Sinking of the Titanic (1912): British Wreck Commissioner’s report

On 14–15 April 1912 the White Star liner RMS Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank, killing about 1,500 people and forcing the first SOLAS convention. RMS Titanic, an Olympic-class liner of the White Star Line, left Southampton on 10 April 1912 for New York via Cherbourg and Queenstown. Shortly before midnight on 14 April the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. It sank at about 02:20 on 15 April. The British Wreck Commissioner’s report of 30 July 1912 recorded the loss of 1,490 lives at 41°46′N, 50°14′W.

Two public inquiries sat within weeks. A United States Senate subcommittee chaired by Senator William Alden Smith heard witnesses from 19 April. In London, Lord Mersey’s court sat from 2 May to 30 July 1912, examined 97 witnesses and answered 26 Board of Trade questions. Both found that high speed in an ice field, thin lookout practice and too few lifeboats turned a collision into a mass-casualty wreck.

The disaster is closed as a cause-of-loss case. The wreck was located on 1 September 1985 by a Franco-American team led by Robert Ballard and Jean-Louis Michel. What remains open is heritage law: who may visit, film or lift objects from a gravesite that now sits under UNESCO and United States protective statutes.