WASHINGTON - A new scientific study concludes that six cuts about as wide as a human hand, and not a huge gash, caused the sinking of the Titanic.
The New York Times reported yesterday that scientists, using sound waves to examine the Titanic's bow, calculated that the cuts along, the ship's starboard side were enough to send it to the bottom of the Atlantic in less than three hours.
The scientists also conducted computer simulations and metallurgic analysis of fragments to challenge the theory that the ship's brush with an iceberg on April 14th, 1912, caused a 300-foot hole across its bow.
The cuts, each about as wide as a human hand, some 20 feet below the water line prompted six of the ship's watertight holds to flood, the paper said. The ship was built to survive the flooding of only three or four of the compartments.