Shipping’s most famous disaster has received a new narrative and it is not from the pen of a Hollywood script writer.

A TV documentary screened on New Year’s Day points to fire – not ice – as the primary cause of the Titanic sinking.

The liner went down in April 1912 with the loss of more than 1,500 lives, including John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim.

Journalist Senan Molony, an expert on the sinking of the ship, claims old photographs show the vessel was hit by fire before it left the yard in Belfast. This weakened the hull prior to it striking the infamous iceberg on its maiden voyage.

Molony is quoted as saying: “The official Titanic inquiry branded [the sinking] as an act of God. This isn’t a simple story of colliding with an iceberg and sinking.

“It’s a perfect storm of extraordinary factors coming together: fire, ice and criminal negligence.”

Photographic evidence

Photographs taken by the ship’s chief electrical engineers at the yard in Northern Ireland reportedly show black marks 30-foot-long on the right side of the vessel.

Subsequent analysis suggests they were the result of a fire which started in a fuel store behind one of the Titanic’s boiler rooms, the documentary said.

It is claimed the flames burned for a number of weeks, reaching temperatures of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius.

“Nobody has investigated these marks before. It totally changes the narrative,” Molony added. 

“We have metallurgy experts telling us that when you get that level of temperature against steel it makes it brittle, and reduces its strength by up to 75%.”

Damage disguised

According to the Channel 4 documentary, Titanic: The New Evidence, the journalist believes the liner was reversed into its berth in Southampton to hide the fire damage. Crew were reportedly instructed to keep the drama a secret.

It is not the first time research has linked fire to the tragedy. But the documentary is the first to suggest it is the main cause of the sinking.

“The fire was known about and briefly addressed at the inquiry, but it was played down,” the Daily Mirror quotes Molony to have said.

“She should never have been put to sea but the Titanic has already been delayed a couple of times and was committed to leave on 10 April."=”