Critical Hours

At 2:10 p.m. on 7 May 1915, a single torpedo struck RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland.

Eighteen minutes later, one of the most famous passenger liners in the world had vanished beneath the Atlantic.

More than 1,100 people were dead.

The disaster shocked the world.

But what happened during the final twenty-four hours before impact?

In this...

Titanic: The Critical Hours

Southampton, England
10 April 1912

The morning air carried the familiar scent of coal smoke, salt water, and anticipation.

Along the docks at Southampton, thousands gathered to see a moment that many believed marked the beginning of a new age. Stevedores hurried along the quayside. Porters wrestled trunks and valises...

At 1:23 a.m. on 26 April 1986, a routine safety test inside Reactor Number Four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant went catastrophically wrong.

Thirty-six seconds later, the reactor exploded.

What followed would become the worst nuclear accident in human history.

In this gripping instalment of the Critical Hours series, author Bill Stewart...

On 13 April 1970, more than 200,000 miles from Earth, a routine procedure triggered an explosion that changed everything.

Apollo 13 was supposed to be NASA’s third Moon landing.

Instead, it became one of the greatest rescue missions in human history.

When an oxygen tank exploded deep in space, astronauts Jim Lovell, Fred Haise, and Jack Swigert...

On the evening of 20 April 2010, the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig was completing what should have been a routine operation in the Gulf of Mexico.

Within minutes, a chain of seemingly manageable failures became one of the worst industrial disasters in modern history.

An uncontrolled blowout.

Two devastating explosions.

Eleven men lost.

A drilling...

On the evening of 13 January 2012, the luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia departed Civitavecchia carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew. Within hours, she lay mortally wounded against the rocks off the Italian island of Giglio, becoming one of the most infamous maritime disasters of the modern era.

Why did one of the world’s most...

Titan: The OceanGate Disaster

An Investigation into the Decisions That Led to Catastrophe

On 18 June 2023, the experimental submersible Titan vanished during a descent to the wreck of RMS Titanic, 3,800 metres beneath the North Atlantic.

Within days, the world learned that the vessel had suffered a catastrophic implosion, killing all five people on...