Five days into its first voyage, the Titanic crashed into a large iceberg . Five sections of the hull filled up withwater, and the ship started sinking. Sadly, there weren’t enough lifeboats for everyone to escape. Over 1,500 died as the Titanic slowly sunk into the icy waters below. Only about 700 passengers survived.
The disaster shocked people and made them question the relationship between humans and technology. Investigationswere conducted to figure out why this tragedy happened. This led to engineering improvements and new safety laws. However, researchers realized they couldn’t eliminate one risk factor— human error. In the case of the Titanic , the captain’s unwise decision to travel through an area filled with icebergs led to the disaster.
Over 100 years later, we are still learning painful lessons from the Titanic. Oil spills, nuclearaccidents, and space shuttleexplosions have all been caused by simple mistakes. As in the case of the Titanic, these advanced technologies gave people the false belief that they couldn’t fail. As a result, they were not able to avoid the disaster. The Titanic tragedy is still a reminderthat no matter how impressive a technology is, poor decision making or planning can still lead to horrible consequences.
