RMS Titanic for a ship of "Titanic"'s size, and tenders were used to bring passengers aboard. In all, 123 passengers boarded "Titanic" at Queenstown – three First Class, seven Second Class and 113 Third Class. In addition to the 24 cross-channel passengers who had disembarked at Cherbourg, another seven passengers had booked an overnight passage from Southampton to Queenstown. Among the seven was Father Francis Browne, a Jesuit trainee who was a keen photographer and took many photographs aboard "Titanic", including the last-ever known photograph of the ship. A decidedly unofficial departure was that of a crew member, stoker John Coffey, a
United States Senate inquiry into the sinking of the RMS Titanic hours of April 15, 1912 while the ship was on its maiden voyage from Southampton, United Kingdom, to New York City, United States. The sinking was caused by a collision with an iceberg in the North Atlantic some 700 nautical miles east of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Over 1500 passengers and crew died, with some 710 survivors in "Titanic"s lifeboats rescued by a short time later. There was initially some confusion in both the USA and the UK over the extent of the disaster, with some newspapers at first reporting that the ship and the passengers and crew were safe. By