Coal Fire Sank Titanic? Journalist Says Ship Vulnerable When It Hit Iceberg

A new documentary broadcast in Great Britain claims a coal fire on board the Titanic may have sunk the ship after leaving it vulnerable in the very spot where it struck the iceberg in April 1912.

The documentary by Irish journalist Senan Molony showed pictures from a forgotten album in which a black scar from the fire appears on the ship’s bulkhead at the exact spot where the Titanic struck the iceberg, CNN reported.

Molony suggested the fire weakened the steel inside the bulkhead, making it more vulnerable to penetration by the iceberg. The fire was well-documented, but was downplayed as a possible reason for the sinking.

The photographs were previously unplublished and were discovered by descendants of the ship’s builders. The documentary suggested the ship was berthed so as to hide the 30-foot black scar from passengers, according to The New York Times.

The documentary’s experts were divided about the significance of the fire. Marine engineer Richard de Kerbrech, who wrote two books about the disaster, said “the discovery is a revelation and could change our knowledge of the history of what happened,” the Times reported.

David Hill of the British Titanic Society, however, contended that the 300-foot line of damage created by the iceberg “opened up too many compartments to the sea, so that the weight of the water dragged the bow down so low that the ship eventually sank. A fire may have accelerated this,” Hill admitted, but he is adamant that the ship would have sunk either way, according to the Times.

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