Women and children really were saved first on Titanic

Published on Monday 1 March 2010 21:54

WOMEN and children came first on the Titanic, but not on the Lusitania, where selfish survival instincts took over after the ship was torpedoed by a U-boat during the First World War, research has shown.

The difference in passenger behaviour can be explained by the speed at which the two maritime disasters struck, and sheds light on human social psychology, say scientists.

Four days into her maiden voyage to New York, on 14 April, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank in the North Atlantic with the loss of 1,517 lives. Three years later, the Lusitania was sunk by a torpedo on a voyage from New York to Liverpool – 1,198 people died.

A study of the Titanic disaster showed that females, children and people accompanying a child were more likely to survive than males and passengers without children. Of the 2,207 people on board, all but 690 perished.

Among the 1,949 passengers and crew on the Lusitania, there were 636 survivors. In contrast to the Titanic, fit passengers aged 16 to 35 stood the greatest chance of surviving the disaster, compared with other age groups. There was no significant gender difference.

Both captains issued orders for women and children to be saved first, but they were carried out successfully only on the Titanic.

What chiefly accounted for the difference was time, according to researchers writing in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

After striking the iceberg, the Titanic took two hours and 40 minutes to sink. The Lusitania disappeared beneath the waves in just 18 minutes.

"On the Lusitania, selfish behaviour dominated … on the Titanic, social norms and social status (class) dominated, which contradicts standard economics," said the scientists.

"On the slowly sinking Titanic, there was time for socially determined behavioural patterns to re-emerge."