Sinking of the Titanic
Public inquiries and legislation

In the aftermath of the sinking, public inquiries were set up in the United Kingdom and United States. The US inquiry began on 19 April under the chairmanship of Senator William Alden Smith, and the British inquiry commenced in London under Lord Mersey on 2 May 1912. They reached broadly similar conclusions: the regulations on the number of lifeboats that ships had to carry were out of date and inadequate; Captain Smith had failed to take proper heed of ice warnings; the lifeboats had not been properly filled or crewed; and the collision was the direct result of steaming into a danger area at too high a speed. Both inquiries strongly criticised Captain Lord of Californian for failing to render assistance to Titanic.

Neither inquiry found negligence by the parent company, International Mercantile Marine Co., or the White Star Line (which owned Titanic). The US inquiry concluded that those involved had followed standard practice, and the disaster could thus only be categorised as an " act of God ". The British inquiry concluded that Smith had followed long-standing practice which had not previously been shown to be unsafe, noting that British ships alone had carried 3.5 million passengers over the previous decade with the loss of just 73 lives, and concluded that he had done "only that which other skilled men would have done in the same position". The British inquiry also warned that "what was a mistake in the case of the Titanic would without doubt be negligence in any similar case in the future".

The disaster led to major changes in maritime regulations to implement new safety measures, such as ensuring that more lifeboats were provided, that lifeboat drills were properly carried out and that radio equipment on passenger ships was manned around the clock. Radio operators were to give priority to emergency and hazard messages over private messages and to use the Q code to minimize language problems. Shore stations of the rival international "wireless" networks, the British Marconi Company and Telefunken of Germany, were required to handle all radio calls including those of the other network. An International Ice Patrol was set up to monitor the presence of icebergs in the North Atlantic, and maritime safety regulations were harmonised internationally through the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS).
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