Original subtitles

Narrator: The legendary titanic.

The most advanced Ship of its age,

Sunk on its maiden Voyage by an iceberg.

Despite more than 100 years of investigation,

Nobody knows exactly how This tragedy happened.

We're still baffled by How ice could actually

Break through a ship And tear it open.

Narrator: now, Groundbreaking investigations

Could finally reveal How an iceberg ripped

Apart a ship hailed As unsinkable.

♪♪

Was it human error or a design Flaw that led to the deaths

Of over 1,500 people?

♪♪

The only way to discover The titanic's sunken secrets

Is to pry this massive Shipwreck apart.

Diving inside its shattered hull

Will reveal what really Happened on that fateful night.

--captions by vitac-- Www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by Discovery communications

♪♪

Over 1,000 miles northeast Of new york city,

In the middle of The atlantic ocean.

♪♪

The united states coast guard

Is on a pilgrimage to remember One of the largest ever

Losses of life at sea In peace time.

[ filtered voice ] On behalf of The united states coast guard,

We casts these wreaths.

We now pause for A moment of silence

To reflect on The events which occurred

And to remember The over 1,500 souls

Who perished on that Fateful morning.

♪♪

Narrator: The story of this luxury

Passenger ship is well-known.

She was on her maiden voyage, Carrying over 2,000 people

From england to new york.

At 11:40 p.M. On April 14, 1912,

She collided with An iceberg and sank.

But despite being one Of the most famous

Maritime disasters of all time,

The real reasons for her sinking

Continue to mystify the experts.

♪♪

Today, this mighty Vessel rests two miles

Beneath the ocean's surface,

Lying in a field of debris Covering 15 square miles.

♪♪

The stern has been Flattened by the impact

Of hitting the ocean floor,

Its decks crushed and crumpled.

The bow rests almost 2,000 feet away.

The sea floor Conceals all evidence

Of the ship's collision With an iceberg.

So how exactly did Ice alone take down

What was once the most Advanced ship in the world?

♪♪

Newfoundland in canada,

400 miles from The titanic's resting place.

Professor claude daley Thinks there are parts

Of the well-known tale That simply don't add up.

This is iceberg alley.

Icebergs here are a major threat Because of their size.

Narrator: claude is one of The leading specialists

In polar shipping design.

He investigates the mysterious

Destructive properties Of icebergs.

♪♪

We've been studying ice For several decades now,

And we're still Fascinated by it,

We're still baffled by How ice can actually

Break through a ship And tear it open.

Narrator: Claude wants to know precisely

How mere ice sank A ship believed to be

The sturdiest ever built.

Weighing 52,000 tons,

The titanic was the largest ship In the world.

Her design led people to Believe that she was unsinkable.

♪♪

Her interior was divided up By waterproof bulkheads,

With state-of-the-art Automatic watertight doors

Designed to isolate flooding If the ship was ever damaged.

The hull itself was Made of over 2,000

Overlapping steel plates,

Each one more than An inch thick.

So what exactly Would it take to sink

The most technologically Advanced ship of its age?

♪♪

Absolutely no ship Is unsinkable.

Nothing that humans design Or construct can ever be done

In a way that there's Absolutely no risk

Or no uncertainty About what's going on.

Narrator: how strong was The titanic, really?

To investigate, claude is Building what he believes to be

The largest indoor iceberg Collision test in the world.

This is our ice Impact apparatus.

It's a double-pendulum device.

Narrator: this huge contraption Smashes objects together

With the same force as A shipping collision.

♪♪

On one side is a steel plate Similar to a ship's hull.

Daley: this is a piece of Steel the same thickness

As on the side of the titanic.

3/4 of an inch shell plating On a hull is very thick.

Narrator: on the other will Be a three-foot slab

Of synthetic iceberg.

Daley: okay, here we go.

Narrator: although this berg Is grown in a lab...

Daley: keep coming forward.

Narrator: ...It's just as strong As the real thing.

We have multiple tons Of swinging mass.

Narrator: and its set to Smash the hull plate

With a force comparable to The titanic's collision.

The hull system is live now.

♪♪

There's a lot of Energy stored here.

The countdown is on!

Five, four, three, two, one, go!

♪♪

♪♪

Daley: wow, let's go And see what happened.

[ chuckles ]

Well, that plate Was stronger than that ice.

[ laughs ]

That ice really got destroyed.

Narrator: the hull plate Isn't even dented.

The mystery of why The titanic sank

Just got bigger.

A lot of ships today Would've been thinner steel

And they would've Got damaged by this impact.

But what we're seeing here Is no damage whatsoever.

[ steel thuds ]

Narrator: clearly the titanic Had no ordinary collision.

What actually Happened that night?

Claude needs to do More tests to find out.

♪♪

But first, he wants To take a closer look

At the vessel's design

To see what other safeguards She had in place.

♪♪

Even if her rock-solid Hull were breached,

The ship's designers Had a supposedly

Water-tight plan to Contain the problem.

Daley: bulkheads are basically Walls inside ships

That are completely waterproof.

They create separate Watertight compartments

So that if you Damage one of them,

If you get a big hole right Here, this whole space floods,

But only that part Of the ship floods.

Narrator: The titanic had 15 bulkheads,

Creating 16 waterproof Sub-compartments.

We're not required even today

To have this level Of subdivision.

Narrator: the ship's creators Believed her design

Meant she could survive Virtually any kind of impact

Including a head-on collision.

♪♪

To find out just how much damage

Ice would need to do To sink the titanic,

Claude's team marks out A full-scale plan of the ship.

This is the bow of the titanic.

Okay, next one at 17.

♪♪

Narrator: with a length of 20 school buses,

At the time, The titanic was the largest

Moving object ever built.

Hey bruce, hello, I can Barely see you down there.

This is an impressive ship.

That's right, it's a quarter Of a kilometer from me to you.

Narrator: the iceberg would've Needed to breach

At least the front Five waterproof

Compartments to cause The ship to sink.

That's about 200 feet of carnage.

Daley: look at the distance, All the way from the golf cart.

Ripping this much of The hull open is what

You need to do to Get the titanic into

A serious situation.

Ice damages aren't this big,

Ice damages are, you know, The size of me,

Or three or four times The size of me.

Narrator: so how on earth could The iceberg have

Caused this much destruction?

Did the ship's Creators massively

Misjudge the titanic's design?

Or was it human error That caused her to sink?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: in 1912, The titanic was considered

By her creators to be The last word

In nautical safety.

But she failed to complete Her first ocean crossing.

The iceberg that sank Her needed to cause

Around 200 feet of Damage to her hull.

That's more Destruction than anyone

At the time thought possible.

♪♪

Wow.

Narrator: professor claude daley Believes a hull breach

This big could've been caused By a high speed collision.

With the extent of Damage on the titanic,

One question to look at is

Were they at the right speed For the conditions?

Narrator: was the titanic's Captain edward john smith

Trying to cross The atlantic too quickly?

The largest passenger ship

In the world was also one Of the fastest.

The titanic was fueled by A network of 29 boilers.

These ferociously burned through

600 tons of coal a day, Feeding two steam engines

Each one the size of A three story house.

Along with The revolutionary new turbine,

The engines provided more Than 45,000 horsepower

To the ship's three Supersized propellers.

These drove The huge vessel towards

The iceberg at 25 miles per hour.

So was the titanic Simply going too fast?

♪♪

Information gathered by A special marine safety unit

Formed after the disaster Could hold the answer.

Looks good for flying!

Narrator: Commander kristen serumgard

Runs the u.S. Coast guard's International ice patrol.

We patrol the icebergs in The vicinity of the grand banks

And more mariners of The extent of that region.

Narrator: but today, Kristen is investigating

Whether the titanic's Speed was recklessly high.

Man: all right, rolling takeoff.

♪♪

Narrator: they're flying over

The area nicknamed Iceberg alley,

Close to where the titanic sank.

Should the ship's captain have

Given the command to slow down,

Or would he have assumed There was no danger of ice?

Narrator: At the time of the titanic,

No one counted icebergs.

We don't know how many There were in 1912.

Can I have you take A look at the one

That's way far to The south right there?

Narrator: the team counts This april's icebergs

To investigate the chances of

Hitting one at This time of year.

Okay, left window area, I've got visual on your iceberg.

♪♪

Narrator: After seven hours in the air,

The numbers are finally in.

And kristen can Analyze her results.

This represents The iceberg chart

That we're seeing this year

And the ice is up Mostly around newfoundland.

The titanic sank almost Six degrees of latitude

Further south than where The current ice limit is.

Narrator: This appears to put the titanic

400 miles clear of The danger zone.

You would think that in april,

Titanic would be safe

And traveling in Ice free waters.

Narrator: the titanic's crew Had adjusted their course

From the shortest route To avoid icebergs completely.

But earlier in the day,

The crew received radio Reports of ice ahead.

Should they have Been more cautious?

The first report mentioned ice

From 49 to 52 west longitude.

That's an area that Covers almost 120 miles.

That's a large area.

Narrator: but other messages Were more detailed.

One pinpointed An iceberg half a degree

Of longitude from Where the titanic sank.

It might look close, But in reality

Those areas are miles apart.

Narrator: the chances of Hitting an iceberg

Still seemed very small.

So the captain put his faith in

The ship's lookouts And pushed on.

Serumgard: back then, the ship Captain took all the knowledge

And experience that he had

And in my understanding Did no different

Than any other ship Captain of the day.

Narrator: By maintaining his speed,

The titanic's captain

Wasn't doing anything Unusual for the time.

So did the problem Lie with the lookouts?

Why did the watchman fail to Spot an iceberg big enough to

Sink the world's largest Ship until it was too late?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: the titanic, The queen of the ocean.

♪♪

She was hailed as the safest Ship ever to set sail.

♪♪

Sinking her would Require an impact zone

Longer than two Basketball courts.

Why was there so much damage?

Was it caused by the maneuver?

♪♪

Narrator: did the titanic's Angle of impact

Play a key role in the disaster?

Claude daley recruits A colleague to investigate.

Captain chris hearn Runs one of the world's

Most advanced Nautical simulators.

June, if we can load Up the titanic, please.

♪♪

Narrator: today, chris retraces The crew's footsteps

To work out exactly how The ship hit the iceberg.

First, he needs to Know why the lookout

Spotted it with only 37 seconds to spare.

What we're here To do today is try

To figure out why The two lookouts seemed

To have missed a piece of ice On a beautiful, clear night.

Narrator: to do this,

He first needs to Examine the iceberg.

This photo was taken The morning after the disaster.

And many suspect it could be The berg that sank the titanic.

This fearsome piece Of ice right here,

Very, very pointed and jagged With tall pinnacles

It floating immediately In the vicinity

Of the area the titanic sank And is a leading culprit.

Narrator: chris estimates this Iceberg to be 100 feet high.

He can't understand why It wasn't spotted sooner.

He programs a similar sized Iceberg into the computer

To get a sense of The lookouts' view.

Let's try and make It dark, june,

And see what they could see.

Narrator: the night in Question had a clear,

Moonless sky, Meaning it was very dark.

The only way to spot A berg is to see

Where it's pinnacles Block out the stars

In the night sky.

So in this situation,

The pinnacle can plainly Be seen.

So the two lookouts,

From the perspective of The crow's nest

Should've been able To see this piece of ice.

Narrator: for this reason, Chris doesn't believe

This iceberg was the killer.

Witnesses spotted Another in the area.

Hearn: this second piece of ice, It's much flatter,

It's not as pinnacled, It's more tabular in its shape.

Narrator: this iceberg might

Be only half as High as the first,

But it's brick-like shape gives It a lower center of gravity.

A much bigger section Could be hiding underwater.

For chris, it's a far More plausible suspect.

So there we go, Now we've got this flatter,

More tabular piece You can see from the height

Of a crow's nest, no peaks Are breaking the top.

It's much flatter, It's much more difficult

To see for the lookouts.

It's a dark mass Against a dark ocean.

Narrator: on a moonless night, An iceberg sitting lower

Above the waterline Would've been

Almost invisible From the crow's nest.

The lookouts saw it too late,

Only around a quarter Of a mile away.

But there is one Way that the crew

Could've spotted it much sooner.

The titanic's main deck was 50 feet above the waterline.

The bridge was 75 feet high,

And the crow's nest

Was a dizzying 90 feet Above the water.

In daylight, lookouts Had a 12 mile view,

And could spot icebergs at least

25 minutes before reaching them.

On moonlit nights, Low-laying icebergs

Below the horizon were visible.

But on nights with no moon, They were difficult

To spot until They were closer up.

Due to these Specific conditions,

The first place to be able To see such icebergs would've

Been lower down the ship, Where the deck was.

Chris investigates what Can be seen from here.

Looking out from deck level,

You can see that This tabular piece of ice

Breaks the horizon line.

This goes against most Traditional points of view.

We're down here much lower, Almost on the deck level,

And this piece of Ice is so plain.

That is very unusual.

Narrator: chris believes this Is more likely to be

The berg that sank the titanic.

Back up in the crow's nest, Are two lookouts who wouldn't

Have the chance to see this Iceberg until it was too late.

Narrator: in fact, in these Tricky conditions,

They did well to spot The iceberg as soon as they did.

♪♪

-hey, chris. -hey, claude, welcome aboard.

Narrator: Claude daley believes that

Spotting the iceberg at This shorter distance

Played a key role in the exact Nature of the collision.

We're ready to go, Chris, whenever you are.

Standing by.

Narrator: Using the larger iceberg

For a clearer view,

Chris reenacts what The reports say happened.

Daley: you're going.

Right now, the phone Starts to ring.

"Iceberg right ahead."

Narrator: the crew then Attempts a special,

Two-part maneuver for Dodging incoming obstacles.

First thing to do, of course, Is to try and get our bow

To clear this piece of ice.

They're going to Go hard to port.

♪♪

Narrator: the bow moves clear,

But the stern is still on Course to hit the iceberg.

So the crew turns The bow back towards the ice

To swing the rear end free.

♪♪

Hearn: Ships don't turn like cars, eh?

Narrator: but before The ship can swing out,

It scrapes against the iceberg.

Aw, that's it.

It's just underneath that Starboard bow

Right along the starboard side.

Narrator: Chris believes this is exactly

How the titanic hit the iceberg,

And it seems to have Maximized the ice's contact

With the hull.

The turn was keeping Them just at the same

Distance from the center Of gravity of the ice.

So they were just Kind of kissing it.

Narrator: the iceberg needed to Create around 200 feet

Of damage to sink the titanic.

And this maneuver led To that much contact.

But the result raises Another question.

There was a glancing contact,

How did it start to Tear open the hull?

♪♪

Narrator: the chasm caused by The iceberg has never been seen.

How did a scraping Impact do so much

Damage to this Floating fortress?

And did the titanic Ultimately sink

As the result of a design flaw?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: the titanic in 1912,

The largest ocean liner Of its time

Was carrying some of The wealthiest people

In the world.

But she sank after Hitting an iceberg

In a collision that at first,

Went largely unnoticed By her passengers.

People wouldn't have felt The impact on the titanic.

It was a glancing blow.

People wouldn't have Been thrown sideways.

♪♪

Narrator: claude daley knows That the titanic's

Speed and direction combined To cause maximum damage.

But how did such light contact

Pry the hull open In the first place?

♪♪

This once proud ship now lies

Wrecked at The bottom of the sea.

Her top decks crumpled By the impact of hitting

The ocean floor, And her funnels ripped off.

But all this destruction Happened as she sank.

No one knows what the damage Caused by the iceberg looks like

Because the impact site Is buried beneath the mud.

Witnesses claimed Six of her 16 watertight

Compartments were ripped open.

They dragged her Down as they flooded.

How was a grazing Impact able to rip

Through the ship's Solid steel hull?

♪♪

Claude daley suspects The angle of collision

Actually helped the iceberg Tear the titanic apart.

-okay. Okay, bruce? -yep.

Narrator: to prove it,

He recruits The help of a colleague.

Guys, we're good to go.

Narrator: engineer Bruce quinton specializes

In investigating Ship collisions.

So what we have here Is steel plate.

It's similar to what many Ships may be constructed from.

Narrator: bruce has created

This hydraulic Crash test device.

It simulates both Head-on collisions

And glancing contact.

Instead of ice, He uses a metal wheel

Attached to a powerful Hydraulic ram.

A steel wheel like this one is Not a bad substitute

For ice for this Particular scenario

Because what we're looking at is Not so much the ice behavior,

It's the structural Behavior responding to ice.

♪♪

This is gonna do forward On top of the wheel.

Narrator: the team will first Test a head-on impact.

Put this one up. Okay, that's good.

This test establishes Sort of base case

Of the load just Going straight in.

That's sort of The standard loading condition.

Everybody happy?

Narrator: once the plate is Secured, the test begins.

-okay, everybody's ready? -good to go.

Narrator: the hydraulic ram Presses upwards,

Directly into the hull plate.

Cameras inside the machine Record its progress.

♪♪

The experts listen for a pop, Which indicates a breach.

♪♪

♪♪

Total silence, It's complete ductile response.

Narrator: The hull plate endures a massive

2.9 inch indentation Without breaching.

It could've went A lot further, I think.

Yeah, I mean, I wonder How far we could've gone

Before we tore it.

Narrator: next, Claude investigates

An angular collision.

What we're gonna do now Is a situation that is

Replicating, in a simple way, What happened on the titanic.

We're gonna go in and along.

Narrator: the team loads The machine with a new plate.

Bruce sets the ram to make The same amount of indentation,

But this time the plate Will move sideways.

The angle of impact will be Identical to the titanic's.

Three, two, one.

The test has begun.

We have simultaneous Horizontal and vertical motion.

So we can see our Force increasing.

Narrator: if the plate breaks,

It will help explain how The titanic's hull breached.

You can see the plate Deforming.

The iceberg is in, And moving along,

And the plate's dishing in.

♪♪

Narrator: but the plate seems To withstand the ram.

Until...

[ popping ]

-there we go -oh, I think we have fracture.

Narrator: the hull has broken In two places.

Oh, yeah, we tore The heck out of that thing.

Quinton: This is a great result.

Narrator: It seems the angle at which

The titanic hit the ice Triggered the breach.

And once the hull started To tear, the ship was doomed.

The titanic's hull had Vertical cross members,

Metal bars between the plates Designed to strengthen it.

♪♪

These bars were more Rigid than the plates,

So when the iceberg hit them,

The ship's momentum Caused them to break,

Creating an even larger hole.

Something like this could've

Represented The beginning of it all.

Yes, indeed.

♪♪

Narrator: Claude and bruce have revealed

That speed and angle of Impact worked together

To deal the fateful blow.

Once struck, Over 1,000 lives depended

On how quickly the world's Biggest ship would go down.

Why did the titanic sink In just under three hours?

And could anything have Been done to stop it?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: At 20 minutes to midnight,

On april 14, 1912,

The titanic suffered a fatal Collision with an iceberg.

Two hours and 40 minutes later,

Her stern sections Slipped beneath the waves.

A little over 100 minutes after that,

A rescue ship Arrived at the scene.

Two hours is such A short amount of time.

It's almost a tick of the clock.

Narrator: if the titanic Had gone down more slowly,

It's possible most people Would've been rescued.

Lying near to the sunken Wreck are huge lifeboat cranes

Over 500 feet away from The stern of the ship.

Most of them were Twisted and ripped off.

Only a few remain Attached to the ship.

But on the ship's Starboard side

Lies a clue to The speed of the disaster.

A single crane that stretches Eerily from the deck.

It's upright position Reveals the lifeboat

At this station was Not released in time.

Why did the titanic Sink so quickly?

♪♪

Hey, david.

Narrator: Claude suspects a simple change

To her bulkhead design would Have slowed the titanic sinking.

He's going to test his theory.

We have a simple model Of a floating object.

It's got multiple compartments.

What we're gonna do Is show what happens

When we flood one Set of compartments.

Narrator: Claude's model is separated

Into four waterproof sections.

At the bottom of the vessel,

Corks in holes Represent hull breaches.

To investigate what happened,

Claude lets water into The front compartments.

We're gonna start the flooding.

♪♪

We're getting flooding In the bow compartments, here.

Narrator: The model ship takes in water.

But when the internal Flooding matches

The exterior water level, It stops sinking.

♪♪

Daley: we've pretty much Achieved steady state now.

If this were the titanic,

She could've floated for days.

But she wasn't built like this.

Surprisingly, Her bulkheads didn't rise

Right up to The top of the ship.

The designers of the titanic, They're making a luxury liner.

They needed large, open spaces For ballrooms, dining rooms.

These were glorious spaces to Have, beautiful to be inside.

But they, obviously, Didn't want to run

Bulkheads all the way up, Cutting those spaces.

Narrator: for this reason,

Most of the titanic bulkheads Only went up five floors.

But this meant Water could spill over them

If the ship sank deep enough.

So now, claude Wants to investigate

The impact of these Shorter bulkheads.

Back in the water. [ grunts ]

Narrator: he's drilled holes In his model

To make the waterproof walls Much lower.

Once again, he sinks the ship.

♪♪

Daley: the whole thing is like A progressive problem.

Things are just getting Worse and worse.

Narrator: the more water The model lets in,

The faster it sinks.

♪♪

Daley: it's a kind of Runaway instability.

Sinking, flooding, This thing is going down.

Narrator: this cross flooding Between bulkheads

Dramatically affected how Fast the titanic sank.

♪♪

The more water The titanic let in,

The further her Bow sank forward.

She was designed to Withstand the weight of water

In only her first Four compartments.

But the iceberg caused Flooding in the first six.

Her bow sank too low And water spilled

Over her bulkheads into The compartments behind.

The ship's stern rose out of

The water and the immense weight

Snapped the titanic in half,

Flooding the rest of the ship And pulling it underwater.

But with taller bulkheads, The titanic could

Potentially have Stayed afloat for days,

Allowing enough time For help to arrive.

♪♪

Like many ships of the day, The titanic's designers

Had sacrificed Safety for luxury.

And this contributed to The loss of 1,500 lives.

Daley: if only a few things Had been different,

The titanic would Have still been

On the surface When help arrived.

And that's one of the parts Of the tragedy of it all.

♪♪

Narrator: the speed with which

The titanic sank Doomed its passengers.

But one final question Puzzles historians.

Could the scale of The tragedy have been avoided?

Could there have been a way to Save almost everyone onboard?

♪♪

♪♪

Narrator: In 1912, the titanic sank

After a glancing Blow with an iceberg,

Taking with it The lives of 1,500 people.

One final question intrigues Investigators around the globe.

Could the huge loss of Life have been avoided?

♪♪

Narrator: andrew nancarrow is A historical boat builder from

The national maritime museum Of cornwall, in england.

He's making an exact replica

Of one of The titanic's lifeboats.

♪♪

If you weren't able To get yourself

In one of these lifeboats, On that night,

Your chances of Survival were zero.

Narrator: but there weren't Enough lifeboats

To hold the ship's 2,200 passengers.

♪♪

Andrew wants to Investigate how many people

Could have squeezed into The 20 boats that night.

In the chaos of the sinking,

The lifeboats were loaded with An average of 39 people.

Boats like this one were Designed to hold 65.

On closer inspection, Andrew believes

They could have held a lot more.

These boats are a good, Strong sea boats.

They've got a lot of freeboard,

Which is the distance from The top of the boat

To the water line.

Narrator: This upright design means that,

In the calm waters that night, They could've held

Much more weight than Their maximum design load.

The sea conditions Were near flat.

I think they could Have, possibly,

Take a calculated risk And put more people in.

If a decision was made To overload the boats,

Probably about 80 people,

I would suggest That would've been safe.

Narrator: If every lifeboat, like this,

Had been over filled, It would've almost

Doubled the number Of passengers saved.

But that's still nowhere Near everyone on board.

♪♪

In newfoundland, Professor claude daley

Has developed A controversial scenario,

Which he believes would Have saved many more people.

Okay, you ready to go, chris?

Standing by here.

Narrator: he's returned to The titanic simulator

And wants captain chris hearn To ram the iceberg, head on.

Daley: okay, uh, ship's moving. Just bear with me.

Narrator: it may look like A suicide mission,

But he thinks this Could limit the damage.

Well, I think it's about now, Can you go into full reverse?

Right now, full reverse.

Full astern, aye, Answering full astern.

Narrator: the crew tries to Reduce the thrust

And allow the ship to drift Directly into the iceberg.

♪♪

It seems like a crazy maneuver.

I'll come and see it, We'll talk about it.

Narrator: but claude knows that A head-on collision

Is likely to breach only One waterproof compartment.

The titanic would Have stayed afloat,

But with severe consequences.

Passengers would've Been killed,

Some of them in stairways.

Saving the ship Would have meant

Killing some people, Consciously.

But not a thousand people.

Narrator: ramming the iceberg

Would've been the best Way to save the ship.

But psychologically, Was this ever an option?

Daley: would they have The guts to do it?

It's the urge to try and save As many people as possible.

And that's what they Were trying to do.

Trying to do the right thing.

They were trying to Do the right thing.

Any normal, sane person

Would've tried to steer away.

Narrator: in these desperate Circumstances,

The bridge crew Surely felt there

Was nothing else they could do.

♪♪

The titanic was traveling Full steam ahead

In waters known to Contain icebergs.

Her lookouts were ill equipped For the conditions.

And her designers Grossly underestimated

The destructive power of ice.

But lessons learned from The sinking of this iconic ship

Continue to protect The seafarers of today.

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In the wake of The titanic's disaster,

Safety at sea was Revolutionized.

Many ocean liners had Their bulkheads extended

To make them fully waterproof.

To protect against Sliding collisions,

Many ships had Their hulls doubled,

Both along the keel And up their sides.

The titanic's 20 lifeboats

Could only hold half of Its passengers.

So after the disaster, Ships were ordered

To carry lifeboats For everyone on board.

And to prevent distress Signals being missed,

The united states Passed a new law --

Radios on passenger ships had To be manned at all times.

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Narrator: After more than a century,

There are still lessons to be

Taken onboard from the titanic.

It's sad, but we can Sometimes learn more

From a tragic event than We can from a success.

Without that learning, We won't have future success.

You have to learn from Your mistakes

And we're still learning.

Narrator: And modern technology is,

At last, starting to Strip away some of

The mysteries that Surround this famous wreck.

But the ship itself remains at The bottom of the sea,

Now a watery grave For over 1,500 people.

♪♪

The titanic is a potent Reminder that we should

Never underestimate The destructive power of nature.

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