I wouldn't call Franklin incompetent; he was venturing into a remote and unknown region which suffered an extreme climate.

From National Museums Greenwich; Death in the Ice

In May 1845 two ships, HMS Erebus and Terror sailed from Britain to what is now Nunavut in Northern Canada. Explorations of the Arctic coastline had led to great optimism that finding and charting the final part of the North-West Passage ? the seaway linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ? was now within reach. Explorer John Franklin, who had made two previous attempts to find it, was keen to claim the prize.

By previous standards the Erebus and Terror were powerful and luxurious, with heating systems and vast supplies of preserved foods. In late July, the two ships were seen by a whaler in Baffin Bay, waiting for ice to clear in Lancaster Sound and to begin their journey to the Bering Strait.

Franklin?s two naval vessels sailed up the Wellington Channel before turning south toward Beechey Island, where they would spend the winter. In the spring, they sailed south down Peel Sound but, off the northernmost point of King William Island, were trapped by the ice flow down the McClintock Channel.

Franklin?s ship was trapped in the ice in a remote and desolate area, which Inuit rarely visited, calling it Tununiq, ?the back of beyond?. [Franklin's crew] couldn?t rely on local people for meat, clothing, and oil, as other expeditions had. But they had enough supplies for about three years, and British expeditions were experienced at overwintering in the Arctic.

In the spring of 1847, a party from the expedition travelled across the ice to Point Victory on shore and deposited a written record of their progress. It is thought they reached Cape Herschel on the south coast of the island, filling in the unexplored part of the North-West Passage. Sir John Franklin died in June that year.

Still trapped in the ice, Erebus and Terror drifted south until Captain Crozier ordered their abandonment in April 1848. Weakened by starvation and scurvy, the 105 surviving men headed south for the Great Fish River. Most died on the march along the west coast of King William Island.

After two years without receiving any communication from Franklin?s mission the Admiralty sent out a search party but without success. A total of 39 missions were sent to the Arctic but it wasn?t until the 1850s that evidence of what befell the men began to emerge.

In 1854, Dr John Rae brought back Inuit stories that the expedition had perished somewhere to the west of the Back River. It appeared some of the men had resorted to cannibalism as many bodies were mutilated and body parts were found in cooking pots.

Read more at http://www.rmg.co.uk/discover/explore/john-franklin-final-north-west-passage-expedition-1845#sk1mGytyCyuF2qjI.99

From Scot Free Tours; DICKENS, JFK AND CANNIBALISM: THE FRANKLIN EXPEDITION AND ABERDEEN

Rae's report provoked outrage in Britain, with the most notable critics being Lady Franklin and Charles Dickens. Their argument basically consisted of saying that Englishmen would never become cannibals because it just wasn't cricket. This became a debate about national character and racial traits and Dickens tried to discredit the truth of the accounts coming from those inferior races ? the Inuits and the Scots.   

As part of this disagreement on what really happened to the Franklin expedition, Dickens' friend and fellow author Wilkie Collins wrote 'The Frozen Deep', a play ostensibly about the Franklin expedition but really it's more like 'The Phantom of the Opera on Ice' - its focus is on a love triangle with lots thrown in about self-sacrificing love and a brooding anti-hero.

Dickens found much to like in it for he put on several performances of the play - taking the starring role himself. It was while acting in the play he met the eighteen-year-old Ellen Ternan for whom he would leave his wife of 22 years. If that wasn't enough, the main character and the tortured love triangle also provided him with the inspiration for 'A Tale of Two Cities'.