bacteria,

the last secrets of
this notorious ship

may soon be buried forever.

I'm Laurence Fishburne.

Thank you for watching
"History's Greatest Mysteries."

[dramatic music]