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12 Titanic Survivors Whose Stories Reveal The Tragedy’s True Scope
But I've often thought that if a rookie captain were at the helm that evening, the ship would be afloat to this day. This is pure speculation, of course, but I know several metaphoric Ted Smiths and they are captains of industry. Before we begin, I want to take a moment to assure you that I mean no disrespect to those who died or lost loved ones years ago today. I recognize that last Sunday was the solemn anniversary of a tragic event.
That said, Ted Smith has at least one more lesson to teach us. Having joined the White Star Line in , by Ted Smith was one of the most experienced sea captains in the world. Just prior to his final command, he was captain of the Olympic the world's largest ship pre-Titanic. He had some trouble during that command: Notwithstanding these unfortunate accidents, he was chosen to command the Titanic. Bruce Ismay was, for all intents and purposes, Ted Smith's boss.
He was also a passenger. So, even though Ted was the captain of the voyage, senior management was literally on board. On the morning of April 14, the Titanic received a radio message from the Caronia warning it of ice in its path. A second message was received from the Baltic early that afternoon.
Haunting facts about the Titanic you didn't know
Captain Smith shared this message with Ismay. According to several accounts, Ismay held the message and did not make any changes to the standing order, "Shortest possible time to New York. This managerial action set a chain of events in motion that should haunt every manager to this day. Ismay, the chairman, ignored a warning about a well-understood threat.
An experienced captain, who had an even better understanding of the threat, allowed a dangerous condition to evolve. The story also tells us that the staff in the radio shack were so busy dealing with telegraph messages for passengers, they didn't think additional iceberg warnings from the Mesaba or the Californian were important enough to share with the bridge. Either the staff in the radio shack had not been apprised of the threat level or their job functions were aligned to incorrect priorities, or maybe they had been at sea for years and figured the guys on the bridge already knew it was cold outside and they were sailing in the North Atlantic.
Regardless of the reason, the lack of clarity and specific governance of the incoming data resulted in tragedy. Titanic was steaming at full speed when the baneful iceberg was sighted.
It takes a long time to turn a big ship—too long in this case. The captain respected the chain of command above him.
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If he suggested that the ship slow down, the chairman of the company either convinced him that maintaining full speed would be OK or gave him an unlawful order to put the ship and the passengers into harm's way. The captain not only agreed to maintain course and speed but left the bridge with the standing order "Maintain course and speed. Because there was no systemic alert status, the staff in the radio shack did not have orders to surface important data about changes in threat levels. What if Captain Smith, knowing the risk was too great, ignored Ismay's order, reduced speed, and altered course to a more southerly route?
From my perspective, experience was a root cause of the Titanic disaster.
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Captain Smith didn't want to hurt anyone; he wanted to do his job. He sold his ticket at the last minute. In , 14 years before the tragedy struck, an American author wrote a novel called "Futility: The Wreck Of The Titan", which was about a british cruise ship named the "Titan", which set sail on its maiden voyage, struck an ice berg and sank, going down with all passengers and crew.
The details of the novel are hauntingly similar to what happened to the Titanic. This resulted in Captain Smith cancelling crew lifeboat training, without any reason - the training was never rescheduled, and never conducted. The night Titanic sank, this was the first time the crew had ever attempted to roll out the lifeboats. The total capacity for the Titanic was people.
The 18 lifeboats on board had capacity for 65 people each - which was not enough. There wasn't enough seating space on the lifeboats for even HALF of the people on the ship. Over half the lifeboats were only half full.
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If the lifeboats were full to capacity, around more people would have survived. Only people of the people on board survived the sinking.
After Titanic sank, boats went out to the site with ice and empty coffins, with the mission to find human remains. Bodies were found floating vertically and looked as if they were asleep. Each corpse was checked for identification. All first class bodies were taken back to shore. The other bodies were attached to weights and buried at sea.
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