Could an iceberg sink an aircraft carrier?
An aircraft carrier has a welded hull that can sustain an impact much better than a riveted one. Also the internal compartments are numerous and watertight so even if there was as many hull breaches as the Titanic the ship still would not take on enough water to sink it.
The aircraft carrier is vulnerable to gunfire, submarine attack, and air attack, and aircraft carriers have been sunk in this war by all three of these means. There is no excuse for an aircraft carrier being sunk by either gunfire or submarine attack and any carrier so sunk was being very poorly operated at the time.
Thanks to radar technology, better education for mariners and iceberg monitoring systems, ship collisions with icebergs are generally avoidable, but the results can still be disastrous when they occur. "These things are very rare. It's one of those risks that are low frequency but high impact.
Large modern ships are watertight on the top as well, and cannot simply be swamped even by an enormous wave. Even if a wave high enough to engulf a supercarrier were to hit one, the water would crash onto the deck and then simply wash off.
The average lifespan of an iceberg in the North Atlantic typically is two to three years from calving to melting. This means the iceberg that sank the Titanic "likely broke off from Greenland in 1910 or 1911, and was gone forever by the end of 1912 or sometime in 1913."
With all the watertight door closed, a carrier is very difficult to sink. You must blow holes in most of the compartments to let enough water in so that it is no longer buoyant. This takes dozens of hits by missiles or torpedoes. The US Navy did a test on the USS America CV66 in 2005.
If someone sees the person fall overboard, they report "man overboard starboard/port side" to the navigation bridge. It is important to provide the side of the ship, as the ship will be turned in that direction. A life ring is immediately thrown over the same side, even if the person in the water is not visible.
When a ship hits an iceberg head on, all the force would be transferred back to the ship, so it wouldn't have ripped open, but crumpled round, so only 2-3 compartments would have been breached. It was built to survive with 4 compartments breached.
Cruise ships rely on radar technology and satellite monitoring to avoid collisions with icebergs. Improvements in GPS and aircraft patrols of the oceans have also made sailing the seas safer, but there's still a small risk.
It's not impossible though. In 2007, in an incident The New York Times dubbed the "modern Titanic," a small cruise ship struck ice, causing a fist-sized hole that let water into the engine room and caused the power to fail. The 154 people on board had to evacuate on lifeboats and rafts.
Why don't aircraft carriers tip?
The curved hull of an aircraft carrier is one of the most important features that contributes to its stability. The curve of the hull creates a “center of buoyancy” that is located below the center of gravity of the ship.
Carriers are nearly impossible to sink.
Because of their vast size, U.S. aircraft carriers have hundreds of water-tight compartments. They also have thousands of tons of armoring, and redundancy built into major on-board systems such as the electrical wiring.
The aircraft carrier is able to float on water because the bottom of the ship, the hull, is designed to displace a large amount of water. The volume of water that the ship displaces weighs more than the weight of the entire ship.
There are no survivors of the Titanic alive today
The very longest-living person to have survived the Titanic died on the 31st of May 2009. Her name was Elizabeth Gladys 'Millvina' Dean, and she was just two months old when she boarded the Titanic with her family.
The Titanic iceberg was one of the lucky ones, so to speak, as the vast, vast majority of icebergs melt long before they reach that far south. Of the 15,000 to 30,000 icebergs calved each years by the Greenland glaciers, probably only about 1 percent of them ever make it all the way to the Atlantic.
On the night of the Titanic disaster in 1912, Halpern says, the sea was calm and smooth. Therefore, an iceberg could not be seen from the break of the waves. The only light that could have come from an iceberg would have been reflected starlight.
It took four and a half days to sink the U.S.S. Nevada. The 575-foot-long battleship, painted bright orange from its earlier role as a nuclear test target, was towed out of Pearl Harbor to sea, where a classified explosive was detonated in its hull.
This principle is known as buoyancy or Archimedes' Principle. Archimedes' Principle states that the force exerted on an object in a fluid is equal to the weight of fluid displaced (moved out of the way) by the object. This force is called buoyant force. The buoyant force pushes upwards against the object.
Lost For 77 Years
The Petrel has discovered a number of warship grave sites, including the cruiser USS Indianapolis, aircraft carriers USS Hornet and USS Wasp, and the deepest warship wreck ever found, the destroyer USS Johnston. The Akagi was found in 17,322 feet of water, or 3.2 miles underwater.
Trolling off the 10 meter high fantail of the 100,000 tons supercarrier had its limitations. However, the sailors prevailed and they caught a couple of skipjacks, a maneuver that was recorded on camera for those who need to see it to believe it.
How many years can an aircraft carrier stay at sea?
As a result of nuclear power, the ships are capable of operating continuously for over 20 years without refueling and are predicted to have a service life of over 50 years.
Aircraft carriers, like most ships at sea are not at risk from a tsunami. Although a tsunami can travel in the open ocean at 700km/hr., it is merely a wave with amplitude of only a meter or so. Indeed anyone upon an aircraft carrier would hardly notice it.
Three small dogs, two Pomeranians and a Pekingese, survived the Titanic disaster cradled in their owners' arms as they climbed into lifeboats.
In conclusion, we should probably expect the Titanic today to be no more famous than the Olympic, had she not sunk on her maiden voyage. The name “Titanic” would be unfamiliar to the vast majority of people and surely no movies, books, songs or plays would have written to commemorate her existence.
As the stern sinks into the ocean, you would think the suction would draw you into the depths—but survivors report no such thing. Joughlin claimed his hair was never even mussed. Still, you may experience what is called the cold-shock response. You'll gasp uncontrollably and perhaps even hyperventilate.
The iceberg floats on water with only approximately 10% of its volume above the water and 90% of its volume below the water. Since such a large portion of the iceberg is submerged under water it becomes difficult for the sailor to estimate the size of the iceberg increasing the danger of the ship colliding in them.
In the past, iceberg positions were sited by ships or aircraft; however, it is becoming more common that icebergs are sited by the interpretation of satellite imagery. The most useful type of sensor is synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which combines high resolution with day-and-night weather-independent capability.
On June 25, while transiting to Hubbard Glacier in Alaska, the ship Norwegian Sun "made contact" with an iceberg. SEATTLE — A Norwegian Cruise Line ship was forced to return to Seattle after it hit an iceberg during a voyage in Alaska.
The world's biggest cruise ship, which is five times the size of the Titanic, is to take passengers into open waters in January 2024. Royal Caribbean International's mammoth 'Icon of the Seas' is 365 metres long (1,200 ft) and will weigh 250,800 tonnes. In comparison, the Titanic weighed 46,329 tonnes.
Those changes, along with the advent of superior technologies for navigation and communication, have made the seas much safer since 1912. As such, it is unlikely that the specific circ*mstances leading to the sinking of the Titanic will recur.
What is the new boat bigger than the Titanic?
The Icon of the Seas' tonnage is five times that of the Titanic. At the front of the ship is the 'AquaDome', with a 55-foot waterfall and 220-degree views. There is a Mediterranean restaurant and two-floor sundeck in the 'Suite Neighborhood'.
“Most of the sewage waste produced on an aircraft carrier comes from the toilets' urinals,” the video continues. After entering an integrated treatment system, a complex array of filtration and cleaning methods are applied, including the use of a bio-reactor and a sediment tank for processing.
A Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, for example, is 134 feet wide at its widest at the waterline; this prevents the buoyancy force from pushing on one side or the other from below and flipping the ship over.
The tonnage limit of an aircraft carrier is 27,000. There is one exception, as follows: Any power may make over into carriers not exceeding 33,000 tons each, two ships that otherwise would have had to be scrapped. No carrier may carry a gun greater than eight inches in caliber.
Based on the well known formula for hull speed(1.34x sqrt of the length of the waterline), that puts the max speed of them at about 43 knots... Or right about 50mph. While some designs allow for exceeding hull speed, It's fairly doubtful that a ship the size of an aircraft carrier can utilize those methods.
A rogue wave is usually defined as a wave that is two times the significant wave height of the area. The significant wave height is the average of the highest one-third of waves that occur over a given period. Rogue waves can disable and sink even the largest ships and oil rigs.
This, too, is impossible because of the Montreux Convention of 1936. Under that treaty, countries along the Black Sea get special naval privileges, and other countries are strictly limited in what ships may enter the sea (for example, no aircraft carriers or submarines), how many at a time, and for how long.
Mach 10 is approximately a speed of 3.43 kilometers per second or 12,348 kilometers per hour, which translates to 7,680 miles per hour. Practically achieving Mach 10 speed for humans is impossible due to the sheer amount of G-force involved.
There is no such thing as an unsinkable ship. Ships are divided into watertight compartments so that flooding due to any damage to the hull is restricted to only the damaged compartments.
Think about that for a moment. Aircraft carriers weighing 97,000 tons float. Vehicles, including ships, float because of buoyancy. In fact, most cars can be swept away in 18-24 inches of moving water.
Did anyone survive the Titanic that was not in a lifeboat?
In researching his genealogy he has connected with distant cousins who descended from his grandmother Evelyn Kearney Connors side of the family. It was her sister, Edna Kearney Murray who survived the sinking of the Titanic but it wasn't in an overloaded lifeboat.
'The Unsinkable' Molly Brown
Molly Brown. She is standing regally, holding a parasol. She's probably the most famous survivor of the Titanic and there's much more to her story than making it to land after watching the ship sink to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912.
"But it will never come out," Daniel Stone wrote in "Sinkable: Obsession, the Deep Sea, and the Shipwreck of the Titanic." "Not only is the exposed steel on the upper bow too brittle for even the most industrious crane operation, but the mud has also acted as deep-sea quicksand for longer than most humans have been ...
Still, the most popular photo of an iceberg said to be the one that sank the Titanic is a black-and-white picture taken by the captain of another passenger ship crossing the Atlantic, less than two days before the Titanic went down. W. Wood was serving as captain on board the S.S.
No matter what caused the Titanic to sink, such a massive loss of life could probably have been avoided if the ship had carried sufficient lifeboats for its passengers and crew. But the White Star liner left Southampton with only 20 lifeboats, the legal minimum, with a total capacity of 1,178 people.
Could the Titanic Disaster Have Been Avoided? In 1912, Titanic only had 37 seconds to avoid an iceberg.
When Blair left the Titanic on 9 April 1912, he took with him the key to the crow's nest locker, presumably by accident. This is believed to be a reason why there were no binoculars available with the crew during the voyage.
The Titanic sank at night, so the sky would have been pitch black and the water was freezing (-2 degrees Celsius). Many people would have died from the shock of the cold within minutes. At the time of the Titanic, there was a sea law that said women and children needed to be rescued first.
Several said the Titanic split in half, while others denied it. Most witnesses were simply not asked the question at all, and others said they did not see it happen in the dark, but assumed it had split because of the sounds they heard.
The US has had 12 Aircraft Carriers sunk in battle all during WWII. The United Kingdom has had 8 sunk in battle during WWII. And finally Japan has lost 20 Aircraft carriers sunk during WWII.
Has an aircraft carrier even been sunk?
Twelve aircraft carriers were sunk by the enemy during World War II -- five fleet carriers, a seaplane tender and six escort carriers. The loss of the Bismarck Sea was the last time that a U.S. carrier went down due to enemy action.
The aircraft carrier is able to float on water because the bottom of the ship, the hull, is designed to displace a large amount of water. The volume of water that the ship displaces weighs more than the weight of the entire ship.
In a non-nuclear strike, such an awful scenario is unlikely. Even if China managed to successfully attack and sink an American aircraft carrier, past military action suggests much of the stricken carrier's crew and air wing would likely survive.
| Ship | Type | Sinking |
|---|---|---|
| Date | ||
| America | Fleet carrier | 14 May 2005 |
| Bismarck Sea | Escort carrier | 21 February 1945 |
| Block Island | Escort carrier | 29 May 1944 |
There have been cases where carriers have been caught in a storm path, but while there has been damage, none has been sunk.
The three aircraft carriers of the U.S. Pacific Fleet were out to sea on maneuvers. The Japanese were unable to locate them and were forced to return home with the U.S. carrier fleet intact. The battleship USS Arizona remains sunken in Pearl Harbor with its crew onboard.
With the inactivation of USS Enterprise in 2012 and decommissioning in 2017, Nimitz is now the oldest U.S. aircraft carrier in service, and the oldest serving aircraft carrier in the world.
The wreck of Yorktown was located in May 1998 by Robert Ballard.
On May 29, 1944, German U-boat, U-549, torpedoed and sank USS Block Island (CVE-21) west-northwest of the Canary Islands. USS Barr (DE-576) was also damaged in this attack. Block Island was the only U.S. carrier lost in the Atlantic during World War II.
Depending on its aircraft load, a carrier's flight deck may sit as high as 60 feet above the waterline. Its hangar bay elevators lower swimmers to 30 feet from the waves—the equivalent of an Olympic diving platform—so leaping sailors risk a broken bone if not using good form.
Can Chinese hypersonic missiles destroy the newest US aircraft carrier?
In the news by. The Telegraph reports that Chinese scientists have claimed China's hypersonic weapons could destroy the US Navy's newest aircraft carrier in a recent war game. The article quotes USSC research fellow in foreign policy and defence Blake Herzinger.
“China has now launched three carriers and brought two into full operational status during a period where the US Navy has struggled to bring one new unit to full operational status,” he said.
This, too, is impossible because of the Montreux Convention of 1936. Under that treaty, countries along the Black Sea get special naval privileges, and other countries are strictly limited in what ships may enter the sea (for example, no aircraft carriers or submarines), how many at a time, and for how long.
