A Wonder's Sinking

Before being assigned to the RMS Titanic, Frederick Fleet served as a lookout on the Oceanic for 4 years. At 10 pm on the fateful evening, Fleet and another lookout, Reginald Lee, took over the Crow’s Nest post from the other lookouts. At 11:40 pm, Fleet spotted the iceberg and called the bridge with the now famous statement, “Iceberg, right ahead!”  

Icebergs vary greatly in size but must be at least 16 feet wide to qualify as an iceberg.

11:40 pm

An artistic rendering of the Titanic striking the fabled iceberg.

One minute after Fleet’s warning, Titanic struck the iceberg on its starboard (right) side. While a last-minute turn to port (left) via quick thinking on the bridge helped avoid a head-on collision, the ship’s hull scraped along the iceberg for about seven seconds, opening up a series of gashes stretching 300 feet that allowed 28-degree seawater to flow into its first six compartments. The ship could’ve stayed afloat if, at most only four compartments had flooded. Within only a few minutes of the collision, it was already listing 5 degrees starboard and 2 degrees downward. Captain Smith knew the math—and knew the ship was doomed.

Into the bitter night the whole crowd milled, each class automatically keeping to its own decks - first class in the center of the ship, Second a little aft, Third at the very stern or in the well deck near the bow.

12:05 am (April 15th)

Capt. Smith gave the order to prepare the ship’s 16 lifeboats (there were famously fewer than could hold the total capacity of its passengers and crew.) The crew hadn’t been adequately trained on evacuation procedures, never performed any drills, and didn’t know how many people they could safely put into each lifeboat. Thus, many were ultimately lowered with barely half the capacity they could’ve held.

The Titanic only had enough lifeboats to accommodate a third of the ship's total capacity. Had every lifeboat been filled accordingly, they could have only evacuated about 53% of those actually on board on the night of her sinking.

Because the ship lacked a public-address system, Titanic’s stewards went door to door to wake up passengers and crew and encourage them to congregate on the Boat Deck. Their efforts to communicate what was going on varied widely depending on the class. First class passengers got personal help getting dressed and brought to the deck, while third class passengers were jointly told of a vague need to come on deck. At 12:15 am, the captain also gave orders to begin making radio distress calls, which initially gave the ship’s location as being 13.5 nautical miles away from where it actually was. The telegraph responses were encouraging at first. First to reply was the German Lloyd Steamer Frankfort. At 12:18, Frankfort sent a crisp “OK…Stand by” but no position. In another minute acknowledgments were pouring in. The news spread in ever widening circles. Cape Race, New Foundland heard it directly and related it inland. On the roof of Wanamaker’s department store in New York, a young wireless operator named David Sarnoff caught a faint signal and also passed it on. The whole world was snapping to agonized attention.

12:20 am

An artistic rendering by Charles Dixon of
the Titanic's lifeboats being lowered

Passengers began boarding the lifeboats. Lightoller and Murdoch were in charge of separate sides of the ship. Passengers were confused and reluctant to board the lifeboats, believing it safer to stay on the ship.

12:45 am

The first lifeboat was lowered with 28 people on board (and 37 empty seats.) Ten minutes later, the second lifeboat—with the same number of people on board—was also lowered.  During the next hour or so, lifeboats were lowered every few minutes, and passengers left on board started to understand the grave situation facing the ship. A shortage of trained seamen made the passengers confusion worse. Some of the best men had been used to man the early boats. Other old hands were off on special jobs-rounding up lanterns, opening the A Deck windows, helping fire off distress rockets. President Ismay stood by helping to load the boats. At the last moment he suddenly climbed into a lifeboat.

In an attempt to attract nearby ships (including the Carpathia, and the Californian—which had warned the Titanic about the ice hours before), radio operators continued sending distress signals. The ship also began sending up distress flares. A nearby ship, the Californian, thought it strange that a ship was firing off rockets at night.

The majority of passengers who were boarding lifeboats were from the first and second classes; most third class passengers were struggling to navigate the ship’s corridors and the barriers that were designed to keep them segregated from the other classes. Some third class passengers chose to stay in their rooms rather than fight; others gathered in their common dining room in prayer.

2:05 am

Untergang der Titanic ("Sinking of the Titanic")
 by Willy Stower, 1912

The last lifeboat was lowered, and the last wireless distress call sent a few minutes later. With the boats all gone, a curious calm came over the Titanic. The excitement and confusion was over, and the hundreds left behind stood quietly milling about aimlessly near the stern, where the ship’s two bands were playing and Father Thomas Byles was hearing confessions.

Finally, at 2:05 am, Captain Smith finally began to announce, “Men, you have done your full duty. You can do no more. Abandon your cabin. Now it’s every man for himself.”

2:17 am

The grand staircase collapses and the lights and electric systems on the ship begin to fail and flicker out. Titanic’s stern lifted out of the water because of the sharp downward angle of the ship. The lights flickered and then went out. At this point, the slant of the deck began to grow so steep that people could no longer stand, so they fell or jumped in hopes of reaching a nearby lifeboat. Titanic’s hull broke in two. The stern floated vertically in the water for a few minutes before sinking straight down into the ocean. Passengers and crewmen jumped or fell into ocean, many dying of broken necks from hitting the water or hypothermia if they survived the initial fall.

2:20 am

The ship slips beneath the surface of the ocean, never to surface again.