I agree, there are many factors, but I have always wondered why Smith was so complacent. Everyone marveled that he was the highest paid and experienced captain and so forth, but he had his share of accidents under his command, and not just Olympic and Hawk.

I always wished that he would have put extra lookouts say on the focsle deck, like Captain Rostron did when he came to the rescue. I don't know if he knew the lookouts did not have binoculars, but it seems like if he did, he would accomodate this problem, not just go to bed that night.

You know who I think really felt guilty about being responsible for the ship sinking? Lookout Fredrick Fleet. He ended up hanging himself in his back yard years later, a lonely and broke man. His obituary in (The Echo?) said something like "he lived in the shadow of an iceberg".