# Why didn't the Titanic's personnel evacuate to the iceberg? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 18, 2012, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137 "2012-04-18T08:06:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/1 "2012-04-18T08:06:53Z")
Seems like an obvious enough idea: once they realized the ship was sinking, reverse course, find the iceberg and jury rig some ramps/ladders for people that can’t fit in the life boats to climb on to the berg to await rescue. My understanding is they had some two hours after the impact before the boat went under, so it seems like they should’ve had time to retrace their course even if they continued forward a good while after the initial impact. Its a little hard to tell since there isn’t any sense of scale, but photos I’ve seen of candidates for _the_ iceberg taken by the ships that rescued the survivors make it seem like they would be accessible to someone standing on a deck 100 feet above the water line (granted, the Titanic’s deck was presumably getting closer to the waterline the longer they waited). Obviously they didn’t do this, so presumably there was a reason, but I’m wondering what the reason was. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/2 "2012-04-18T08:09:29Z")
[See any good spots for offloading 2000 people?](http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0PDoTGIdo5PQj0AVUiJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Diceburg%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D7&w=1024&h=768&imgurl=1000thingstobegratefulfor.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F11%2Ficeberg_19.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2F1000thingstobegratefulfor.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F11%2F13%2F54-be-grateful-for-icebergs%2F&size=90+KB&name=Iceberg_19&p=iceburg&oid=6f62751aec7f76bade38608879801246&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-701&rw=iceberg&tt=Iceberg_19&b=0&ni=200&no=7&tab=organic&ts=&sigr=12m32qa3j&sigb=1309kkuk5&sigi=124b0p7s8&.crumb=QVq5042jagx) ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/3 "2012-04-18T08:14:56Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > [See any good spots for offloading 2000 people?](http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view;_ylt=A0PDoTGIdo5PQj0AVUiJzbkF;_ylu=X3oDMTBlMTQ4cGxyBHNlYwNzcgRzbGsDaW1n?back=http%3A%2F%2Fimages.search.yahoo.com%2Fsearch%2Fimages%3Fp%3Diceburg%26fr%3Dyfp-t-701%26fr2%3Dpiv-web%26tab%3Dorganic%26ri%3D7&w=1024&h=768&imgurl=1000thingstobegratefulfor.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F11%2Ficeberg_19.jpg&rurl=http%3A%2F%2F1000thingstobegratefulfor.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F11%2F13%2F54-be-grateful-for-icebergs%2F&size=90+KB&name=Iceberg_19&p=iceburg&oid=6f62751aec7f76bade38608879801246&fr2=piv-web&fr=yfp-t-701&rw=iceberg&tt=Iceberg_19&b=0&ni=200&no=7&tab=organic&ts=&sigr=12m32qa3j&sigb=1309kkuk5&sigi=124b0p7s8&.crumb=QVq5042jagx) Again, no scale so its hard to tell. But yea, it seems like you could unload people off on the end of the iceburg thats closest to the water. Especially since your starting from a deck thats high off the waterline. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/4 "2012-04-18T08:25:06Z")
1. A ship that size doesn’t stop on a dime. After it struck the iceberg it kept going for miles. So to unload the people, they would have had to turn around (turning circle of the Titanic: Big) and try to find an iceberg, in the dark, in a leaking ship, with no radar… That isn’t really doable. 2. Even if they did have a way to relocate the iceberg, how do you get close to the above water part without hitting the below water part? One collision for the night was probably enough. 3. Even if you could get close without a collision, how are you going to get people across to the iceberg? The sides of icebergs slope outwards, so the closest the ship could have come would have been a hundred yards or so. Ships don’t routinely carry 100 yard gangplanks for ferrying passengers to icebergs. Even if the iceberg had been a tropical island with a sandy beach, the only way they could have got the passengers off was to shuttle them with the lifeboats. A ship the size of the Titanic just can’t get close enough to a natural solid object to run a ramp across. Even most of the world’s ports couldn’t handle her. Using the lifeboats to ferry people to an iceberg was, of course, not an option. Nobody is going to clamber up an ice cliff in the dark. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/5 "2012-04-18T08:25:16Z")
Remember, the Titanic didn’t smash into the iceberg, it sideswiped it. By the time the ship came to a halt, it was probably miles away. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/6 "2012-04-18T08:43:35Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > 1. A ship that size doesn’t stop on a dime. After it struck the iceberg it kept going for miles. So to unload the people, they would have had to turn around (turning circle of the Titanic: Big) and try to find an iceberg, in the dark, in a leaking ship, with no radar.. That isn’t really doable. How far did they go after the initial collision? Wikipedia doesn’t seem to say, but they apparently realized they were in trouble pretty quickly, so I’d assume they’d come to a stop pretty quickly afterwords. > [@](#): > > 1. Even if you could get close without a collision, how are you going to get people across to the iceberg? The sides of icebergs slope outwards, so the closest the ship could have come would have been a hundred yards or so. Ships don’t routinely carry 100 yard gangplanks for ferrying passengers to icebergs. In the initial collision, the ship got close enough to the berg so that ice could fall onto the deck, while there was only a glancing blow below the waterline. So apparently there was at least on one direction of approach where the ship could get close to the ice without “running aground”. ---
**Author:** ![glaeken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@glaeken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glaeken)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/7 "2012-04-18T09:32:24Z")
This was one of James Cameron’s suggestions on a recent documentary and I remember the main counter point to the idea being if they could have turned around and got back to the ice berg then they probably would have been able to reach the California which would have been a far better idea. I suspect that had they continued sailing full speed ahead and tried to reach the California that probably would have increased the rate they were taking on water at and may have made the attempt to reach the other ship futile. I think with the benefits of hindsight solutions seem obvious but I think it’s probably a case that when it was actually happening they probably did not accept that they had lost the ship until it was far too late to do anything. I am sure that for some time they will have been working on keeping the ship afloat and may well have thought they could prevent a sinking and limp into port. Even if they thought the ship was lost no-one would have predicted it would have gone down so fast. They probably thought they had far more time than they did. ---
**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 9:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/8 "2012-04-18T09:56:45Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > How far did they go after the initial collision? Wikipedia doesn’t seem to say, but they apparently realized they were in trouble pretty quickly, so I’d assume they’d come to a stop pretty quickly afterwords. From memory of a documentary I saw many years ago (not the most reliable source) they went a couple of miles. [This page](http://www.titanicstory.com/interest.htm) says the best stopping distance at 20 knots was half a mile. At low speeds the turning circle was over a mile. So if we take half a mile as the absolute best distance from the iceberg, they would have had to try to either turn around to find the thing in the dark, or else try to creep back towards it in reverse. Neither sounds like a good idea on a ship with no radar. > [@](#): > > In the initial collision, the ship got close enough to the berg so that ice could fall onto the deck, while there was only a glancing blow below the waterline. So apparently there was at least on one direction of approach where the ship could get close to the ice without “running aground”. I would hardly call a collision that tore at least 5 large holes in thick sheet metal a “glancing blow”. Aside from that, there remains a great deal of uncertainty where the ice actually came from. This was brought up at the original inquests, since there is no obvious way that a ship with the cross section of the Titanic could strike an iceberg below the water line, take no damage to the upper parts of the ship, yet still have ice on the decks. Remember, the Titanic bulged outwards from where it was holed, it wasn’t flat sided. So for this to happen would require an iceberg with a huge C-shaped overhang that just isn’t seen in real icebergs. There is a [photograph of the Titanic iceberg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Titanic_iceberg.jpg), and there aren’t any such overhangs on it. The best explanation I have seen is one given at the inquest: that the collision with the iceberg simply knocked ice off the structure of the ship, and witnesses assumed it was from the iceberg. The next best explanation is that the force of the impact caused ice to shatter and ricochet up the gap between the berg and the hull. But even if the iceberg did have the implausibly huge overhang, that still doesn’t make it possible for people to board it, since there must, obviously, have been a concave surface from below the waterline all the way to the top of the beg, well above the level of the deck. That makes it, if anything, even harder to get people onto it. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/9 "2012-04-18T11:58:28Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > I would hardly call a collision that tore at least 5 large holes in thick sheet metal a “glancing blow”. “Glancing blow” describes the angle of the impact; the severity is a separate issue. A glancing blow to the head from a bullet, for example, can be fatal. Given that the side of the Titanic is what struck the iceberg, “glancing blow” describes the scenario perfectly. See for example [paragraph 2 here.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Titanic) ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/10 "2012-04-18T12:11:03Z")
Aside from the problem of hindsight, the iceberg being too far away and the general problem with people not taking the situation seriously (at first the passengers didn’t put life vests on because it was a bother to interrupt festivities, and the personnell didn’t want to cause a panic so they didn’t urge them, together with the belief “It’s unsinkable!”), I can see two other problems with trying to use an iceberg as transportation: Unless you bring something to sit on, you’re going to get hypothermia quickly, too. You’d also need to bring something to build a shelter against the wind, plus food. Icebergs, despite having most of their size underwater, are not a stable system. They are known to frequently flip over, or parts break off. A large mass of people on it will only hasten the melting / breaking process and add instability. The other ships coming to the rescue were looking for boats and single people in the water, not people on icebergs. Once the people were on the iceberg, they had no means of steering the thing, or of sending messages (no radio) except maybe by flares. The ocean is pretty big to find one iceberg among many. ---
**Author:** ![crypto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b3f665/32.png) [@crypto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crypto)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/11 "2012-04-18T12:53:17Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Aside from the problem of hindsight, the iceberg being too far away and the general problem with people not taking the situation seriously (at first the passengers didn’t put life vests on because it was a bother to interrupt festivities, and the personnell didn’t want to cause a panic so they didn’t urge them, together with the belief “It’s unsinkable!”), I can see two other problems with trying to use an iceberg as transportation: > > Unless you bring something to sit on, you’re going to get hypothermia quickly, too. You’d also need to bring something to build a shelter against the wind, plus food. > > Icebergs, despite having most of their size underwater, are not a stable system. They are known to frequently flip over, or parts break off. A large mass of people on it will only hasten the melting / breaking process and add instability. > > The other ships coming to the rescue were looking for boats and single people in the water, not people on icebergs. Once the people were on the iceberg, they had no means of steering the thing, or of sending messages (no radio) except maybe by flares. The ocean is pretty big to find one iceberg among many. Well, they found the iceberg to photograph it. I think if there were a bunch of people waving, they’d probably see them too. People in the boats would probably mention that other people were moved to an iceberg. Which one? The one with all the waving Penguins on it! As for shelter for wind and food, everything I’ve read mentioned that the seas were extremely calm the night the titanic hit the berg. Lack of wind is one of the reasons for this. Also, food was unnecessary, since help was on the way. I think the first ship ( carpathia) got there about two hours after the boat went down. I don’t think anyone would be starving. I think the answers have been given. 1. No way to get back to the berg 2. No way to get close enough to it to offload anyone if they did manage to get back to the berg. I think it was as simple as that. ---
**Author:** ![Shakester](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/shakester/32/437_2.png) [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/12 "2012-04-18T13:47:51Z")
> [@glaeken](#): > > …then they probably would have been able to reach the California which would have been a far better idea. > > I suspect that had they continued sailing full speed ahead and tried to reach the California that probably would have increased the rate they were taking on water at and may have made the attempt to reach the other ship futile. I’m pretty sure the Titanic never had a chance of getting to California anyway, given that it was in the northern Atlantic Ocean and heading for New York. ---
**Author:** ![glaeken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@glaeken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glaeken)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/13 "2012-04-18T14:04:07Z")
I would think that is probably true though it was said to be less than 10 miles away. I think it was only bought up as it was seen as in theory more straight forward than turning around and attempting to find an ice berg they had hit a mile or two back. Another suggestion from the same show was apparently there was pack ice fairly nearby and they could have landed passengers on that. They never covered if trying to go anywhere though would have resulted in them taking on water at an increased rate which I think it would. One engineer said that if they had gathered every single life jacket and put them into the forward holds that would have been enough to balance the ship out and have it reach a point where it had taken on as much water as it was going to and at that point would not sink or break its back. I would imagine collecting all the life jackets as the boat is sinking might not have gone down well though. ---
**Author:** ![AClockworkMelon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aclockworkmelon/32/10803_2.png) [@AClockworkMelon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AClockworkMelon)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/14 "2012-04-18T14:06:18Z")
Based on James Cameron’s 1997 documentary film _Titanic_ the boiler rooms were all flooded and sealed up with watertight doors immediately after the ship struck ice. Wouldn’t this have prevented them from going anywhere other than where the ship’s inertia would carry her? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/15 "2012-04-18T14:09:43Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I’m pretty sure the Titanic never had a chance of getting to California anyway, given that it was in the northern Atlantic Ocean and heading for New York. Maybe I’m being whooshed…but in case I’m not: The Californian was a ship only ten miles away whose crew misunderstood the Titanic’s flares for some kind of party fun, and so missed an opportunity to rescue most (maybe all) of the survivors. ---
**Author:** ![Great\_Antibob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Great\_Antibob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Great_Antibob)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/16 "2012-04-18T14:09:51Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I’m pretty sure the Titanic never had a chance of getting to California anyway, given that it was in the northern Atlantic Ocean and heading for New York. Just in case this is not a joke: [SS Californian](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Californian) ---
**Author:** ![glaeken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@glaeken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glaeken)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/17 "2012-04-18T14:15:03Z")
> [@AClockworkMelon](#): > > Based on James Cameron’s 1997 documentary film _Titanic_ the boiler rooms were all flooded and sealed up with watertight doors immediately after the ship struck ice. Wouldn’t this have prevented them from going anywhere other than where the ship’s inertia would carry her? The documentary that suggested putting them on the Ice berg was a James Cameron documentary and as shown in the show it was specifically one of Cameron’s suggestions so it appears he certainly thinks they could still go where they wanted to go. The documentary was called Titanic the final word ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/18 "2012-04-18T14:18:55Z")
> [@Shakester](#): > > I’m pretty sure the Titanic never had a chance of getting to California anyway, given that it was in the northern Atlantic Ocean and heading for New York. “The California” was another ship in the area which tried to warn them. [http://library.thinkquest.org/18626/BIceberg.html](http://library.thinkquest.org/18626/BIceberg.html) > [@](#): > > In the wireless room, Jack Phillips was busy dealing with the Cape Race \ traffic when, at 11:00pm, he was suddenly interrupted by a loud signal from the nearby California, announcing, “We are stopped and surrounded by ice.” Angry at the intrusion, which must have almost deafened him, Phillips retorted, “Shut up, shut up. You’re jamming my signal. I’m busy. I’m working Cape Race.” Before the California could give her position, some 20 miles north of the Titanic, she was unceremoniously cut off. The Californian’s wireless operator, Cyril Furmstone Evanse, listened patiently for another quarter of an hour or so before giving up. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/19 "2012-04-18T14:41:18Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > Even if the iceberg had been a tropical island with a sandy beach, the only way they could have got the passengers off was to shuttle them with the lifeboats. A ship the size of the Titanic just can’t get close enough to a natural solid object to run a ramp across. Even most of the world’s ports couldn’t handle her. Using the lifeboats to ferry people to an iceberg was, of course, not an option. Nobody is going to clamber up an ice cliff in the dark. How would the people be rescued from the iceberg? Nowadays, they might use a helicopter, but the first operational helicopter wasn’t flown until 1936. If the Titanic has just sunk after colliding with an iceberg, the Californian (or any other ship) is probably not going to deliberately sail close to an iceberg. That would be stupid. Most of an iceberg is under water, so it’s very possible that you’d run into the underwater part of the iceberg before you could get close to the part that is above the water, where the people would be. They don’t have sonar to look at the iceberg underwater, the world’s first patent for such a device didn’t come until a month after the Titanic sank. It’s hard to imagine how they could safely approach an iceberg. If an iceberg can sink a ship the size of the Titanic, it’s probably also hazardous to lifeboats. That way of rescuing people from the iceberg probably won’t work. It also presents a problem for getting people onto the iceberg. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2012, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137/20 "2012-04-18T14:43:11Z")
> [@Blake](#): > > 1. A ship that size doesn’t stop on a dime. After it struck the iceberg it kept going for miles. So to unload the people, they would have had to turn around (turning circle of the Titanic: Big) and try to find an iceberg, in the dark, in a leaking ship, with no radar.. That isn’t really doable. I dunno, they’d already found an iceberg in the dark _once_ that evening… [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-titanics-personnel-evacuate-to-the-iceberg/619137.md?page=2)