RMS Titanic Alternative Theories - Coal Fire

Coal Fire

Ohio State University engineer Robert Essenhigh released a theory in November 2004 that claims a coal fire led indirectly to the iceberg collision. He claims a pile of stored coal had started to smoulder, to get control over that situation, more coal was put into the furnaces, leading to unsafe speeds in the iceberg-laden waters.

Essenhigh states that records prove that fire control teams were on standby at the ports of Cherbourg and Southampton because of a fire in the stockpile, and that such fires are known to reignite after they have been supposedly extinguished. He suggests that the Titanic actually set off from Southampton with one of its bunkers on fire, or that a spontaneous combustion of coal occurred after the ship left port. Such fires were a common phenomenon aboard coal-fired ships and one of many reasons why marine transportation switched to oil in the early 1900s. It is similarly theorised that such a bunker fire was responsible for the explosion of the USS Maine in 1898, by setting off her powder magazines.