A new documentary is shedding light on a theory that a coal fire aboard the Titanic contributed to its sinking.
But one local expert says he isn't sold on the idea.
"My feeling is it was negligence the whole time," Larry Daley, who has been passionate about the Titanic for more than two decades, told CBC News.
"I go back to what I know," said Daley, who runs a diving company and whose company Titanic Expeditions has visited the legendary wreckage.
"I was fortunate enough to go down and see the wreck and visit the grave site. The ship was going at a fast speed through ice-infested waters off our shores, off Newfoundland. We all know what the icebergs are like in the spring, they're massive. If you collide with one of those in a ship this big at top speed, it's going to be catastrophic."
Documentary creating new buzz about legend
The fire theory is creating a buzz thanks to Titanic: The New Evidence, a documentary that claims a fire was raging in the ship's boiler room, and kept secret, before it left port.
"Perhaps it might have happened. Maybe someone did speak of it, but again ... to go to sea with a fire out of control, I don't really buy that." - Larry Daley
Irish journalist Senan Molony, who has been researching the Titanic for 30 years, claims in the documentary that he and his collaborator acquired previously unpublished photos that chronicle the ship's construction and the preparations for its maiden voyage, according to the New York Times.
The Times article states that while peering through the photos, the pair discovered "a 30-foot-long diagonal black mark on the hull's front starboard side, close to where the ship was pierced by the iceberg. An analysis by engineers at Imperial College London subsequently revealed that the mark was most likely caused by a fire in a coal bunker of the ship."
The wreck of the Titanic. (CBC)
While Daley said he doesn't completely discredit the idea, he thinks it is unlikely the fire could have been kept secret.
"You're going back a long time and for that to happen, and the ship making port calls before heading out to sea, I'm sure someone would come out and slip a note or tell a buddy on shore or send a letter in the mail to that next port and say 'Oh, there's a fire burning here. It's out of control. The coal is in the bunker burning and we're trying to get rid of it,'" Daley said.
"Perhaps it might have happened. Maybe someone did speak of it, but again ... to go to sea with a fire out of control, I don't really buy that."
Daley said there will always be new theories popping up about the Titanic. Though more than 100 years have passed since the tragedy, it seems the Titanic still captivates people.
"It's a very sad story, right from the beginning. It should have never happened," Daley said.
"It had the state-of-the-art equipment of the day, but at the same time, it could have been avoided."
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