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
Wreck of the RMS Titanic Various other museums, including the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and the SeaCity Museum in Southampton, have objects donated by survivors and relatives of victims, including some items that were retrieved from the bodies of victims. More donated "Titanic" artifacts are to be found in the Merseyside Maritime Museum in Liverpool and the Titanic Historical Society's museum in Indian Orchard, Springfield, Massachusetts. The latter's collection includes items such as the life jacket of Madeleine Astor, the wife of millionaire "Titanic" victim John Jacob Astor IV, a rivet which was removed from the hull before "Titanic" went to sea, an ice