1— they were traveling at a high rate of speed to make it to NY early

2— the binoculars for the crows nest were missing

3— the water was still

4— clear night

5— if captain smith listened to the warnings and taken the precautions

However, another factor that is hardly mentioned at all is they had not practiced damage control. A standard form of damage control is to stuff bed mattresses into the cracks to slow the intake of water or to lower them from the outside so water pressure holds them in place. According to records, there was no effort to stop the flow of water as everyone thought the ship was unsinkable, the water tight doors would stop the flooding, etc.

((NOTE: This was not the maiden voyage of the Titanic contrary to how it is often stated. It was actually its third voyage, not including it’s short 6 hour sea trials. ))

Even with alert look-outs, (which it didn’t have) that ship was just too big and heavy to turn quickly, or even averagely. It weighed 46,000 gross tons, and that’s huge… still no match for a larger iceberg.

for more info, try:

http://www.rmplc.co.uk/eduweb/