After traveling approximately 1400 miles from her last port, a lookout in the crow's nest spotted an iceberg 500 yards ahead, only 37 seconds from impact.


 
He notified the bridge and First Officer Murdoch ordered the ship turned hard to port. He signaled the engine room to reverse direction, full astern.
When the engines were reversed to "full speed astern" from a forward speed of 20 knots, it took 850 yards, almost half a mile, for the ship to come to a complete stop.
Titanic was sailing at 22 knots when the iceberg was spotted.

The ship turned slightly, but it was too large, moving too fast, and the iceberg was too close. Titanic struck an iceberg at 11:41 PM on Sunday April 14th.


 
Ironically, Sunday was the day for the lifeboat drill. Unfortunately, Captain Smith did not hold the drill on April 14th.

Most passengers were unaware the ship was sinking.
By midnight the mailroom began to flood.

 

The first lifeboat is released at 12:45 AM holding 28 people; capacity is 65.
The ship begins to list about 1:30; panic and chaos set in.

Boats are getting fuller; two or three exceed capacity, however, one 40 person boat is released with only 12 passengers.

Bruce Ismay decides to jump on a lifeboat at 1:40. (His valet was among the dead)

 

At 2:18 the stern begins to rise out of the water as the bow begins to sink.

The ship begins to crack  from the pressure.
 

 The lights go out and by 2:20 AM Titanic is under the North Atlantic. Only 18 lifeboats were actually launched. The two collapsible boats floated off the deck as the bow plunged. Collapsible A, was swamped, but approximately 30 people managed to get into it, including Mrs. Rosa Abbott, the only female survivor pulled out of the water.
1500 people went into the 31 degree F water.

Only one boat came back. Fifth Officer Lowe took his lifeboat back to rescue swimmers, but only managed to find a handful alive, one of whom soon died.

Collapsible B overturned when the forward funnel fell, with Assistant Radio Operator Harold Bride underneath it. Bride and some 30 other men managed to get onto the upside down hull where they stood for four hours until rescue arrived. The Carpathia picked up the first survivor at 4:10 AM.
In total Carpathia rescued 705 people.
Only 328 of the dead were recovered; 1177 were never accounted for.
Since it was the off-season The Titanic was only carrying about 2200 people. The loss of life could have been even greater than it was.

 

It would be 73 years before Titanic was seen again.


 


The Titanic now rests 2 and 1/2 miles under the ocean approximately 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada.

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Titanic Soundtrack: James Horner - Never An Absolution