Sinking

Main article: Sinking of the RMS Titanic

At 11:40 p.m. (ship's time) on 14 April, lookout Frederick Fleet spotted an iceberg immediately ahead of Titanic and alerted the bridge.^[140] First Officer William Murdoch ordered the ship to be steered around the obstacle and the engines to be stopped,^[141] but it was too late; the starboard side of Titanic struck the iceberg, creating a series of holes below the waterline.^[k] Five of the ship's watertight compartments were breached. It soon became clear that the ship was doomed, as she could not survive more than four compartments being flooded. Titanic began sinking bow-first, with water spilling from compartment to compartment as her angle in the water became steeper.^[143]
Those aboard Titanic were ill-prepared for such an emergency. In accordance with accepted practices of the time, where ships were seen as largely unsinkable and lifeboats were intended to transfer passengers to nearby rescue vessels,^[144][l] Titanic only had enough lifeboats to carry about half of those on board; if the ship had carried her full complement of about 3,339 passengers and crew, only about a third could have been accommodated in the lifeboats.^[146] The crew had not been trained adequately in carrying out an evacuation. The officers did not know how many they could safely put aboard the lifeboats and launched many of them barely half-full.^[147] Third-class passengers were largely left to fend for themselves, causing many of them to become trapped below decks as the ship filled with water.^[148] The "women and children first" protocol was generally followed when loading the lifeboats,^[148] and most of the male passengers and crew were left aboard.
At 2:20 a.m., two hours and 40 minutes after Titanic struck the iceberg, her rate of sinking suddenly increased as her forward deck dipped underwater, and the sea poured in through open hatches and grates.^[149] As her unsupported stern rose out of the water, exposing the propellers, the ship began to break in two between the third and fourth funnels, due to the immense forces on the keel.^[150] With the bow underwater, and air trapped in the stern, the stern remained afloat and buoyant for a few minutes longer, rising to a nearly vertical angle with hundreds of people still clinging to it,^[151] before sinking. For many years it was generally believed the ship sank in one piece; however, when the wreck was located many years later, it was discovered that the ship had fully broken in two. All remaining passengers and crew were immersed into lethally cold water with a temperature of 28 °F (−2 °C).^[m] Almost all of those in the water died of cardiac arrest or other bodily reactions to freezing water, within 15–30 minutes.^[154] Only 13 of them were helped into the lifeboats, though these had room for almost 500 more people.^[155]
Distress signals were sent by wireless, rockets, and lamp, but none of the ships that responded was near enough to reach Titanic before she sank.^[156] A radio operator onboard the Birma, for instance, estimated that it would be 6 a.m. before the liner could arrive at the scene. Meanwhile, the SS Californian, which was the last to have been in contact before the collision, saw Titanic's flares but failed to assist.^[157] Around 4 a.m., RMS Carpathia arrived on the scene in response to Titanic's earlier distress calls.^[158]
About 710 people survived the disaster and were conveyed by Carpathia to New York, Titanic's original destination, while 1,500 people lost their lives.^[95] Carpathia's captain described the place as an ice field that had included 20 large bergs measuring up to 200 feet (61 m) high and numerous smaller bergs, as well as ice floes and debris from Titanic; passengers described being in the middle of a vast white plain of ice, studded with icebergs.^[159] This area is now known as Iceberg Alley.^[160]

The sinking, according to J. Thayer, sketched onboard Carpathia, based on his description

The iceberg thought to have been hit by Titanic, photographed on the morning of 15 April 1912.

"Untergang der Titanic", as conceived by Willy Stöwer, 1912