TitanicArticle Free Pass There has never been universal
agreement over the number of lives lost in the sinking of the
Titanic. Beginning with the first news reports of the disaster,
inquirers have found it unwise to trust the original passenger
and crew lists, which were rendered inaccurate by such factors
as misspellings, omissions, aliases, and failure to count
musicians and other contracted employees as either passengers or
crew members. Agreement was made more difficult by the
international nature of the disaster, essentially involving a
British-registered liner under American ownership that carried
more than 2,000 people of many nationalities. Immediately after
the sinking, official inquiries were conducted by a special
committee of the U.S. Senate (which claimed an interest in the
matter on the grounds of the American lives lost) and the
British Board of Trade (under whose regulations the Titanic
operated). The figures established by these hearings are as
follows: U.S. Senate committee: 1,517 lives lost