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Human stupidity notwithstanding, most of the criticism focuses on the atrocious lack of safety features, but there is one obscure flaw that was intentionally designed.

The Laughably Simple Flaw:

The center propeller didn't work in reverse.

The Titanic had three steam-driven propellers, with the outer two driven by piston engines and the center screw driven by a steam turbine. Steam turbines have the advantage of generally being smaller and more efficient than their piston counterparts, but have the drawback of being one-way; that is, the steam can only flow forward and the shaft can only turn in one direction.

Wikipedia

It's like trying to force a screw to go in counterclockwise. It's not going to happen.

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So when First Officer Murdoch slammed the big girl into full reverse in order to avoid the iceberg, the outer two screws started turning the other way, while the center one just stopped (correctly portrayed in the movie). It sort of makes sense; if you're trying to go backward, you don't want one of your propellers still pushing you forward.

However, the center screw was directly in front of the rudder, and shutting it down meant less water was washing over the rudder, which crippled the ship's handling.

Wikipedia (fr)

Coque indeed.

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Had the center prop been designed in such a way that it kept turning in the event of a reversal (or if they hadn't reversed at all), it's pretty likely the ship would have missed the iceberg completely, saving the lives of 1,514 people and eight dogs.

When he's not pointing out other people's failures, Chris writes for his website and tweets.

For more minuscule yet catastrophic mistakes, check out 5 Tiny Computer Glitches That Caused Huge Disasters and The 7 Most Disastrous Typos Of All Time.

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