With its dramatic twists and massive loss of life, the sinking of the R.M.S. Titanic remains one of history's most fascinating tragedies. And in yet another twist, a new book suggests the entire tragedy could have been avoided if not for a bizarre miscommunication among the ship's officers, Reuters reports.
Author Louise Patten, granddaughter of Titanic's second officer Charles Lightoller, believes the ship struck the iceberg because of a basic steering error and only sank as fast as it did because the captain had been ordered to keep sailing, rather than waiting for rescue ships to arrive.
In Good As Gold, Patten claims that when Robert Hitchins, the man at the Titanic's wheel at the time of the tragedy, heard the "hard a-starboard" call, he turned to the left rather than the right. According to her book, the conversion from sailing ships to steam meant a shift in steering systems, which was likely the reason for the mistake.
"They could easily have avoided the iceberg if it wasn't for the blunder," she said in an interview with The Telegraph. When J. Bruce Ismay, chairman of the White Star Line, heard of the error, he ordered the ship to keep sailing, she said. "If Titanic had stood still, she would have survived at least until the rescue ship came and no one need have died."
According to the BBC, Patten believes her grandfather, who later became a war hero, kept his revelations a secret in fear of both tarnishing his reputation and bankrupting the White Star Line, putting his colleagues out of a job.