A documentary is claiming to shed new light on how the Titanic sank.
Titanic: New Evidence, commissioned by the Discovery Channel, will air Sunday, April 9 at 8 p.m., less than a week before the 105th anniversary of the sinking.
In it, Titanic expert Senan Molony discusses his theory that a fire was behind the sinking and loss of 1,503 lives after the ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Molony’s findings are based on analysis of photos of the Titanic’s construction and launch recently discovered after lying in a suitcase for decades, Discovery says in a news release.
The doc, a Canada-U.K. co-production, posits that a fire raged in the ship’s boiler rooms before the ship’s launch; that the fire, kept secret from passengers, was the reason the Titanic’s captain ordered it to speed through an ice field; that weakness in the hull due to the fire was what caused the “unsinkable” ship to go down; and that the White Star line’s chairman, J. Bruce Ismay, did all he could to keep the story from getting out.
Discovery says the one-hour special uses new “living stills” technology to bring the rediscovered photos to life.
The documentary has already aired on Channel 4 in Britain.