The main culprit of the death of the Titanic was not an iceberg

More than a century has passed since a huge liner, making a flight from Southampton to New York, sank in the waters of the North Atlantic. The circumstances of this terrible tragedy, which claimed the lives of more than one and a half thousand people, have been studied far and wide. But research does not stop to this day. British journalist Shanan Meloni studied the history of the Titanic for 30 years and came to a sensational conclusion: the main cause of the crash was a fire in the fuel storage, which lasted about two weeks.

According to the official version, the Titanic crashed due to the fact that it was moving at too high a speed in icy waters, and when the lookout noticed an iceberg directly ahead, there was no way to avoid a collision. The ship hit the ice block at a tangent, but received such serious damage that it sank to the bottom three hours later. Shanan Meloni, however, believes that the iceberg is only one of the factors that ruined the steamer.

In the process of scrupulous examination of photographs taken ten days before the Titanic left Southampton, the journalist found traces of soot on the inside of the hull. Exactly in the place that was subsequently damaged in the collision. The fire in the fuel storage, according to experts, began during high-speed tests at the dock in Belfast.

The owners of the ship knew that a fire was raging in the bowels of the Titanic, but they were so greedy that they decided not to cancel the flight. In order for the passengers not to suspect anything, the ship was deployed on the other side in the port of Southampton. The officers were ordered to keep their mouths shut.

The liner set sail, but the team of 12 people could not cope with the fire. Gradually, the skin heated up to a thousand degrees Celsius. Experts in the field of metallurgy, with whom Meloni consulted, said that steel at this temperature becomes brittle, losing up to 75% of its strength.

For this reason, when hitting an iceberg in the bow compartments of the vessel, six holes with a total length of about 90 meters were formed at once. The ship's unsinkability system could not cope with such serious damage.

The death of the Titanic, the journalist concludes, was due to a nightmarish confluence of three factors: ice, fire and criminal negligence.