Sinking of the RMS Titanic the hull plates. This suggests that the iron rivets along the plate seams snapped off or popped open to create narrow gaps through which water flooded. An engineer from "Titanic"s builders, Harland and Wolff, suggested this scenario at the British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry following the disaster but his view was discounted. "Titanic"s discoverer Robert Ballard has commented that the assumption that the ship had suffered a major breach was "a by-product of the mystique of the "Titanic". No one could believe that the great ship was sunk by a little sliver." Faults in the ship's hull may have been a
Lifeboats of the RMS Titanic lifeboat been filled accordingly, they could have only evacuated about 53% of those actually on board on the night of her sinking. The shortage of lifeboats was not due to the lack of space; "Titanic" had actually been designed to accommodate up to 64 boats – nor was it because of cost, as the price of an extra 32 lifeboats would only have been some $16,000, a tiny fraction of the $7.5 million that the company had spent on "Titanic". The reason lay in a combination of outdated safety regulations and complacency by the White Star Line, "Titanic"s operators. In