Titanic was burning for days and this capsized the unsinkable ship when it hit the iceberg, claims expert
Legendary cruise ship Titanic had a catastrophic blaze on board before it hit a giant iceberg, an investigator has revealed.
According to journalist Senan Molony who had spent decades probing the disaster, it was the fire and not the iceberg that resulted in the sinking of the ship which killed 1,500 people. He claims that the 'unsinkable' ship had been severely weakened by a secret fire that had been burning in the boiler room's coal bunker since the ship left on April 2, 1912.
As reported by The Sun, Molony revealed, "the official Titanic inquiry branded it (the sinking) as an act of God. This isn’t a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking. It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence." The author's theory has not been accepted by many historians though he has pointed out 'burn' marks on the starboard side of the ship in a set of pictures that were sold at a private auction.
See the pictures here.
In one of the pictures, a 30ft long dark mark can be seen on the hull right where the iceberg is believed to have struck the ship. Molony shared with The Times that he believes that the mark is the reason why the liner unusually reversed into her berth, showing the unmarked side to posh passengers.
"Nobody has investigated these marks before or dwelled upon them. It totally changes the narrative. Since 1912, there has been this myth of a 300ft gash that opened the ship up but when the wreckage was examined, people were perplexed because they couldn’t find anything like it. We have experts telling us that when you get that level of temperature against steel it makes it brittle, and reduces its strength by up to 75 percent," Molony shared.
"The fire was known about and briefly addressed at the inquiry, but it was played down. She should never have been put to sea but the Titanic had already been delayed a couple of times and was committed to leaving on April 10," Molony continued. He claims that a secret fire could also help to understand why the ship was moving so fast.
"The way to deal with the fire [in the bunker] would have been to dig out the coal, and put it in the only other possible place, the furnace, which meant the ship was going at a much higher speed." The Titanic collided with an iceberg five days into its journey with around 2,224 passengers and crew on board.