Monday, November 3, 2008

Ice alert row sank the Titanic

The Titanic disaster, that claimed over 1,500 lives 96 years back, could have been averted if its radio operator had not been rude,  a new documentary claims. According to the documentary, the 25-year-old radio operator, Jack Phillips, had a row with his counterpart on the nearest ship who tried to warn him of ice in the area on April 14, 1912. In fact, Phillips, who had a backlog of greeting messages to send for the luxury liner's passengers, told Cyril Evans of the SS California: "Shut up," The Sun reported. An angry Evans reacted by switching off his radio equipment just ten minutes before the Titanic hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage to New York. So SS California, just 20 miles away, didn't get the doomed ship's SOS and 1,523 people, including Phillips, died in the disaster early on 15 April 1912, the documentary to be aired in Channel 4 has claimed. The Titanic hit an iceberg during her maiden voyage on the night of 14 April 1912, and sank two hours and 40 minutes later. At the time of her launching, she was the largest passenger steamship in the world. The sinking of the Titanic, which used some of the most advanced technology available at the time, is considered the deadliest peacetime maritime disaster in history. 

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