Eight ships, all equipped with wireless, were in the vicinity of the Titanic, the Olympic farthest away—512 miles.
The full capacity of the Titanic's life-boats was not utilized, because, while only 705 persons were saved, the ship's boats could have carried 1176.
No general alarm was sounded, no whistle blown and no systematic warning was given to the endangered passengers, and it was fifteen or twenty minutes after the collision before Captain Smith ordered the Titanic's wireless operator to send out a distress message.
The Titanic's crew were only meagerly acquainted with their positions and duties in an accident and only one drill was held before the maiden trip. Many of the crew joined the ship only a few hours before she sailed and were in ignorance of their positions until the following Friday.
Many more lives could have been saved had the survivors been concentrated in a few life-boats, and had the boats thus released returned to the wreck for others.
The first official information of the disaster was the message from Captain Haddock, of the Olympic, received by the White Star Line at 6.16 P. M., Monday, April 15. In the face of this information a message reporting the Titanic being towed to Halifax was sent to Representative J. A. Hughes, at Huntington, W. Va., at 7.51 P. M. that day. The message was delivered to the Western Union office in the same building as the White Star Line offices.
"Whoever sent this message," says the report, "under the circumstances, is guilty of the most reprehensible conduct."
The wireless operator on the Carpathia was not duly vigilant in handling his messages after the accident.
The practice of allowing wireless operators to sell their stories should be stopped.
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