It claimed the lives of more than half the passengers onboard in what has become one of the most talked about and devastating sea disasters in modern history.
Now, exactly 106 years on, we look back at the final hours of the Titanic – and exactly how the supposedly “unsinkable” ship did just that, bringing its long-awaited voyage to such a horrific end.
The British passenger liner – the biggest ship on the water at the time – sank in the north Atlantic Ocean in the early hours of April 15, 1912, after colliding with an iceberg during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.
The RMS Titanic was built with advanced safety features, including supposedly watertight compartments and watertight doors, but only enough lifeboats for 1,178 people – roughly half the number of passengers on board. It meant many people were left stranded onboard when the ship began to sink, with no help arriving for hours.
There were many high-ranking officials, wealthy industrialists, dignitaries and celebrities onboard, as the crossing had made such huge news at the time, as well as hundreds more passengers emigrating to America. It was equipped therefore with glitzy and luxurious cabins in the upper decks, and third class dorms on the lower levles.
The Titanic was sailing through icy waters in the hours before the collision, with a glassy surface and clear weather conditions lulling staff into a sense of security. It’s only when an iceberg was spotted in the distance that the crew had to rush to throw the ship into reverse and steer it clear. While they initially assumed they’d missed it, a jagged edge to the iceberg below the surface cut a 300-foot gash in the hull.
It caused the hull plates to bend and buckle inwards along the boat’s starboard (right) side, breaking open five of the 16 watertight compartments and exposing them to the sea. It’s claimed the ship could only stay afloat with four compartments flooded. The design later came under fire when it was revealed there were gaps above each compartment, so when the ship began to bank forward, water escaped into neighbouring compartments – flooding them, too.
Around 2.20am, having taken on water and beginning to sink, the luxury steamship broke in half and eventually fell below the water’s surface, with more than a thousand people still clinging to the decks.
The Cunard liner RMS Carpathia arrived around two hours later, having earlier received the Titanic’s distress call, and rescued the remaining survivors. However, due to the harsh temperatures of the sea, there were few left still clinging to life.
The captain, Edward Smith, went down with the ship – and its story inspired one of the most popular movies in history — James Cameron’s Titanic. As seen on the film, there was a women- and children-only rule when moving passengers into lifeboats, leaving a disproportionate amount of men onboard when it sank.
The wreck wasn’t discovered until 1985, more than 70 years after the disaster, and despite several missions to investigate what’s left of the once majestic ship – it remains on the seabed.
The final survivor of the sinking, Millvina Dean, who was aged just two months when she boarded the ship – sadly died in 2009 at the age of 97.