What if the Titanic had not sunk only because of a collision with an iceberg? Journalist Senan Molony, passionate about the world's largest ocean liner, has just completed a 30-year investigation into the "unsinkable". After long investigations, he would have discovered another reason for the sinking of the Titanic. For him, an uncontrolled fire would have broken out in the lower part of the ship's hull. Conclusions that he revealed in an unpublished documentary " Titanic: The New Evidence "broadcast on 1 er january 2017 on Channel 4.
The journalist studied photos of the ship, taken by the chief engineer in the Belfast shipyards, before the Titanic left for Southampton. He discovered large black streaks of more than 30 meters on the hull of the ship, at the very place of the impact of the iceberg. The fire would have started in a hold located next to the engine rooms of the Titanic and left traces on the hull.
"New photos discovered in an album that had not been opened for 100 years show a distortion on the right side of the hull that is not a reflection. The distortion is in the exact place where the iceberg hit "he explained to the site Mashable. Experts interviewed by the journalist even indicate that the hull would have lost 75% of its resistance.
The fire that broke out three weeks before her maiden voyage would have weakened the hull of the ship and thus accelerated the sinking of the Titanic. Weakened, the hull would not have held the shock, which would explain why the ship sank so quickly.
"Scientists have explained to me that the fire must have burned for several weeks and reached a temperature of at least 1,000 degrees to create such a deformation." adds the journalist.
For journalist Senan Molony, it was criminal negligence that caused the death of nearly 1,500 passengers. He explains that the liner should never have left the shipyard and that the man behind the construction - businessman Joseph Bruce Ismay - would have hidden the fire. He would have voluntarily asked the officers not to mention the incident and the ship would have even arrived at the dock on the port side to hide these marks when boarding.
The Irish journalist is not the first to put forward this hypothesis since in 2008, the British daily The Independent had already relayed the hypothesis put forward by a certain Ray Boston of a fire that occurred in the coal cellars of the Titanic.
As a reminder, on April 11, 1912, the Titanic left Southampton for New York via Cherbourg and Queenstown (now Cobh), with 2500 passengers on board. During the night of April 14-15, 1912, the liner hit an iceberg and sank off the coast of Newfoundland, leaving between 1,490 and 1,520 people dead. The story was highlighted by the film Titanic, directed by James Cameron in 1997.
