The Californian’s radio operator, Cyril Evans, shut his radio off at 11:30 PM after being told to “Shut up!” Therefore, he could not receive the subsequent SOS calls nearby.
(Captain Stanley Lord, commanding the SS Californian, ordered the ship to a full stop for the night to avoid collision with an iceberg.)
1 in 20

Spotting of iceberg by lookouts in the crow’s nest was too late to avoid a collision, but early enough (37 seconds) to commence evasive maneuver which compounded damage beyond survivability - a 230-foot-long tear in the Titanic’s hull, flooding six separate compartments (Four flooded would not have sunk her.) Had the lookouts been posted on the bow, forty feet lower, they might have seen the outline of the iceberg against the faint horizon sooner. The ship’s searchlight should have been lit to illuminate the path ahead, even though it was not standard procedure. It was, after all, a moonless night with no waves washing against ice floes.
1 in 10

Watch officer throwing all engines in reverse while ordering the helm hard a-port, robbing the rudder of the authority it had while running. (If instead he had reversed only the port engine, leaving the center and starboard engines in forward, or if he had reversed all engines while maintaining the original track, the Titanic might not have sustained fatal damage. A direct hit surely would not have flooded all six compartments.)
1 in 20

Inexcusable failure of Captain Edwards or any officers to oversee filling all 20 lifeboats, 4 of which were collapsible, to rated capacity, much less to some arbitrary but reasonable number over theoretical capacity (say ten more people) in view of the exceptionally calm seas
1 in 50

    COLLAPSIBLE LIFEBOAT ON CALM SEA

Failure of Captain Lord, of the SS Californian, twenty miles north, and in sight, to react immediately to distress flares reported to him by his crew (He didn’t even bother to summon his radioman to call the Titanic and inquire if there was an emergency.)
1 in 50

The compound probability of all successive events multiplied together is one chance in 1.25 x 10 to the 34th power.

I did not set out with a goal of some particular probability of the Titanic sinking. I simply made my own reasonable estimate of each successive dependent factor. Make different estimates of your own if you wish. Using your own estimates will give you a better idea of how unlikely the entire series of events was.

Each of the above factors is arguably on the critical path to the sinking and incredible loss of life. The Titanic might well have survived the collision if not missed the iceberg entirely, or alternatively, all 1,514 passengers lost might have been saved through the elimination of just one of the foregoing events, each of which contributed to the catastrophe. It is noteworthy that there was, on average, 20 empty seats in each of the 20 lifeboats launched. Moreover, an average of 12 crewmen occupied each lifeboat, when only 2 were needed to operate it. Therefore the crewmen put their own lives and safety ahead of their passengers, for whom they were responsible.

[Note on the nature of estimating probabilities: I have had many discussions on the topic of estimating probabilities on the subject of the marvelous, profoundly improbable nature of life and the universe around us, and the obvious, pervasive hand of our Creator. Almost unfailingly, atheists make the absurd contention that if something happened, then the probability that it would happen was 1. (Because it happened.) The chance of you drawing the three of clubs randomly from a shuffled deck of cards is 1 in 52 before the event. Whether or not you actually did draw the three of clubs, the chances of drawing it were still 1 in 52. Estimating probability is how we measure uncertainty, or likelihood, for an event or an event series.]

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Six Chinese passengers survived the sinking, but they were immediately turned away under the Chinese Exclusion Act. Under the 1882 federal law, Chinese immigrants were barred from entering the US.

Famous people who missed the boat

J. Pierpont Morgan  

The legendary 74-year-old financier, nicknamed the "Napoleon of Wall Street," had helped create General Electric and U.S. Steel and was credited with almost singlehandedly saving the U.S. banking system during the Panic of 1907.  

Among his varied business interests was the International Mercantile Marine, the shipping combine that controlled Britain's White Star Line, owner of the Titanic.  Morgan attended the ship's launching in 1911 and had a personal suite on board with his own promenade deck and a bath equipped with specially designed cigar holders.  He was reportedly booked on the maiden voyage but instead remained at the French resort of Aix to enjoy his morning massages and sulfur baths.

            
Milton Snavely Hershey

The man behind the Hershey's Milk Chocolate Bar, Hershey's Kisses, Hershey's Syrup, and the Pennsylvania city that bears his name had spent the winter in France and planned to sail home on the Titanic.  The Hershey Community Archives has in its collection a $300 check Hershey wrote to the White Star Line in December 1911, believed to be a 10 percent deposit toward his stateroom, according to archivist Tammy L. Hamilton. Fortunately for Hershey, business back home apparently intervened, and he and his wife instead caught a ship that was sailing earlier, the German liner Amerika.   The Amerika would earn its own footnote in the disaster, as one of  several ships to send the Titanic warnings of ice in its path.  

Guglielmo Marconi

 The Italian inventor, wireless telegraphy pioneer and winner of the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics was offered free passage on Titanic but had taken the Lusitania three days earlier. As his daughter Degna later explained, he had paperwork to do and preferred the public stenographer aboard that vessel.

Although Marconi was later grilled by a Senate committee over allegations that his company’s wireless operators had withheld news from the public in order to sell information to the New York Times, he emerged from the disaster as one of its heroes, his invention credited with saving more than 700 lives.

(The Frick Collection c. 1900)

Henry Clay Frick

The Pittsburgh steel baron was a business associate of fellow non-passenger J.P. Morgan. He canceled his passage on the Titanic when his wife sprained her ankle and had to be hospitalized in Italy.

(Library of Congress)

Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt

The 34-year-old multimillionaire sportsman, an heir to the Vanderbilt shipping and railroad empire, was returning from a trip to Europe and canceled his passage on the Titanic so late that some early newspaper accounts listed him as being on board. Vanderbilt lived on to become one the most celebrated casualties of the Lusitania sinking three years later.

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