On April 15, 1912, a deadly combination of human error,engineering issues, hubris and fate conspired to bring down theTitanic—a state-of-the-art passenger ship that was touted as“unsinkable.”

It's been almost 100 years since that fateful day. But althoughrisk management and technology such as radar and GPS have improvedthe odds, the maritime industry still faces unique challengesdriven by the continued growth of worldwide shipping and the cruiseship industry.

We spoke with risk management experts on how the Titanicdisaster could have been averted with modern risk managementtechniques. Click “next” to see their responses.

Tim Donney, Global Head Marine, RiskOperations, Allianz Risk Consultants

Prior to 1990, regulations were only related to vesselconstruction, maintenance, repair and engineering fixes. Now thereis a focus on company management and human factors such as policyand training in procedures on the ship, and shoreside-managementresponsibility toward ship operations. The U.S. Coast Guarddevelops safety standards within the U.S., technically applyingonly to U.S. vessels, and The International Maritime Organization(IMO), which is a U.N. organization, develops regulations formaritime shipping. The maritime industry has been driven beshipping disasters. The safest are oil vessels; The Oil PollutionAct of the 1990s was a response to the Exxon Valdez spill andimplemented local standards, and the coast guard was considering adouble hull. One of OPA's provisions was that any new builds wouldhave to have double-hull construction, and even existing vesselswould have to be retrofitted within 20 years.

You must take enterprise risk management and put a maritimeslant on it. If you take ERM as a manufacturer and include themaritime portion of that in the logistics chain, you can see how itbecomes complex: As a shipper, how do I control my logistics chainwhen I don't know how it's regulated and when my inventory is onthe ocean? If your vessel goes down, you're also losingclients.

John Barnwell, global marine head,Americas, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty(AGCS)

Even with the premier costs and technically advanced vessels,there is still the potential for major losses or large disasters.Risk managers have to take into consideration the unthinkable, evenwith the recent grounding and near sinking of the Costa Concordia.These are rare but when they happen, the results are catastrophic,have a financial impact to the company and damage the brandname.

Our best chance is to continue improving maritime safety, asmost accidents are related to human error. We must focus on humanfactors.

The Coast Guard produces regulations for everything from 20-footBoston whalers to supertankers and everything in between.Regulation negotiations, or “reg negs” as we call them, are a veryslow process, so the process is not going to save you. When we tellpeople to look at the particulars of hull risks, we are notimpressed by those who say they follow “all applicable regulations”as they are required to this by law or they will not operate. Whatpeople should do to be proactive is to have their own safetymanagement system that uses the regulations as a baseline and buildfrom that.

Barry Tarnef, senior loss controlspecialist, Chubb

I'm not a proponent of applying what we know now to whathappened 100 years ago because the state-of-the-art is differenttoday. But my question to White Star Line would be: What was youridea of a worst-case scenario? What was your maximum possibleloss?

There are a number of accident causation theories on how to lookat losses, determine the root cause and use that information to putappropriate physical and procedural loss control measures in place.In the case of the Titanic, we would have started with engineeringand looked at the most vulnerable part of the ship, its systems andoperations. For instance, there was one boiler compartment thatwhen breached ultimately made the sinking inevitable. There werealso the watertight bulkheads that only went up 10 feet. On othervessels of that time the bulkheads were as high as 30 feet—but thetrade-off for these higher bulkheads included additional weight,decreased speed and higher costs. At the time there was greatcompetition among liners making transatlantic voyages, so speed andreliability were important—thus, the lower bulkheads on theTitanic.

The Titanic didn't have enough lifeboats for the number ofpassengers and crew on board so that created an untenable situationin a worst-case scenario. While better lifeboat drills would havehelped, the fact remained that there was a lack of lifesavingequipment that no training and execution could ever haveovercome.

Maritime catastrophes still occur, and even though we now havesophisticated weather routing and navigation electronics, theunexpected happens. However, some theories of accident causationpoint to human error as a major factor in many accidents. Education, experience and training are also risk managementelements that we need to factor into the operation of a vessel. Ourgoal would be to minimize the vessel's vulnerability because youare limited as to what you can do about the human aspect.

Steve Lako, Vice President, GlobalLoss Control, Allied World

It is not so much about modern risk management steps. It isabout a much greater and unwavering commitment to safety. Let mefocus on two areas, ship speed and lifeboats.

It is important to understand a little bit about the industry atthe time. Shipping was a cut-throat business and safety wassacrificed for speed and luxury, competitive advantages whichbrought bragging rights and pride. Many historic shipping disasterswere caused by ships traveling at full speed in bad weather andrunning up onto rock and other formations. In fact, 40 years beforethe Titanic, the White Star Atlantic, traveling at full speed, atnight in perfect weather, ran up upon a well-known rock formationand 500 lives were lost. Better design would not have saved theseships.

The Titanic was an enormous ship. From bow to stern it wasalmost 900 feet long, which was larger than the biggest skyscrapersof the time and together with her sister ships were the biggestships ever made. With this size, the ability to maneuver was not asgreat. During the voyage the Titanic received many reports of icyconditions but continued on at full speed, which was standardpractice at the time. Lookouts were the only way at the time tospot an iceberg. They did not have binoculars and by the time theyspotted the iceberg it was too late. So the biggest ship inthe world, which was not as maneuverable as smaller ships and wastraveling in icy conditions, was still moving at full speed. The issue of speed under these conditions needed to be evaluatedbefore the voyage. This may have prevented the disaster.

Now let's look at emergency preparedness. The Titanic by designcould handle up to 64 lifeboats. This would have been enough for4,000 people and well beyond the 2,201 people on board. White Starelected to have only 16 lifeboats and four collapsibles. This wouldaccommodate only 1,178 people but would use up far less luxury deckspace. White Star was fully compliant with the regulations of theday. White Star traded off safety for luxury and aesthetics.Compliance should never be your risk management standard.Regulatory compliance should be a part of an overall riskmanagement plan and be one of many guidelines used in developingappropriate standards. Safety is never a tradeoff item.

A.V. Riswadkar, product liabilitydirector, Zurich Services Corporation

There were many lessons, from the “flawed” ship design to thequality of rivets; but analysis of a few key ones shows that thecombination of competitive business pressures and inadequateemergency response crew training resulted in compromising of riskmanagement efforts. The potential for human errors assured that thevoyage of Titanic was a “disaster waiting to happen.”

These lessons later led to the establishment of InternationalConvention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) for maritimesafety requirements and International Ice Patrol of North Atlanticshipping routes.

A number of safety and technology features were originallyplanned but were later compromised due to focus on greater profitswith disregard for safety. Citing increased costs, the ship'sowners resisted the British Board of Trade's consideration ofupgrading lifeboat regulations based on the number of passengersonboard instead of ship's tonnage, which resulted in far fewerlifeboats for rescue.

The competitive business pressures to complete the voyage inshorter time than the competition meant keeping up the 25 mph speedin a shorter route but traversing through a hazardous icebergalley. Lack of a shakedown cruise or lifeboat emergency drill priorto its maiden voyage and unfamiliarity of crew with spotting andhandling lifeboats resulted in ineffective emergency rescueoperations.

There were also major communication failures. Instead ofprioritizing the receiving and relaying warnings of visual sightingof icebergs from other ships, the ship's radio channel was busysending personal messages for socialites and first-classpassengers. As the ship was sinking, the SOS distress messages forhelp were telegraphed; but due to lack of continuous radiomonitoring and the newness of telegraph technology, they were notacknowledged as received by other ships. Initial disbelief anddelay in assessing the gravity of the situation resulted in thecrew's failure to communicate the urgency of danger.

The passengers in third class, many women and children, weredenied access to lifeboats and ineffective evacuation and ensuingchaos led to underutilization of available lifeboat capacity.

Today, there are more technological advances in ship building,communication systems and more maritime safety regulations. Thelessons learned are not for shipping industry alone, they apply toany business operations or a large project.

So could another Titanic disaster occur be avoided? The answercan be affirmative only if we ensure that the competitive businesspressures do not compromise the prudent risk management and thelessons of Titanic are not forgotten.

Sarah E. Pacini, vice president ofrisk management and insurance, Advocate Health Care

I think it goes with the old adage, “slow and steady wins therace.” This is especially relevant to the fall of the Titanic—andespecially when it comes to listening. At the time, there were lotsof people voicing their concerns, especially to front-line leaders.In today's environment it is important to listen to our leaders andhave them listen to concerns when determining the trajectory ofyour organization.

Kevin McPoyle, CIC, President andco-founder, KMRD Partners, Inc

One modern risk management step would have been a communicationrequirement among the crew, particularly the decision makers,regarding the decision to choose “speed over ambition.” Ashistory tells the story, the crew was encouraged to “go fast” toset a trans-Atlantic crossing record. The captain ignored reportsof an ice field on the chosen route, because it was the best,fastest route. As a result, the captain assumed more risk thanwas required to arrive at the ship's destination in New YorkCity.

Modern risk management requires firms to have a disasterrecovery plan on file. Because the Titanic was considered to beunsinkable, she was outfitted with only enough lifeboats for halfof the passengers. In addition to there being an insufficientnumber of lifeboats, the crew was insufficiently trained regardingtheir use.

Having a prepared disaster recovery process would have savedlives after the bad decision regarding the course that had beenchosen. The shortage of available lifeboats and the speedwith which the ship sank compounded the lack of direction andprocess. Every organization in modern American commerce shouldhave a disaster recovery plan on file. What's more, it should betested frequently—at least annually. Had the crew of theTitanic had a disaster recovery plan on file and tested it, theship would not have departed England short of lifeboats.