James Cameron and his team pull together a 3D animated reconstruction of how the Titanic sank
This is perhaps remembered as one of the worst maritime disasters in history. On the 14th April 1912 at around 11:40pm, the largest passenger liner of its day collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean. The British ocean liner Titanic was on its maiden voyage traveling from Southampton to New York City and carrying some 2,200 passengers and crew.
Because of the ships unique design consisting of sixteen watertight hull compartments, the Titanic was considered to be unsinkable. Unfortunately on that fateful day, after having ignored six warnings of sea ice within the vicinity, the Titanic collided with an iceberg.
It was put forward at the time, that had the Titanic collided head on then the ship could have possibly survived the disaster with a minimal loss of life, the ship had collision bulkheads in the bow and flooding would have been contained to the first three possibly four watertight compartments – something we will never know.
In the final moments before collision, First Officer Murdoch attempted to steer the ship around the iceberg. In doing so, and being unable to turn quickly enough, the Titanic ruptured five of her hull compartments on the starboard side – unfortunately, one compartment too many! The sheer weight of sea water flooding five compartments caused the bow to sink.
It took almost three hours for the Titanic to sink, and because of a shortage of lifeboats and unsatisfactory emergency procedures 1,500 people went down with the ship or froze to death in the icy waters.
In this animated video reconstruction James Cameron and his team show how they believe the Titanic sank and reached the ocean floor.
