Did the Titanic sink for another reason? This evidence casts doubt on the official version

(CNN) — Did a raging fire aboard the RMS Titanic lead to one of the biggest disasters in maritime history? A 2017 documentary by author and journalist Senan Molony suggests that photos that were in a forgotten album for more than a century and were revealed a few years ago prove that the ship, considered unsinkable, was already weakened by a coal fire even before it started. catastrophic maiden voyage. The Titanic, which at the time of her sinking in 1912 was the world’s largest ship, struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic at night and sank, killing around 1,500 people. About 700 survived. Molony said a fire inside one of the coal bunkers is very well documented, but its importance was underestimated. In the documentary Titanic: The New Evidence, which was broadcast on UK Channel 4, Molony revealed footage taken in early April 1912, shortly before the Titanic set sail on its transatlantic voyage. The photos show a mark on the starboard side of the White Star company ship, near the site of the fire and the point of collision. “The anomaly is exactly where the iceberg hit,” he told CNN. ‘Accelerated sinking’ Molony said his research suggests the intense fire in one of the coal bunkers, which were three stories high, reached temperatures of nearly 1,000 degrees Celsius, warping the steel of the bulkhead and leaving it brittle. “The bulkhead left the ship completely compromised and led to an accelerated sinking: the Titanic could not be kept afloat long enough for an effective rescue,” he said. Molony added that the photos were taken at Harland and Wolff’s shipyard in Belfast, Northern Ireland, by John Westbeech Kempster on the first two days of April 1912, just a week before he left for New York. In the documentary, the researcher describes the photos as “the Titanic equivalent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.” Molony told CNN the images were inside an album that was up for sale at auction in England at the time of the centenary in 2012. Why was the Titanic going faster? The photos immediately piqued his interest. The journalist, who is political editor of the Irish Daily Mail, had been interested in the Titanic story since he was a child. Following the discovery of the ship’s wreckage on the ocean floor in 1985, Molony researched and wrote a book about the Irish passengers on board. “I’m very excited about the new evidence,” he told CNN. “I’ve always been fascinated by why [el Titanic] accelerated into an ice field.” Molony said his investigations suggest that workers at the boiler would have been trying to clean the bunker of burning coal and that the only place to put it was in the ship’s furnaces, which would have caused the Titanic will sail faster. Not everyone is convinced by the argument. David Hill, former secretary of the British Titanic Society, told The Times: “There was certainly a fire. What was decisive? It’s my personal opinion that it made no difference.” The story is “very much alive.” In a statement sent to CNN, British Titanic Society convention officer Nikki Allen said the documentary “ignited discussion around the world.” “The program and its contents are certainly welcome,” he said. “This will allow us to encourage a healthy discussion among our members so that they can decide for themselves on the information that is put in front of them so that they can form their own opinion.” “The most satisfying thing for us, as I think it is for other societies of this type, is the reaction to the presentation of Senan Molony. It clearly shows that although the Titanic sank with great loss of life almost 105 years ago, the history of the ship and the passengers and crew is still very much alive, something for which we are grateful.”