Anthony Bringaze

On the night of April 14, 1912, the sinking of RMS Titanic caused the death of approximately 1,500 people. In June, 2023, it claimed five more. 

Engineering hubris is at the center of both stories, separated by over a century but bearing a common warning, which is that advancement must always be tempered by wise judgment and good faith.

Titanic was first conceived in 1907 by two aristocrats, each heavily involved in the ship-building industry. William James Pirrie and J. Bruce Ismay drew rough plans for the colossal sea liner, along with two other sister ships, after dinner one evening. By 1911, Olympic, sister to Titanic, was completely operational and Titanic was to come soon after.

“Even god couldn’t sink this ship,” was the claim made upon the launch of Titanic. Captain of the great vessel, Edward Smith, once remarked, “I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.”

History and irony are well-acquainted however, and Titanic was lost on her maiden voyage in April, 1912, after striking an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Due to maritime regulations at the time and her reputation as unsinkable, Titanic was ill-prepared for disaster and only a third of the roughly 2,500 passengers on board survived her sinking. 

Hundreds of survivors were left adrift in the frigid ocean waters. Firsthand accounts describe a vast plain of sea ice, studded with towering bergs, and the night sky, as it is told, was alight with shooting stars. RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene at around 4:00 AM, providing rescue.

Captain of Carpathia, Arthur Rostron, said later, “It hardly bears thinking about that if there had been sufficient boats that night…every soul aboard could have been saved, since it was two-and-a-half hours after she struck that she tilted her massive stern into the heavens and sank by the head, taking with her all that were unprovided for.”

The shipwreck is the most well-publicized of all time and interest in Titanic has never subsided. Presently, she rests in two pieces over 300 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Her great bow remains relatively intact, as famously photographed in 2004, but her stern lies in ruin. 

Many attempts have been made to reach Titanic, with varying degrees of success. Significantly, film director James Cameron has taken an astonishing 33 dives to the sunken giant.

Most recently, the tragedy of Titanic grew as five individuals lost their life diving in a faulty submersible to view the wreck, which lies 12,500 ft. below the surface. OceanGate, the luxury tourism company who conducted the underwater voyage, has come under harsh international scrutiny for ignoring safety and regulatory standards in their submersible designs.

Stockton Rush, founder of OceanGate, was among those who died in June, 2023, aboard Titan, the doomed submersible. He faces the harshest criticism, quoted to have said, in 2022, “You know, at some point, safety just is pure waste. I mean, if you just want to be safe, don’t get out of bed, don’t get in your car, don’t do anything. At some point, you’re going to take some risk, and it really is a risk/reward question. I think I can do this just as safely by breaking the rules.”

Clearly, he was wrong. James Cameron, a lifelong diver, sees a similarity between Stockton Rush and the original framers of Titanic. “We now have another wreck that is based on unfortunately the same principles of not heeding warnings,” he said. “OceanGate [was] warned.”

In 1912, the sinking of Titanic brought about a revolutionary overhaul in maritime safety regulations. The 1,500 lives lost on April 15, 1912, could never be replaced, but perhaps some future lives could be spared the same fate. Now, over a hundred years later, five more individuals died due to the same irresponsible charge towards progress. Some, it seems, will always favor glory over caution; one can only pray that wisdom and good judgment prevail among the rest.