What If the Titanic Sank Today

Sea travel is safer

today

than at any time in history, but that doesn't mean some people don't have regrets when it comes to getting their feet wet. Everyone can name at least one famous shipwreck, and some prefer to keep their feet on solid ground, rather than risk being stuck in Davy Jones' pigeonhole. But how worried should we be? Could a Titanic-like disaster happen

today

? Well, strap on your life jackets and man the lifeboats, because you're about to find out. It's not like your ship is about to sink or anything. I don't want to scare anyone watching this from the middle of the Atlantic.

Speaking of which, let me know in the comments section which cruise destination you'd like to visit the most! Did anyone else hear splashing? Eh, it was probably nothing. Before we can answer our main question, we need to know

what

led to the sinking of the Titanic becoming one of the worst maritime disasters in history. Everyone knows the basic story: the ship hit an iceberg, there weren't enough lifeboats, and Rose had the necklace the entire time. Oh, was that a spoiler? I'm sorry. Ignoring the exploits of fictional characters, all of that is basically correct, but it's missing some key details.

The first major problem that contributed to the ship's demise had to do with the ocean liner culture of the early 20th century. The captains of these ships were under constant pressure to maintain a strict schedule of arrivals and departures. These schedules were difficult to maintain under ideal circumstances and often required pushing ships close to their limits. It is also unclear whether the captain was fully aware of the danger. At that time, it was common for ships' radio operators to work for an outside company. Transmitting messages to the crew was the second priority after sending private telegrams to passengers.

This even went as far as the Titanic's radio operator telling another ship to keep quiet about the icebergs because she had a backlog of private correspondence. Furthermore, it was widely believed that icebergs did not pose any significant danger to ships. In fact, a few years earlier, a German liner called the SS Kronprinz Wilhelm managed to complete her route after her bow was shattered in a collision with an iceberg. Around this time, future Titanic captain Edward Smith would dismiss the possibility of a potential maritime disaster by saying, "Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." Nowadays, people make fun of how the Titanic was advertised as unsinkable, but back then, it hardly counted as a boast.

Regardless of the reason, Captain Smith decided to press ahead at full speed. He had the presence of mind to command the Titanic's lookouts. to monitor the ice, but due to an administrative error, they were never given binoculars. The lack of lifeboats was also due to a misunderstanding of how potential collisions would play out, and not just because they would be redundant on an invincible ship. At the time, it was generally accepted that if it was ever necessary to abandon a ship, the passengers and crew would be picked up by another ship in the same area. No one had ever anticipated the need to evacuate everyone on board to lifeboats.

That also helps explain why the evacuation was so disorganized, with many ships leaving only partially full. While it's a pretty big oversight, the original plan could have worked if someone had answered his distress call in time. You see, by 1912, ships were still not required to have someone operating the radio 24/7. This meant that the radio operator on the SS Californian, the nearest ship, and who had been told by the Titanic's operator to be quiet, was asleep when the distress calls were broadcast. To make matters worse, the Titanic's radio operator reported the wrong coordinates in his SOS. This meant that even the ships that received the call had trouble finding where the Titanic had sunk.

So, those were the main problems that the Titanic faced on that fateful night; overconfidence, poor communication, insufficient lifeboats and the inability of rescuers to find her. Now that we've established all that, it's time to answer our main question: What would happen if the Titanic disaster occurred today? After the sinking of the Titanic, many new procedures were established in hopes of preventing similar disasters. One of the first was the establishment of regular ice patrols in that region of the North Atlantic. At first this meant that guys with binoculars would freeze their noses off on ships and planes, but fortunately, not a hundred years ago today.

Another reason why today is better than a century ago is that our iceberg detection has become much more sophisticated. The U.S. Coast Guard and the Canadian Ice Service regularly patrol the area with radar-equipped HC-130 aircraft to look for icebergs that stray too close to major shipping lanes. With additional help from global positioning satellites and reports from passing ships, the two agencies can provide daily updates on the position of icebergs in the North Atlantic. Individual ships are also finding it much easier to detect icebergs in their vicinity, thanks to technologies such as radar and sonar becoming common.

These advances have gone a long way toward making sea travel much safer, but they are not foolproof. Accidents can still happen, so it is a good thing that large ships are now required to carry enough lifeboats for everyone on board, and that crews are trained in proper evacuation procedures. Modern ships must also have a radio operator on duty at all times. That's good for several reasons, one of them being that no one wants to be the guy who fell asleep during a crisis. The captain of the Californian was fired for not having responded to the Titanic's call and had not even broken any rules.

Emergency radio calls have become more standardized than in 1912. Additionally, GPS tracking means that if a ship needs help, rescuers will know precisely where the problem is occurring. Sorry for the pun. Rescue efforts are also much more coordinated than at the beginning of the 20th century. The Coast Guard maintains a variety of emergency response vehicles, from small boats and helicopters to large ships and aircraft. They are also better able to coordinate and dispatch aid from other civil and military traffic in the area. So

what

would a modern-day Titanic scenario look like? Well, a good example could be what happened during the Costa Concordia disaster in 2012.

Sure, this shipwreck occurred in the warm waters of the Mediterranean, and the Concordia hit a rock instead of an iceberg, but the consequences were sufficiently similar so that some comparisons can be made. The full story is this: the Italian cruise ship was passing near the island of Giglio when it collided with the edge of an underwater plateau. Believing that she knew the channel well enough to navigate alone, the Captain had disabled the collision alarm of the navigation system aboard the Costa Concordia. It was later revealed that there were numerous distractions on the ship, such as the presence of the Captain's girlfriend.

Unlike the Titanic, the Concordia had more than enough lifeboats to get everyone out safely. Unfortunately, no policy reform, no matter how great, can fully compensate for human error and poor communication, and failure to follow emergency procedures delayed the evacuation by more than half an hour. When the order was given to abandon ship, the Costa Concordia was already beginning to list so badly that the crew was unable to launch many of the lifeboats. When the waves subsided, thirty-three people lost their lives and sixty-four others were injured. As bad as it was, things could have been much worse as the Concordia crash site did the passengers and crew a number of unexpected favors.

For starters, they were within sight of land when the accident occurred. This meant that help arrived reasonably quickly once the Captain decided to send his SOS. In fact, with the help of their life jackets, many passengers were able to swim to dry land. No one would swim very far if they had hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic. When the Titanic

sank

, she was about 400 miles from the mainland and the water was freezing at 28 degrees. The good news is that in the modern world, things may never have gotten to that point. If the Titanic had hit the iceberg today, the Coast Guard would have deployed a small fleet of ships and helicopters to assist in the evacuation.

Not only that, but all ships in the area would have headed directly to their coordinates at the time the SOS message was sent. With a competent commander overseeing an organized evacuation, this modern Titanic might not be considered a disaster at all. On the other hand, Costa Concordia shows what can happen when safety precautions are ignored. Now don't let this scare you and don't plan that getaway to the Caribbean. Still, you're much more likely to get hurt driving to work than sailing the seven seas. Hey, if you learned something new today, like the video and share it with a friend!

And here are some other videos that I think you'll enjoy. Just click left or right and remember to stay on the good side of life!