Book: Steering Blunder Sunk Titanic

And we thought it was the soundtrack...
By Emily Rauhala,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 22, 2010 6:20 AM CDT
Updated Sep 22, 2010 7:38 AM CDT
Book: Steering Blunder Sunk Titanic
Did bad steering goes the wreck?   (AP Photo/File)

The mystery of the Titanic, like Céline Dion's heart, goes on and on...and on...and on... But a new book hopes to end the debate over the ship's demise by outlining a new theory: the crew saw the iceberg in plenty of time, but a helmsman panicked and steered the ship the wrong way, the Telegraph reports. "They could easily have avoided the iceberg if it wasn't for the blunder," says the author, Lady Louise Patten. "It just makes it seem all the more tragic."

She is well placed to comment—her grandfather, Charles Lightoller, was the highest-ranking officer to survive the wreck. He covered up his crewmate's rather "Titanic blunder" (as the Post put it) for years, she says, to protect the shipping line, jobs, and reputations. Click here to read about the latest expeditions to explore the shipwreck. (More Titanic stories.)

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