Corrected entry: In the film the Titanic is seen with the stern high in the air, then splitting and crashing down into the sea, then rising almost vertical and finally sinking. This is not the way it actually happened. As the stern was rising the ship was also plunging forward towards the bottom. With the ship driving forward and down, and the stern trying to come up out of the water the combination of bending stress and water pressure serve to cause the hull to buckle upwards from the keel - not a top-down break as depicted in the film. The wreckage itself bears this out. The keel and shell plate remained attached to the stern long enough to pull it nearly vertical before shearing away. The nearly upright stern continued to settle into the sea since all of its compartments were now open to the water. The breakup and destruction of the midship section aft of the third funnel all happened underwater - out of view of the survivors. No one could have witnessed the actual breakup and survived. The stern never came crashing down as depicted in the film. (02:35:15)
Badbird
7th Nov 2003
Titanic (1997)
7th Nov 2003
Titanic (1997)
Corrected entry: Officer Murdoch may have actually doomed the ship. By ordering the engines reversed he interrupted the flow of water over the rudder, making the huge ship even slower to respond and harder to steer.
Correction: With hindsight, no amount of steering or speed reduction was going to save the Titanic. Murdoch's best action would have been to Ram the iceberg head on,it would have caused many deaths but the ship would have stayed afloat. Murdoch's action's were not a contributory factor to the tragedy.
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Correction: New research of the wreck has proved that the ship broke apart on the surface and the stern, did in fact, came crashing down. It then lifted back up like a top and sank to the bottom straight up and down. That is why when they discovered the wreckage it looked like it was run over by a steamroller.