Curiosity (2011) s01e04 Episode Script
What Sank Titanic?
Paxton : Behind the romance, the history, and the tragedy lies one of the great unanswered questions of the last 1 00 years.
Exactly how does a ship that's thought to be unsinkable drown on her maiden voyage? Get out! Everybody out! [ screams .]
[ screams .]
[ people screaming .]
There's both an awe and a horror to seeing Titanic for real up close.
Five years after filming my part in the movie, l went on an expedition with James Cameron and dived the wreck site four times.
Seeing the back of the bow section where the ship broke in half, looking at the twisted metal, imagining the violence and horror of that moment, as the ship tore itself apart -- it stays with you and reminds you Titanic died a violent death.
ln your mind, you play out the tragedies of all those individuals that were lost that night.
But this watery tomb is not the only remaining connection to the past.
After the disaster, survivors were called to inquiries in New York and London to find out how the impossible had happened.
This film dramatizes their testimony and interviews -- the few who cheated death on that fateful night.
l don't think that there was any way to get to the upper deck.
Suddenly, the whole superstructure seemed to split.
Paxton : And this film brings to life the engineering blueprints of the ship itself to tell the inside story of how the biggest machine ever to move on the planet was stocked and strangled by one of the earth's simplest substances, seawater.
We really thought we'd done it.
We'd thought we'd saved her.
Paxton : Freezing, open water is one of the most deadly environments on the planet.
Lost in it, a human being will be dead in minutes.
On this uncaring, unforgiving highway, the safest, largest ship in the world took her first voyage.
lt turned out to be her last.
[ indistinct shouting .]
Barrett: l was leading fireman in Boiler Room 6.
l'd been working down in a coal mine at 1 3.
After five years, l run away to sea, but l was still working the coal.
Man : Tell Jack we're out of coal.
Come on! This is not your pleasure cruise! Paxton : 1 /3 of all the people on board Titanic are crew, and half of them are simply there to keep this ship moving -- 324 men known as ''The Black Gang.
'' Put your back into it, Tom.
The Black Gang are kept secret from the passengers.
They even have their own hidden passageways to move around without being seen.
Barrett: We were expecting four days and nights of solid slug.
The furnaces need 650 tons of coal a day, shifted by hand -- by our hands.
Paxton : Working a whole two stories below the water line, Barrett and the Black Gang feed the mighty ship a ton and a half of coal for every mile she moves.
Beyond these walls, the water pressure is almost double what it is on the surface.
She plows through the ocean, full steam ahead, the most powerful machine on the planet.
Put your backs into it! Paxton : But the length of a football field away and 1 5 stories above, two men are about to see something that will stop her forever.
Titanic is almost 300 yards long, but the iceberg is longer and wider, and every 1 0 cubic feet of berg is a ton of solid ice.
Call the bridge.
[ bell rings .]
Bridge, lookout.
lceberg right ahead.
[ bell rings .]
l repeat, iceberg right ahead.
Thank you.
Man : lceberg, right ahead.
Hard to starboard.
Hard to starboard.
Paxton : Ships have no brakes.
lt will take Titanic a half a mile to stop.
[ bell ringing .]
What is that for? Suddenly, the bell rang.
This red light comes on when the ship is supposed to stop.
Sure enough, there's the red light but we weren't supposed to stop.
l didn't know what was going on.
Paxton : They're going to have to try and steer around it.
Helm's hard over, sir.
Man : Helm's hard over.
Titanic's 1 00-ton rudder begins to move the ship.
The prow is turning left, out of danger, but Titanic is so long that the stern is still sliding towards a direct hit.
The way to drag it out of harm's way is to steer the prow back to the right, straight towards the iceberg.
Hard to port! Hard to port! Hard to port! Paxton : lce and iron are now just yards apart.
Helm's fully over, sir.
The doors.
The watertight doors.
Aye, sir.
Watertight doors! The watertight doors! [ bell rings .]
Paxton : The ship is divided into watertight compartments.
Each can be sealed off in an emergency by a door.
Each watertight door weighs over 2,000 pounds.
lf they were simply allowed to drop, they would crash right through the floor.
Hydraulic cylinders are in place to slow their descent.
They take a full 30 seconds to lock down.
[ record playing .]
Milton Clyde Long is the son of a judge from Springfield, Massachusetts.
He is 29 years old.
He is traveling alone in a first-class compartment high up on D deck, toward the front of the ship.
[ rumbling .]
[ record skipping .]
[ glass shatters .]
lt happens in seconds.
Titanic is scraping over an iceberg in mid-Atlantic.
[ creaking and scraping .]
Man : What is that noise? What's going on? At first, it didn't sound like much.
Just a bucket of coal dropped on a grate.
Whoa! Lock the doors! Paxton : Boiler Room 6 is a full 40 feet below the surface.
The water came straight through the ship's side.
lt was pouring in above the stokehold plates like the whole side was torn.
Man : Secure that hole! [ screaming .]
Paxton : The water is spraying in with the force of a fire hose from a tear just two feet above the floor they work on.
lt was a nightmare.
[ bell ringing .]
The doors drop automatically from the bridge.
We can't control them.
About to close on 6! Get out! Everybody out! Everybody out! Paxton : The slow descent of the watertight doors is deceptive.
To make sure they make a watertight seal, the huge doors are allowed to fall the last foot and a half.
The intruder is onboard.
The invasion of Titanic has begun.
250 yards toward the stern, the nightly engineering checks are underway.
lt is here that Titanic's drive shafts pierce the hull to turn her three giant propellers.
The impact will not be felt or heard here.
lt's a noisy and lonely place, which tonight may cost this crew member dearly.
[ bell ringing .]
[ screams .]
Help! Help! Hel Someone, get me a damage report.
Check nothing else is about to hit us.
Yes, sir.
Paxton : The damage is already done.
Murdoch's maneuver avoids plowing straight into the iceberg, but the ship's underbelly has scraped across a corrugated underwater shelf called an ice ram.
Titanic does not run into an iceberg.
lt runs over it.
And though the blow is glancing, the eight seconds it takes is enough to puncture Titanic's hull.
lt is 20 minutes to midnight.
ln the giant, sleeping city, hardly anyone is aware there's even been an accident.
But deep within her, a steady flow of icy water is already coming aboard.
We need a damage report immediately.
Paxton : lt is just seconds since Royal Mail Ship Titanic collided with an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic.
What is that? lt was an iceberg, sir.
Captain Edward Smith has commanded every one of White Star Line's maiden voyages for the last eight years, but most of those ships were barely half the size of Titanic.
Have you shut the watertight doors? Yes, sir.
Good.
Well, at least you sealed off any leaks.
Now get me a damage report.
-- lt's being done, sir.
-- Right.
Well, stand by, Mr.
Murdoch.
On the bridge, they can do nothing now but wait to find out if anything has been damaged down below.
ln Boiler Room 5, one room back from the flooding Room 6, the escaped crew are stunned.
ln less than a minute, they have gone from full steam ahead to full-scale disaster.
Man : What's the status of Boiler Room 5? Come on, you lot.
Shut the dampers.
Shut the dampers! Barrett: The important thing was to put the fires out.
We didn't want to be building up steam with the ship at standstill.
Get rid of that steam.
The whole bloody room will go up.
Damage report? lt's fine, sir.
Dry, sir! While they were checking, l went over to the hull wall.
lt's always icy cold.
The ocean is just the thickness of a man's hand away, but it seemed to be holding.
We need to lose that pressure! Paxton : Between the flooding Room 6 and Room 5, the watertight bulkhead backs onto a coal bunker.
lt is from this bunker that Barrett notices a telltale sound.
[ light rumble .]
[ indistinct shouting .]
The ice damage has run right along the hull, reaching the watertight bulkhead and flooding water into the coal bunker of Boiler Room 5.
None of the crew could ever imagine a situation where two watertight compartments could be breached.
But that's exactly the situation they are now faced with.
Make this secure! Make it watertight! As the men in Boiler Room 5 fight to contain the water, Titanic slowly drifts to a halt, and the familiar noises of the giant moving city cease.
For many, it is this sudden silence that is the first sign something has happened.
[ snoring .]
The son of the second vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, John Thayer Jr.
-- ''Jack'' to his friends -- is a student.
l was just 1 7, traveling first class with my mother and father.
We were on our way back from Berlin.
Dad.
[ snoring .]
Dad.
As soon as l felt the engine stop, l threw on an overcoat over my pajamas and ran on deck.
Paxton : Despite the impact, almost all of the passengers are still asleep.
Thayer: The Titanic was a maze, so big that even after four days, l still hadn't found my way around.
Paxton : There are over 1 2 miles of corridors on Titanic, and each of her nine decks is laid out differently from the one below.
Passageways take unexpected turns and reach sudden dead ends.
l sometimes got worried that l might get lost onboard by the time we got to New York.
What is it? What? What have you spotted? Not sure.
Ow! ls ice always that cold? Beats me.
What do you think happened? Hey, up there! Hey, lookout! Lookout! Did we hit something? No! We missed! Come on.
lt's cold.
Paxton : But they didn't miss.
Nine decks below, icy, hostile water is already onboard.
Elizabeth Dowdell is a servant.
Traveling steerage, she's escorting the daughter of her rich employer to grandparents in New York City.
Dowdell : There were only two baths provided for the whole of third class.
Just two between 7 00 passengers.
But at that time of night, l knew l had it all to myself.
Paxton : Today, the child has been hard work, but now she's safely tucked up in bed, and Dowdell can relax at last.
That's when l noticed the water moving.
lt felt like a dream at first.
l mean, how can water go uphill? [ creaking .]
But then l realized That the water must be level.
lt's always level.
lt was the room that was on a slant.
Paxton : Titanic is beginning to feel the effects of the intruder that is now onboard.
Paxton : Water has found its way onboard Titanic.
ln Boiler Room 5, fireman Fred Barrett is trying to assess what kind of grip the water has taken on the wounded ship.
We have to assume the first three compartments have flooded.
We don't know that.
And we've no way of knowing, but if they've gone, we can't afford to lose another one.
This should be easy to pump, but it's number 6 l'm worried about.
We have to get back in there.
-- How? -- Up and over.
Barrett: The only way through was to go over the emergency escape ladders, so Mr.
Shepherd and l climbed all the way up, back into Boiler Room 6.
Paxton : The watertight bulkhead stretches up 50 feet, but it doesn't reach the top of the ship.
lf it did, it would cut across the corridors, forcing passengers to climb to the promenade deck every time they wanted to move from one end of the ship to the other, so the builders compromised.
The final plans of the great ship show the bulkheads reaching up 2/3 of the hull, leaving the decks above and their corridors unbroken, which seems fine Until you realize the bulkheads now finish just 1 0 feet above the water line.
lsmay: l think it must have been the impact that awoke me.
l knew something had happened, but l wasn't quite sure what.
l pulled on my clothes over my pajamas, put on my dressing gown, and went in search of the captain.
Excuse me.
Hey! Who do you think you are? Paxton : J.
Bruce lsmay is officially on Titanic's maiden voyage merely as a passenger, but in truth, he is far, far more than that.
Man : There's no doubt -- no doubt at all, sir.
The forepeak storage room is dry.
ls there something happening here that the president of the White Star Line should know about? We've hit an iceberg.
l beg your pardon.
l believe the ship is damaged, sir.
Paxton : lsmay is the chairman of the White Star Line.
That's impossible.
Effectively, he owns Titanic, and any problem with her will be a P.
R.
disaster.
What are you doing about it? We may not have to do anything.
The watertight compartments are all sealed, and the outer bottom has probably taken the brunt of the blow.
But we seem to be taking on water.
We're flooding? Set a course north, officer.
Mr.
lsmay.
Man : Yes, sir.
Three times in my career, l have run aground, through no fault of my own.
Not once were there any serious consequences, and none of those vessels were as well-built as this one.
However, we may need to divert to carry out some repairs.
You mean we can't carry on to New York? That wouldn't be sensible, sir.
l see.
Well, one way or another, we need to get moving.
And Captain Smith This ship cannot be allowed to fail.
Stand by to alter course.
Yes, sir.
Standing by.
Paxton : lt is 1 1 :45 p.
m.
The water has been aboard for exactly five minutes.
The main damage is forward of the boiler rooms, but the series of ruptures run all the way back past Boiler Room 6, some 300 feet from the bow.
Barrett and Shepherd re-enter Boiler Room 6.
Boiler Room 6 was a lot worse than when we'd left it.
A lot worse.
There must have been about 8 feet of water in it.
Right.
Stop up all the pumps.
Paxton : There are two pumps and two drains in each room.
Each valve opens up suction in a different area of the room.
Together, they can pump 28 tons per minute Enough, perhaps, to keep the flooding at bay, provided they can keep working.
This one's blocked! Bloody coal.
Barrett: Lumps of coal had got stuck in the bo x.
We were pulling them out with our bare hands.
That's when the signal came for the engines to start again.
[ bell ringing .]
What's going on? Paxton : 300 feet back from Boiler Room 6 lies Titanic's power house, her engine room.
Up ahead, gentlemen.
Man : Up ahead! Man #2: Once more, sir! Pressure up! l need more steam! Paxton : Titanic is on the move again.
The combination of the outside water pressure and the forward thrust forces even more water into Boiler Room 6 Come on, let's get this finished! more water than the pumps can cope with.
Titanic is literally driving the water in.
Later, officers will testify that Titanic stayed at the crash site, but the truth is that around 1 1 :4 7 p.
m.
, the huge ship started to move again.
Whether it was heading for the nearest port or simply being tested for seaworthiness, no one will ever know, but more and more seawater is working its way into her wounded body.
Paxton : lt is seven minutes since Titanic hit an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic.
There is no panic or alarm amongst the passengers.
Good evening, Miss.
Good evening.
By the time l got back to my cabin, everything seemed normal.
l thought it must have just been an unexpected swell or something.
And then l noticed that the engines were running again, and l thought, ''Well, all right.
'' Thanks for keeping an eye on Virginia for me.
Oh, no problem.
She's been asleep the whole time.
l think the engines help.
Shh.
Paxton : But while the throb of the engines is comforting for the passengers, they are only adding to Titanic's plight.
ln her bow, water is coming aboard faster and faster, while the engineers remain oblivious.
Man : Steady! lsmay: l'd always had a good rapport with the chief engineer, Joseph Bell.
That's not for me to say, sir.
We had discussed at what speed the ship might run at.
He'd always seemed very knowledgeable.
l had no reason to doubt his judgment.
What l want to know from you, in your official capacity -- is the ship seaworthy enough to continue to its original destination? Mr.
lsmay, sir, that's not my decision.
l know that.
But if it were your decision, chief engineer, is the ship capable? The damage seems to be confined to the bow.
The pumps should cope, sir.
You're sure the pumps will keep her afloat? Yes, sir.
Excellent.
That's exactly the answer l was hoping for.
Right, boys.
Jobs to do.
Paxton : But the pumps aren't coping.
The forward movement of the ship is driving more and more water into the first five compartments.
The flood level is now 20 feet above the keel of the ship.
Man : Pick it up! Pick it up! ln Boiler Room 5, the water invading from behind the locker doors is still under control.
The bulging hoses are keeping the flooding at bay.
Come on! But closer to the bow, in Boiler Room 6, the engines are pushing water in almost 20 times faster than the pumps can pump it out.
Barrett: The pumps simply couldn't keep up.
We were struggling.
Keep it going! Paxton : And still, the engine room is oblivious.
Keep it steady! Titanic is steaming straight towards tragedy.
lt's no use! She's forcing the water in.
You've got to tell the bridge they need to stop.
You've got to tell them! Bo xhall : Captain.
Smith : Fetch Mr.
Murdoch.
-- Yes, sir.
Captain Smith's faith in Titanic's seaworthiness remains unshaken until he's told the news from Boiler Room 6.
Stand by and await further orders.
Sir? That was Boiler Room 6.
They say they're 8 feet deep in water and the flooding's getting worse all the time.
This -- this can't be happening.
All stop, Mr.
Murdoch.
Do not put the engines in full astern.
Do not reverse the engines.
Murdoch : Yes, sir.
Let her drift.
Even stopping the ship is now a major problem.
Stop it too fast and the water in the front of the ship will go crashing forward, causing untold damage.
[ bell ringing .]
Full stop, gentlemen! Man : Full stop! lt is seven minutes to midnight on the night of Sunday, April 1 4, 1 91 2, 1 3 minutes after impact.
[ screams .]
300 miles from land, carrying 2,000 souls in the open water of the Atlantic Ocean, the greatest ship ever built drifts to a halt.
lcy water is creeping aboard, and she will never move under her own steam again.
Paxton : lt is 1 2 minutes since Titanic hit an iceberg.
Helene Baxter, traveling with her son and daughter, has been in a state all day.
The silence from the engines is the final straw.
Helene: Why have they stopped? Why have they stopped? l want to know why they've stopped.
lt's not right.
They should be going.
Why aren't they going? l'm sure it's nothing to worry about.
ls it, Mary? No.
l need to know what's happening! All right.
All right.
All right.
l'll go find someone.
No.
And l'm telling you the ship is simply taking on too much water.
We are going to be there within hours.
She'll be flooded long before then.
Now, now, Captain.
Come on.
l built this ship.
l know what she's capable of.
She's not capable of progressing, sir.
That much is apparent.
l think you're forgetting who's in charge here, Smith.
No, sir.
l think you are.
President of the Line or not, at sea, it is the captain who makes the decisions.
[ door opens .]
Excuse me.
[ scoffs .]
Apparently, the Captain thinks it might be best if you and your mother and sister were to go up to the boat deck.
[ scoffs .]
With your life jackets.
Paxton : One deck below the Baxters' suite, first class stateroom C-90 is registered to one Madame Francoise de Villiers.
[ knock on door .]
Mrs.
de Villiers is in fact Berthe Mayne, a Belgian cabaret singer that Quigg Baxter met in a bar in Brussels.
He's persuaded her to come and start a new life with him in Montreal.
Carefully.
My whole life is in there.
-- [ laughs .]
-- Oh, don't worry.
We're gonna make a whole new life for you.
Baxter has installed his lover in her own first-class stateroom under a pseudonym, unbeknownst to his family.
Oh, look.
There's some sort of boat drill going on.
We need to get up on deck.
Put some warm clothes on and bring your life jacket.
lt won't take long.
l'll just go sort out my mother first, and then l'll come back for you.
Don't leave me.
[ chuckles .]
l'm not gonna leave you, you fool.
Wait for me outside my cabin.
l'll come straight back to you as soon as l've got them safely up on deck.
[ creaking .]
[ rumbling .]
Oh, don't worry.
lt's just part of the boat drill.
[ door opens, closes .]
The height of the water in the second and third cargo hold has now reached 1 2 feet -- high enough to pass over the top of the fireman's passage that runs down the center and into the port side of the ship.
Titanic's 5-degree list to starboard begins to shift to port.
[ screaming .]
ln Boiler Room 6, the rising seawater has forced Barrett and Shepherd to climb high.
lt was pretty obvious we weren't going anywhere, so we had one last job.
We had to get rid of the steam before the pressure burst the tank.
Aaah! Paxton : Even Titanic's own fresh water in the boilers has become a hazard.
Steam takes up 1 ,600 times the space water does as a liquid.
Unvented, it will tear Titanic apart.
lt is midnight Exactly 20 minutes after impact.
With a scream, Titanic greets the beginning of a new day.
Communication on Titanic is a problem, and not just because of the shrieking funnels.
Smith : The situation is serious, and we need to move quickly.
The boiler rooms are flooding.
Paxton : Most of the crew have little idea what is happening on the rest of the ship.
and we're venting steam.
Paxton : There are no warning lights or bells in any of the passenger areas.
The ship doesn't have any public address system.
The only way to tell 1 ,300 people that they need to get up on deck is to have the ship's 300 stewards tell them individually.
Try not to panic.
Mr.
Bo xhall, ship's position to the Marconi room.
Put out an ''all ships.
'' Paxton : Titanic is sending out a call for help.
Right, gentlemen.
To your posts.
-- Yes, sir.
-- Yes, sir.
Paxton : The ship has one lifeline to the outside world -- the most powerful Marconi wireless afloat.
But incredibly, the most sophisticated communications tool onboard relies on someone walking the entire length of the officers' quarters to deliver their message by hand.
[ beeping .]
[ knock on door .]
The Captain wants you to send out a distress signal with these coordinates.
What? [ louder .]
The Captain wants you to send out -- Stop! l can't hear.
Write it down, Bo xhall.
Here.
[ beeping .]
Paxton : Four huge cables strung between Titanic's masts act as the ship's aerial.
Her call for help will be heard for thousands of miles in all directions.
Unfortunately, Bo xhall's coordinates are wrong.
Somehow, he places the ship about 1 0 miles west and north of where it actually is.
Man : Everyone on deck.
Just after midnight, first the crew, then the passengers slowly bring Titanic awake.
Throughout the ship, Titanic's 300 stewards are trying to get the word out to the passengers.
There are no bells, no sirens, no general alarm.
[ door opens .]
Wake up.
What is it? There's something wrong.
All the engines have stopped.
There's a lot of commotion upstairs.
l think we need to get dressed.
l mean it's serious.
Come on, Virginia.
You need to get up.
There's a boat drill going on.
We need to get up on deck.
Get some life vests.
Put that on.
-- You're gonna have to help -- No! Come on, Mother.
Just give me your arm.
No.
Take this.
l'm gonna carry her.
Paxton : With the engines now shut down and the boilers venting steam, Titanic is stranded.
She must simply wait for help to arrive.
Paxton : Following the deaths of more than 1 ,500 people who perished aboard Titanic, an inquiry was called to answer this simple question -- how does an unsinkable ship go down on its maiden voyage? Although blame was spread around, no simple or easy explanation emerged.
lnstead, onboard the world's largest ship, a series of inconsequential events tragically fell into a deadly alignment.
Drawing on the testimony of those that survived, this film re-creates in forensic detail the final hours of the most famous ship in history to reveal the complex circumstances that created the perfect disaster.
Titanic is stranded in the mid-Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.
According to the Marconi room, the nearest vessel is Carpathia, 1 0 hours away.
lf the water is coming onboard slowly enough and can be controlled, Titanic will stay afloat, and help will reach them.
That is the gamble Captain Smith has made.
The lives of the crew and the passengers depends on how quickly the water overcomes the ship.
Eight decks beneath their feet, the water has managed to find its way between the hull and the double floor and is flowing into all her intricate and complex architecture.
Understanding how to help Titanic survive is enormously complicated.
lt would require a knowledge of the vessel only Thomas Andrews, the man who designed her, has.
Fortunately, he is onboard.
ls it bad? We're losing the boiler rooms.
Have you assessed the damage? The carpenter sounded the ship.
Wilde and Bo xhall have had a look.
lt's not good.
Right, then.
Time we had a look ourselves, isn't it? The situation isn't good.
Hold 1 , a vast space behind the bow, was one of the first areas to start flooding.
Now the water reaches up six entire floors, all the way from the keel to the well deck.
Hold 3 flooded to 20 feet in the first 1 0 minutes.
Since then, the depth has doubled.
Boiler Room 6 is now under 1 0 feet of water.
One by one, the water is overcoming Titanic's defenses and taking over the ship.
Sir, we've lost Boiler Room 6.
l've ordered the two men in there to evacuate.
-- Are the fires damped? -- Yes, sir.
What about elsewhere on the ship? All dry apart from Boiler Room 5.
Good.
Well, get all the stokers to the boats, and let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Sir, if we can get some suction for it, maybe we can reduce the flooding.
But we'll have to open the watertight doors to run the hoses.
Aye.
Make the call.
Yes, sir.
Mr.
Hoskin, call the bridge.
Have them unlock the watertight doors.
Paxton : The watertight doors cannot be raised electrically.
The button on the bridge keeps them locked in the up or down position.
Despite the bridge unlocking them, someone still has to open each huge door manually.
Goree, get that watertight door open.
Yes, sir.
Frank Goree is a greaser, pretty much the lowest rank onboard and perfect for the tough jobs.
All the forward compartments of the ship are now flooded.
The frontier, where the water is being held back, is Boiler Room 5.
Me and Mr.
Shepherd had just climbed back into Boiler Room 5 when engineer Harvey told the stokers they should go up to the boat deck.
Right, boys.
Everybody to their lifeboat stations.
Get a move on.
Not so fast, Barrett.
Yes, sir.
l need someone to stay behind as an extra pair of hands.
Right, sir.
Yes, sir.
And then the lights went out.
Dowdell : We took our time getting ready.
l had no idea how serious it was.
l really believed the Titanic was unsinkable.
l'm going ahead.
-- ls that okay? -- Of course.
We'll be fine.
Won't we, Virginia? Paxton : The water is starting to find its way into the electrics.
1 0,000 light bulbs illuminate the ship.
Without them, Titanic would be left cold, dark, and dead in the water.
Okay.
Come on.
Got to get going.
Dowdell : The moment l stepped out into the corridor, l knew it was bad.
The stairways were so crowded, you could hardly move.
lt was chaos.
People were moving every which way.
[ indistinct conversations .]
Paxton : ln third class, the passengers are not invited up onto the boat deck.
lnstead, they are told to wait below.
But panic is beginning to take hold.
lt's all right.
Just hold on to me.
The water is now finding its way out of the flooded holds through any open gap it can.
The entire front of the giant ship is filled with water.
Spiral staircases, installed to give the Black Gang direct access to the boiler rooms, have become wells of icy seawater a staggering six decks deep.
lronically, the only room at the front of the ship that isn't flooding is the swimming pool.
Thomas Andrews has completed his first-hand review of his great ship's status.
Well? [ sighs .]
The gross weight of the hull is 46,328 tons, but it's designed to displace 52,31 0 tons of water, a difference of some 6,000 tons.
Those 6,000 tons are what keeps the Titanic buoyant.
lf we lose five compartments, that's that extra 6,000 tons of buoyancy gone.
And that will mean the Titanic will sink.
Even before the first five compartments are completely full, the bow is going to start sinking.
The water that's in the fifth compartment will overflow into the sixth, and the sixth into the seventh.
Whole areas will become cut off.
[ crowd screaming .]
lt's important no one stays down there, Captain.
You need to get everyone on deck.
l'll have all the cabins locked.
But this may not happen.
l'm afraid it will happen, Mr.
lsmay.
You can be very sure of that.
Once this chain of events has been set in motion, it's a mathematical certainty.
What's your tipping point? When does your mathematical certainty become inevitable? When Boiler Room 5 floods.
Paxton : Boiler Room 5 has become the tipping point on which Titanic's life is balanced.
lf Barrett and the men there can hold back the water, Titanic can live.
And the cavalry is on its way.
Working their way forward from the engine room through the boiler rooms, chief engineer Bell and Frank Goree are bringing suction hoses linked to powerful pumps in the engine room.
lt's dry, sir.
Another length of hose here.
They could turn back the tide of water if they can reach Boiler Room 5 and help pump it dry.
The problem is, opening the watertight doors is only a good idea if the other side of the door is not already flooded.
On to the next one.
lf it is flooded, the water will spread.
Now let's get into Boiler Room 5.
What Bell and Goree don't know is that Boiler Room 5 is already beyond their help.
[ bell ringing .]
We couldn't believe it.
They were opening the watertight doors.
The door! The door! Shut the door! -- Open her up.
-- Sir! Seal the door! l need help, sir! Paxton : They are too late.
The water in Boiler Room 5 is already too high.
lt's flooded.
Let's away.
Whatever the fate of Boiler Room 5, it will be decided only by the men inside.
They are on their own now.
Right.
Let's try and get rid of some of this water.
[ indistinct conversations .]
Dowdell : Men and women were climbing over each other to get up there.
Every time we went up a stairwell, it was blocked.
You can't come up here, Miss.
Well, isn't this the way to the deck? You need to go back downstairs and follow the corridor.
What am l looking for? They kept telling us to go to a different part of the ship, but l don't think that there was any way to get to the upper deck.
Don't worry.
There will be someone down there to give you instructions.
Mum, you must put this on.
l will not.
Leave me.
Everyone else is wearing them.
Paxton : Most of first class is already up on the boat deck, but little appears to be happening.
-- Mum, please.
-- l am not putting it on.
-- Mother! -- No! -- l told you.
-- Help me.
Mother, please.
l told you.
l'll tell you again.
l'm not putting it on.
Long : Here, try this on.
These are the very latest in this season.
Absolutely everybody's wearing them.
[ chuckles .]
Mr.
Long, where did you get your life jacket from? ln my cabin.
They're in everyone's cabin.
There you are.
[ speaks indistinctly .]
Paxton : Berthe Mayne's scrapbook contains all her playbills and publicity shots, her reviews, and her photos.
For a woman crossing the Atlantic to start a new life, it represents a calling card and the only remaining link to her past.
She decides to go get it.
Hello! Dad? -- Oh, sorry.
-- l'm sorry, sir.
-- Are you the last one? -- Yeah.
Paxton : With C deck now successfully evacuated, the Captain has ordered all the rooms locked to prevent anyone going back down.
lt makes Berthe's decision one she will come to regret.
[ lock clicks .]
[ door rattles .]
Mayne: Hello? Hello! [ knocking .]
Hey! Please help! Paxton : On the boat deck of Titanic, there is confusion about what is happening.
No one knows how bad the situation really is.
Hold 2 in the bow of the ship is now full to capacity, and every additional ton of water in the hull is causing the bow to tip downwards.
As the damaged areas are pushed deeper underwater, more and more force is brought to bear on them.
Each of the rivets in Titanic's hull is 2 pounds of metal.
They have become brittle in the icy water.
The very things holding the great ship together begin to fail.
[ screams .]
Dowdell : Hold on to me.
Virginia? Virginia?! Virginia! Paxton : The bow is now so low that water is being forced into ventilation shafts, pipes, and ducts.
lt starts to move around the ship.
[ water gurgling .]
[ gasps .]
Help! Help! Paxton : Titanic would need at least 51 lifeboats to accommodate everyone onboard.
lt just has 1 6.
Unbelievably, this is four more boats than it is required by law to carry.
The Board of Trade believed that the more watertight subdivisions a ship has, the fewer lifeboats it needs.
Yet despite the shortage of seats, there aren't many takers.
No one has told the passengers the ship is actually sinking.
Women and children to the lifeboats, please.
Women and children, please.
Most still think that this is a drill.
Excuse me.
Will this take much longer? No, we're starting to fill the boats now, sir.
What? Man : Women and children first, sir.
Over there.
Lifeboat number 6.
Excuse me, sir.
Um, they want you in the lifeboats.
But -- but l thought it was a drill.
Yeah, l know, but l think we better do what they say, don't you? Come on, Mother.
l went back up to the boat deck and searched for my parents for quite a while.
Hey, Jack.
-- You found it.
-- Yeah.
-- Hey, you looking for Ma and Pa? -- You seen them? Oh, they were here a minute ago.
They took them over to a boat.
-- Which boat? -- l'm not sure.
l think it was on this side, though.
l thought Milton was probably right.
Most likely, they had left the ship already.
But l wanted to make sure.
-- Hey, Jack.
-- Yeah.
Mind if l tag along? Yeah, sure.
Well, goodbye, Mary.
Take care of yourself.
l'll see you both later.
Paxton : ln Boiler Room 5, the battle is turning in Titanic's favor.
By pumping the water out, Barrett and the men have succeeded in keeping the room almost dry.
That's just about all of it, sir.
Looks like we got this one beaten.
Good work, Barrett.
Looks like we might be all right after all.
But inside the coal bunker, the water is still building up.
The weight of all that liquid is pushing against the bunker doors -- doors that were not designed to be watertight.
[ creaking .]
The pressure makes the very metal begin to scream.
[ pounding .]
Titanic is about to die.
Paxton : Titanic is making her last stand against the water building up in her bow.
ln Boiler Room 5, the men have done everything they can to hold it back.
[ pounding .]
lt is not enough.
[ indistinct shouting .]
Help us! Barrett: l watched it happen.
l saw them get washed away in front of me.
Paxton : Two officers are lost.
The flow of water into the fifth compartment is constant.
Andrews' tipping point has been reached.
[ woman vocalizing .]
The loss of Titanic, a possibility from the outset, is now inevitable.
Titanic has two hours and one minute before she disappears beneath the waves forever.
Maybe they've caught a boat already.
Maybe.
But you would have thought that they'd say goodbye.
Sir, we've lost Boiler Room 5.
-- No.
-- Yes, sir.
Do you want to shut the waterproof doors again? No.
Leave them open.
Sir? Smith : We need the water spread evenly throughout the ship.
She needs to be level if we want to be able to launch those lifeboats.
Yes, sir.
Help! Help! Berthe.
-- Berthe! -- Quigg! Open the door.
l can't.
lt's locked.
Quigg : Where's your key? lt doesn't work.
lt won't budge.
Quigg! Quigg, don't leave me! l'm not gonna leave you.
l told you l'll never leave you.
l'm just thinking.
Stand back.
[ pounding on door .]
Stand back! [ sobs .]
You all right? Just get me out of here.
[ creaking .]
Dowdell : Most of the crowds had disappeared.
l don't even know where they went.
l was so focused on finding her.
lt wasn't until l found her doll that [ voice breaking .]
l looked everywhere l could for her.
[ water gurgling .]
Paxton : Water is now beginning to flow freely within the body of the dying ship.
As the flood levels increase, the watertight compartments fill until, because they do not reach the deck level, they flood over.
This creates a dreadful phenomenon when water comes down on you from above.
The flooding from above accelerates the spread of water throughout the ship, and in the meantime, it creates a further problem.
The weight of the water above the dry sections of the ship is making her unstable.
She is beginning to lurch to port.
The great ship's body is twisted and bent.
Her tortured fabric begins to groan.
Dowdell : Little by little, l felt the ship sinking.
The corridors were ankle-height with water, and l'd only been walking in them for a couple of minutes, but my feet were going numb.
Virginia? Paxton : The water now flooding onboard Titanic is 28 degrees Fahrenheit.
A human body can survive in this just a matter of minutes.
Virginia? Are you in here? Paxton : An average person can hold their breath for around a minute.
But in water of this temperature, it is not drowning that will bring death.
Those people who will die trapped on Titanic or in the waters around her will meet their deaths tonight through cold.
Titanic has reached the end of her journey.
Time is ticking away.
Sorry.
l'm not going without you.
l can't.
You know l can't.
l only came for you.
l only have you.
Shh.
[ passengers screaming .]
[ passengers screaming .]
Despite the Captain's efforts, the water is not flowing evenly throughout the hull.
The increased weight at the front of the ship is sinking her nose ever deeper.
The stern is starting to come clear of the water.
Things shift within the ship again.
Go, go, go, go.
Man : Everybody in the boats! Paxton : Titanic is beginning to tear herself apart.
7 5 minutes after impact, all the damaged compartments are filled to the water line, and the sheer weight of all that water is trying to drag the front of the ship down beneath the waves.
The ship's structure is put under incredible strain -- strain she was not designed to bear.
She has less than 60 minutes to live.
Paxton : With the flexing and bending of Titanic's hull, the ship is wringing the life out of herself.
She will be dead in under an hour.
[ clanging .]
Everybody who can must go.
[ clanging .]
What's that? The ship's flexing.
lt's time to get out of here.
No, not that.
The clanging.
Wait.
[ clanging .]
There.
lt's coming from that shaft behind the watertight door.
Get that door up.
Sir.
lt's Teffy.
Teffy, man.
[ groaning .]
-- Get that door open.
-- Aah! Goree: The wheel's gone.
Teffy, stay with me.
Are we sinking? Certainly looks like it.
Don't let me drown.
Don't let me drown.
Come on, my man.
Aah! Hold him steady there.
Please.
Please.
Make this end.
[ creaking .]
Frank, get yourself back to the engine room.
Get back to the engine room.
That's an order.
Goree: l'm not leaving him, sir.
Frank, it's every man for himself now.
But, sir! Go on.
Get yourself out of here.
-- Take the boat crew list.
Get up on deck.
-- Sir.
Teffy.
Steady.
[ gunshot .]
We'll soon have you out of there, son.
Aah! Come on.
Thank you, sir.
Each of Titanic's first three funnels services a pair of boiler rooms.
But most large ocean liners had four funnels, so the White Star Line had a fourth dummy funnel built.
The only things inside it are ventilation ducts and ladders.
Frank Goree aims to follow the engineering walkways beneath the fourth funnel all the way up to the boat deck.
lt is a quarter past 1 :00, 95 minutes after the collision.
Look at that.
There's only a dozen people in there.
lf they're sending the lifeboats away, they might as well put some people in them.
Should we try and get one? You go if you want.
l'm waiting for Mom and Dad.
No, you're probably right.
l'll wait here.
Dowdell : By the time l reached the boat deck, most of the boats were gone, but there were still people everywhere.
Oh, Virginia.
-- Virginia! -- Elizabeth! Man : Barrett, get over here.
How long have you been at sea, Barrett? 1 0 long years, sir.
Right.
About time you learned to sail, then.
Take charge of this boat.
Right, sir.
Yes, sir.
Right, lads.
Take her away.
Elizabeth.
Elizabeth! Wait! -- Elizabeth.
Man : Sorry, Miss.
This boat is full.
You'll have to wait for the next one.
But that's my little girl.
Elizabeth! Man : All right, then.
But we can't haul it back up again.
You'll have to jump.
Careful, Miss.
But then l thought, ''lt's not getting any nearer.
'' Man : Thank God.
Oh! Right.
Come on.
Let's move on.
Paxton : Frank Goree hasn't managed to get on deck.
The exit door is wedged shut or locked or both.
He has little choice but to keep climbing.
[ creaking .]
Goree: ''April 1 5, 1 91 2, from Titanic.
Goodbye, all.
Goree of Southampton, England.
'' Paxton : Titanic has five minutes to live.
Water is starting to pour through portholes, doors, and passageways.
lt is this secondary flooding that sends Titanic over the edge.
Despite the damage to the hull, it will be this flooding from above that will finally sink her.
Good luck, Jack.
Good luck to you, too.
[ passengers screaming .]
[ water splashes .]
But you are coming, boy, aren't you? l told him l would be with him in a minute.
Sure.
l'll be right with you.
l never saw him again.
Come on.
You can do this.
You know you can do this.
Those few seconds between our jumps meant the difference between being sucked into the water or being pushed out by the backwash.
l was pushed out.
[ passengers screaming .]
As Titanic sinks, those in the bow section are taken under with the ship.
Some are trapped in air pockets, so they can breathe for a while.
As the water pressure builds up, the air pockets reach a point where they simply implode [ air hissing .]
killing anyone still alive inside.
Titanic had embarked with more than 2,200 souls onboard.
At least 2/3 of them would die in the icy water left in her wake.
But the survivors, their lives would never be the same.
Many of them would remain forever haunted by the things they saw and experienced that night.
Barrett: As a rule, a stoker never carries a watch at work.
You'd think l'd know, wouldn't you? The most incredible thing l've seen, and l don't know when it was.
Paxton : Fred Barrett testified before the U.
S.
and U.
K.
inquiries into the disaster.
Keep her steady.
Afterwards, he disappeared from history.
He was never heard of again.
The rumble and roar continued, as the tearing and wrenching as boilers and engines were torn from their beds.
Suddenly, the whole superstructure seemed to split.
[ creaking .]
[ passengers screaming .]
Paxton : Jack Thayer graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and went into banking.
ln 1 945, after a bout of depression, he took his own life.
He was 51 .
[ creaking .]
[ screams .]
[ passenger screaming .]
[ woman vocalizing .]
Dowdell : First the bow disappeared, and then, shortly after, the whole ship was devoured.
lt's the only way to describe it.
Devoured by the ocean.
Paxton : Elizabeth Dowdell attended the New York premiere of the Titanic film ''A Night to Remember'' in 1 958.
She passed away in Bronx, New York, at the age of 7 0.
Her charge, Virginia Emanuel, age 5 on this day in 1 91 2, lived until 1 97 2.
J.
Bruce lsmay resigned as the chairman of the White Star Line and became a virtual recluse.
He died of a stroke in 1 937.
[ woman crying .]
lt seems that Berthe Mayne had not been such a secret from the Baxter family as Quigg had thought.
Mary and her mother took her in, and she lived with them in Montreal for several months.
Eventually, she returned to Europe and resumed her career as a singer in Paris.
She never married.
Frank Goree, Quigg Baxter, Edward Smith, Joseph Bell, Thomas Andrews, and Milton Long were lost together with more than 1 ,500 others.
We may never know the exact number.
Only 337 bodies were ever recovered.
Titanic sank at two minutes past 2:00 a.
m.
, exactly 2 hours and 22 minutes after the impact with the iceberg.
Andrews had built a ship as perfect as human brains could make her.
But it was not enough to stop the water.
Exactly how does a ship that's thought to be unsinkable drown on her maiden voyage? Get out! Everybody out! [ screams .]
[ screams .]
[ people screaming .]
There's both an awe and a horror to seeing Titanic for real up close.
Five years after filming my part in the movie, l went on an expedition with James Cameron and dived the wreck site four times.
Seeing the back of the bow section where the ship broke in half, looking at the twisted metal, imagining the violence and horror of that moment, as the ship tore itself apart -- it stays with you and reminds you Titanic died a violent death.
ln your mind, you play out the tragedies of all those individuals that were lost that night.
But this watery tomb is not the only remaining connection to the past.
After the disaster, survivors were called to inquiries in New York and London to find out how the impossible had happened.
This film dramatizes their testimony and interviews -- the few who cheated death on that fateful night.
l don't think that there was any way to get to the upper deck.
Suddenly, the whole superstructure seemed to split.
Paxton : And this film brings to life the engineering blueprints of the ship itself to tell the inside story of how the biggest machine ever to move on the planet was stocked and strangled by one of the earth's simplest substances, seawater.
We really thought we'd done it.
We'd thought we'd saved her.
Paxton : Freezing, open water is one of the most deadly environments on the planet.
Lost in it, a human being will be dead in minutes.
On this uncaring, unforgiving highway, the safest, largest ship in the world took her first voyage.
lt turned out to be her last.
[ indistinct shouting .]
Barrett: l was leading fireman in Boiler Room 6.
l'd been working down in a coal mine at 1 3.
After five years, l run away to sea, but l was still working the coal.
Man : Tell Jack we're out of coal.
Come on! This is not your pleasure cruise! Paxton : 1 /3 of all the people on board Titanic are crew, and half of them are simply there to keep this ship moving -- 324 men known as ''The Black Gang.
'' Put your back into it, Tom.
The Black Gang are kept secret from the passengers.
They even have their own hidden passageways to move around without being seen.
Barrett: We were expecting four days and nights of solid slug.
The furnaces need 650 tons of coal a day, shifted by hand -- by our hands.
Paxton : Working a whole two stories below the water line, Barrett and the Black Gang feed the mighty ship a ton and a half of coal for every mile she moves.
Beyond these walls, the water pressure is almost double what it is on the surface.
She plows through the ocean, full steam ahead, the most powerful machine on the planet.
Put your backs into it! Paxton : But the length of a football field away and 1 5 stories above, two men are about to see something that will stop her forever.
Titanic is almost 300 yards long, but the iceberg is longer and wider, and every 1 0 cubic feet of berg is a ton of solid ice.
Call the bridge.
[ bell rings .]
Bridge, lookout.
lceberg right ahead.
[ bell rings .]
l repeat, iceberg right ahead.
Thank you.
Man : lceberg, right ahead.
Hard to starboard.
Hard to starboard.
Paxton : Ships have no brakes.
lt will take Titanic a half a mile to stop.
[ bell ringing .]
What is that for? Suddenly, the bell rang.
This red light comes on when the ship is supposed to stop.
Sure enough, there's the red light but we weren't supposed to stop.
l didn't know what was going on.
Paxton : They're going to have to try and steer around it.
Helm's hard over, sir.
Man : Helm's hard over.
Titanic's 1 00-ton rudder begins to move the ship.
The prow is turning left, out of danger, but Titanic is so long that the stern is still sliding towards a direct hit.
The way to drag it out of harm's way is to steer the prow back to the right, straight towards the iceberg.
Hard to port! Hard to port! Hard to port! Paxton : lce and iron are now just yards apart.
Helm's fully over, sir.
The doors.
The watertight doors.
Aye, sir.
Watertight doors! The watertight doors! [ bell rings .]
Paxton : The ship is divided into watertight compartments.
Each can be sealed off in an emergency by a door.
Each watertight door weighs over 2,000 pounds.
lf they were simply allowed to drop, they would crash right through the floor.
Hydraulic cylinders are in place to slow their descent.
They take a full 30 seconds to lock down.
[ record playing .]
Milton Clyde Long is the son of a judge from Springfield, Massachusetts.
He is 29 years old.
He is traveling alone in a first-class compartment high up on D deck, toward the front of the ship.
[ rumbling .]
[ record skipping .]
[ glass shatters .]
lt happens in seconds.
Titanic is scraping over an iceberg in mid-Atlantic.
[ creaking and scraping .]
Man : What is that noise? What's going on? At first, it didn't sound like much.
Just a bucket of coal dropped on a grate.
Whoa! Lock the doors! Paxton : Boiler Room 6 is a full 40 feet below the surface.
The water came straight through the ship's side.
lt was pouring in above the stokehold plates like the whole side was torn.
Man : Secure that hole! [ screaming .]
Paxton : The water is spraying in with the force of a fire hose from a tear just two feet above the floor they work on.
lt was a nightmare.
[ bell ringing .]
The doors drop automatically from the bridge.
We can't control them.
About to close on 6! Get out! Everybody out! Everybody out! Paxton : The slow descent of the watertight doors is deceptive.
To make sure they make a watertight seal, the huge doors are allowed to fall the last foot and a half.
The intruder is onboard.
The invasion of Titanic has begun.
250 yards toward the stern, the nightly engineering checks are underway.
lt is here that Titanic's drive shafts pierce the hull to turn her three giant propellers.
The impact will not be felt or heard here.
lt's a noisy and lonely place, which tonight may cost this crew member dearly.
[ bell ringing .]
[ screams .]
Help! Help! Hel Someone, get me a damage report.
Check nothing else is about to hit us.
Yes, sir.
Paxton : The damage is already done.
Murdoch's maneuver avoids plowing straight into the iceberg, but the ship's underbelly has scraped across a corrugated underwater shelf called an ice ram.
Titanic does not run into an iceberg.
lt runs over it.
And though the blow is glancing, the eight seconds it takes is enough to puncture Titanic's hull.
lt is 20 minutes to midnight.
ln the giant, sleeping city, hardly anyone is aware there's even been an accident.
But deep within her, a steady flow of icy water is already coming aboard.
We need a damage report immediately.
Paxton : lt is just seconds since Royal Mail Ship Titanic collided with an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic.
What is that? lt was an iceberg, sir.
Captain Edward Smith has commanded every one of White Star Line's maiden voyages for the last eight years, but most of those ships were barely half the size of Titanic.
Have you shut the watertight doors? Yes, sir.
Good.
Well, at least you sealed off any leaks.
Now get me a damage report.
-- lt's being done, sir.
-- Right.
Well, stand by, Mr.
Murdoch.
On the bridge, they can do nothing now but wait to find out if anything has been damaged down below.
ln Boiler Room 5, one room back from the flooding Room 6, the escaped crew are stunned.
ln less than a minute, they have gone from full steam ahead to full-scale disaster.
Man : What's the status of Boiler Room 5? Come on, you lot.
Shut the dampers.
Shut the dampers! Barrett: The important thing was to put the fires out.
We didn't want to be building up steam with the ship at standstill.
Get rid of that steam.
The whole bloody room will go up.
Damage report? lt's fine, sir.
Dry, sir! While they were checking, l went over to the hull wall.
lt's always icy cold.
The ocean is just the thickness of a man's hand away, but it seemed to be holding.
We need to lose that pressure! Paxton : Between the flooding Room 6 and Room 5, the watertight bulkhead backs onto a coal bunker.
lt is from this bunker that Barrett notices a telltale sound.
[ light rumble .]
[ indistinct shouting .]
The ice damage has run right along the hull, reaching the watertight bulkhead and flooding water into the coal bunker of Boiler Room 5.
None of the crew could ever imagine a situation where two watertight compartments could be breached.
But that's exactly the situation they are now faced with.
Make this secure! Make it watertight! As the men in Boiler Room 5 fight to contain the water, Titanic slowly drifts to a halt, and the familiar noises of the giant moving city cease.
For many, it is this sudden silence that is the first sign something has happened.
[ snoring .]
The son of the second vice president of the Pennsylvania Railroad, John Thayer Jr.
-- ''Jack'' to his friends -- is a student.
l was just 1 7, traveling first class with my mother and father.
We were on our way back from Berlin.
Dad.
[ snoring .]
Dad.
As soon as l felt the engine stop, l threw on an overcoat over my pajamas and ran on deck.
Paxton : Despite the impact, almost all of the passengers are still asleep.
Thayer: The Titanic was a maze, so big that even after four days, l still hadn't found my way around.
Paxton : There are over 1 2 miles of corridors on Titanic, and each of her nine decks is laid out differently from the one below.
Passageways take unexpected turns and reach sudden dead ends.
l sometimes got worried that l might get lost onboard by the time we got to New York.
What is it? What? What have you spotted? Not sure.
Ow! ls ice always that cold? Beats me.
What do you think happened? Hey, up there! Hey, lookout! Lookout! Did we hit something? No! We missed! Come on.
lt's cold.
Paxton : But they didn't miss.
Nine decks below, icy, hostile water is already onboard.
Elizabeth Dowdell is a servant.
Traveling steerage, she's escorting the daughter of her rich employer to grandparents in New York City.
Dowdell : There were only two baths provided for the whole of third class.
Just two between 7 00 passengers.
But at that time of night, l knew l had it all to myself.
Paxton : Today, the child has been hard work, but now she's safely tucked up in bed, and Dowdell can relax at last.
That's when l noticed the water moving.
lt felt like a dream at first.
l mean, how can water go uphill? [ creaking .]
But then l realized That the water must be level.
lt's always level.
lt was the room that was on a slant.
Paxton : Titanic is beginning to feel the effects of the intruder that is now onboard.
Paxton : Water has found its way onboard Titanic.
ln Boiler Room 5, fireman Fred Barrett is trying to assess what kind of grip the water has taken on the wounded ship.
We have to assume the first three compartments have flooded.
We don't know that.
And we've no way of knowing, but if they've gone, we can't afford to lose another one.
This should be easy to pump, but it's number 6 l'm worried about.
We have to get back in there.
-- How? -- Up and over.
Barrett: The only way through was to go over the emergency escape ladders, so Mr.
Shepherd and l climbed all the way up, back into Boiler Room 6.
Paxton : The watertight bulkhead stretches up 50 feet, but it doesn't reach the top of the ship.
lf it did, it would cut across the corridors, forcing passengers to climb to the promenade deck every time they wanted to move from one end of the ship to the other, so the builders compromised.
The final plans of the great ship show the bulkheads reaching up 2/3 of the hull, leaving the decks above and their corridors unbroken, which seems fine Until you realize the bulkheads now finish just 1 0 feet above the water line.
lsmay: l think it must have been the impact that awoke me.
l knew something had happened, but l wasn't quite sure what.
l pulled on my clothes over my pajamas, put on my dressing gown, and went in search of the captain.
Excuse me.
Hey! Who do you think you are? Paxton : J.
Bruce lsmay is officially on Titanic's maiden voyage merely as a passenger, but in truth, he is far, far more than that.
Man : There's no doubt -- no doubt at all, sir.
The forepeak storage room is dry.
ls there something happening here that the president of the White Star Line should know about? We've hit an iceberg.
l beg your pardon.
l believe the ship is damaged, sir.
Paxton : lsmay is the chairman of the White Star Line.
That's impossible.
Effectively, he owns Titanic, and any problem with her will be a P.
R.
disaster.
What are you doing about it? We may not have to do anything.
The watertight compartments are all sealed, and the outer bottom has probably taken the brunt of the blow.
But we seem to be taking on water.
We're flooding? Set a course north, officer.
Mr.
lsmay.
Man : Yes, sir.
Three times in my career, l have run aground, through no fault of my own.
Not once were there any serious consequences, and none of those vessels were as well-built as this one.
However, we may need to divert to carry out some repairs.
You mean we can't carry on to New York? That wouldn't be sensible, sir.
l see.
Well, one way or another, we need to get moving.
And Captain Smith This ship cannot be allowed to fail.
Stand by to alter course.
Yes, sir.
Standing by.
Paxton : lt is 1 1 :45 p.
m.
The water has been aboard for exactly five minutes.
The main damage is forward of the boiler rooms, but the series of ruptures run all the way back past Boiler Room 6, some 300 feet from the bow.
Barrett and Shepherd re-enter Boiler Room 6.
Boiler Room 6 was a lot worse than when we'd left it.
A lot worse.
There must have been about 8 feet of water in it.
Right.
Stop up all the pumps.
Paxton : There are two pumps and two drains in each room.
Each valve opens up suction in a different area of the room.
Together, they can pump 28 tons per minute Enough, perhaps, to keep the flooding at bay, provided they can keep working.
This one's blocked! Bloody coal.
Barrett: Lumps of coal had got stuck in the bo x.
We were pulling them out with our bare hands.
That's when the signal came for the engines to start again.
[ bell ringing .]
What's going on? Paxton : 300 feet back from Boiler Room 6 lies Titanic's power house, her engine room.
Up ahead, gentlemen.
Man : Up ahead! Man #2: Once more, sir! Pressure up! l need more steam! Paxton : Titanic is on the move again.
The combination of the outside water pressure and the forward thrust forces even more water into Boiler Room 6 Come on, let's get this finished! more water than the pumps can cope with.
Titanic is literally driving the water in.
Later, officers will testify that Titanic stayed at the crash site, but the truth is that around 1 1 :4 7 p.
m.
, the huge ship started to move again.
Whether it was heading for the nearest port or simply being tested for seaworthiness, no one will ever know, but more and more seawater is working its way into her wounded body.
Paxton : lt is seven minutes since Titanic hit an iceberg in the mid-Atlantic.
There is no panic or alarm amongst the passengers.
Good evening, Miss.
Good evening.
By the time l got back to my cabin, everything seemed normal.
l thought it must have just been an unexpected swell or something.
And then l noticed that the engines were running again, and l thought, ''Well, all right.
'' Thanks for keeping an eye on Virginia for me.
Oh, no problem.
She's been asleep the whole time.
l think the engines help.
Shh.
Paxton : But while the throb of the engines is comforting for the passengers, they are only adding to Titanic's plight.
ln her bow, water is coming aboard faster and faster, while the engineers remain oblivious.
Man : Steady! lsmay: l'd always had a good rapport with the chief engineer, Joseph Bell.
That's not for me to say, sir.
We had discussed at what speed the ship might run at.
He'd always seemed very knowledgeable.
l had no reason to doubt his judgment.
What l want to know from you, in your official capacity -- is the ship seaworthy enough to continue to its original destination? Mr.
lsmay, sir, that's not my decision.
l know that.
But if it were your decision, chief engineer, is the ship capable? The damage seems to be confined to the bow.
The pumps should cope, sir.
You're sure the pumps will keep her afloat? Yes, sir.
Excellent.
That's exactly the answer l was hoping for.
Right, boys.
Jobs to do.
Paxton : But the pumps aren't coping.
The forward movement of the ship is driving more and more water into the first five compartments.
The flood level is now 20 feet above the keel of the ship.
Man : Pick it up! Pick it up! ln Boiler Room 5, the water invading from behind the locker doors is still under control.
The bulging hoses are keeping the flooding at bay.
Come on! But closer to the bow, in Boiler Room 6, the engines are pushing water in almost 20 times faster than the pumps can pump it out.
Barrett: The pumps simply couldn't keep up.
We were struggling.
Keep it going! Paxton : And still, the engine room is oblivious.
Keep it steady! Titanic is steaming straight towards tragedy.
lt's no use! She's forcing the water in.
You've got to tell the bridge they need to stop.
You've got to tell them! Bo xhall : Captain.
Smith : Fetch Mr.
Murdoch.
-- Yes, sir.
Captain Smith's faith in Titanic's seaworthiness remains unshaken until he's told the news from Boiler Room 6.
Stand by and await further orders.
Sir? That was Boiler Room 6.
They say they're 8 feet deep in water and the flooding's getting worse all the time.
This -- this can't be happening.
All stop, Mr.
Murdoch.
Do not put the engines in full astern.
Do not reverse the engines.
Murdoch : Yes, sir.
Let her drift.
Even stopping the ship is now a major problem.
Stop it too fast and the water in the front of the ship will go crashing forward, causing untold damage.
[ bell ringing .]
Full stop, gentlemen! Man : Full stop! lt is seven minutes to midnight on the night of Sunday, April 1 4, 1 91 2, 1 3 minutes after impact.
[ screams .]
300 miles from land, carrying 2,000 souls in the open water of the Atlantic Ocean, the greatest ship ever built drifts to a halt.
lcy water is creeping aboard, and she will never move under her own steam again.
Paxton : lt is 1 2 minutes since Titanic hit an iceberg.
Helene Baxter, traveling with her son and daughter, has been in a state all day.
The silence from the engines is the final straw.
Helene: Why have they stopped? Why have they stopped? l want to know why they've stopped.
lt's not right.
They should be going.
Why aren't they going? l'm sure it's nothing to worry about.
ls it, Mary? No.
l need to know what's happening! All right.
All right.
All right.
l'll go find someone.
No.
And l'm telling you the ship is simply taking on too much water.
We are going to be there within hours.
She'll be flooded long before then.
Now, now, Captain.
Come on.
l built this ship.
l know what she's capable of.
She's not capable of progressing, sir.
That much is apparent.
l think you're forgetting who's in charge here, Smith.
No, sir.
l think you are.
President of the Line or not, at sea, it is the captain who makes the decisions.
[ door opens .]
Excuse me.
[ scoffs .]
Apparently, the Captain thinks it might be best if you and your mother and sister were to go up to the boat deck.
[ scoffs .]
With your life jackets.
Paxton : One deck below the Baxters' suite, first class stateroom C-90 is registered to one Madame Francoise de Villiers.
[ knock on door .]
Mrs.
de Villiers is in fact Berthe Mayne, a Belgian cabaret singer that Quigg Baxter met in a bar in Brussels.
He's persuaded her to come and start a new life with him in Montreal.
Carefully.
My whole life is in there.
-- [ laughs .]
-- Oh, don't worry.
We're gonna make a whole new life for you.
Baxter has installed his lover in her own first-class stateroom under a pseudonym, unbeknownst to his family.
Oh, look.
There's some sort of boat drill going on.
We need to get up on deck.
Put some warm clothes on and bring your life jacket.
lt won't take long.
l'll just go sort out my mother first, and then l'll come back for you.
Don't leave me.
[ chuckles .]
l'm not gonna leave you, you fool.
Wait for me outside my cabin.
l'll come straight back to you as soon as l've got them safely up on deck.
[ creaking .]
[ rumbling .]
Oh, don't worry.
lt's just part of the boat drill.
[ door opens, closes .]
The height of the water in the second and third cargo hold has now reached 1 2 feet -- high enough to pass over the top of the fireman's passage that runs down the center and into the port side of the ship.
Titanic's 5-degree list to starboard begins to shift to port.
[ screaming .]
ln Boiler Room 6, the rising seawater has forced Barrett and Shepherd to climb high.
lt was pretty obvious we weren't going anywhere, so we had one last job.
We had to get rid of the steam before the pressure burst the tank.
Aaah! Paxton : Even Titanic's own fresh water in the boilers has become a hazard.
Steam takes up 1 ,600 times the space water does as a liquid.
Unvented, it will tear Titanic apart.
lt is midnight Exactly 20 minutes after impact.
With a scream, Titanic greets the beginning of a new day.
Communication on Titanic is a problem, and not just because of the shrieking funnels.
Smith : The situation is serious, and we need to move quickly.
The boiler rooms are flooding.
Paxton : Most of the crew have little idea what is happening on the rest of the ship.
and we're venting steam.
Paxton : There are no warning lights or bells in any of the passenger areas.
The ship doesn't have any public address system.
The only way to tell 1 ,300 people that they need to get up on deck is to have the ship's 300 stewards tell them individually.
Try not to panic.
Mr.
Bo xhall, ship's position to the Marconi room.
Put out an ''all ships.
'' Paxton : Titanic is sending out a call for help.
Right, gentlemen.
To your posts.
-- Yes, sir.
-- Yes, sir.
Paxton : The ship has one lifeline to the outside world -- the most powerful Marconi wireless afloat.
But incredibly, the most sophisticated communications tool onboard relies on someone walking the entire length of the officers' quarters to deliver their message by hand.
[ beeping .]
[ knock on door .]
The Captain wants you to send out a distress signal with these coordinates.
What? [ louder .]
The Captain wants you to send out -- Stop! l can't hear.
Write it down, Bo xhall.
Here.
[ beeping .]
Paxton : Four huge cables strung between Titanic's masts act as the ship's aerial.
Her call for help will be heard for thousands of miles in all directions.
Unfortunately, Bo xhall's coordinates are wrong.
Somehow, he places the ship about 1 0 miles west and north of where it actually is.
Man : Everyone on deck.
Just after midnight, first the crew, then the passengers slowly bring Titanic awake.
Throughout the ship, Titanic's 300 stewards are trying to get the word out to the passengers.
There are no bells, no sirens, no general alarm.
[ door opens .]
Wake up.
What is it? There's something wrong.
All the engines have stopped.
There's a lot of commotion upstairs.
l think we need to get dressed.
l mean it's serious.
Come on, Virginia.
You need to get up.
There's a boat drill going on.
We need to get up on deck.
Get some life vests.
Put that on.
-- You're gonna have to help -- No! Come on, Mother.
Just give me your arm.
No.
Take this.
l'm gonna carry her.
Paxton : With the engines now shut down and the boilers venting steam, Titanic is stranded.
She must simply wait for help to arrive.
Paxton : Following the deaths of more than 1 ,500 people who perished aboard Titanic, an inquiry was called to answer this simple question -- how does an unsinkable ship go down on its maiden voyage? Although blame was spread around, no simple or easy explanation emerged.
lnstead, onboard the world's largest ship, a series of inconsequential events tragically fell into a deadly alignment.
Drawing on the testimony of those that survived, this film re-creates in forensic detail the final hours of the most famous ship in history to reveal the complex circumstances that created the perfect disaster.
Titanic is stranded in the mid-Atlantic after hitting an iceberg.
According to the Marconi room, the nearest vessel is Carpathia, 1 0 hours away.
lf the water is coming onboard slowly enough and can be controlled, Titanic will stay afloat, and help will reach them.
That is the gamble Captain Smith has made.
The lives of the crew and the passengers depends on how quickly the water overcomes the ship.
Eight decks beneath their feet, the water has managed to find its way between the hull and the double floor and is flowing into all her intricate and complex architecture.
Understanding how to help Titanic survive is enormously complicated.
lt would require a knowledge of the vessel only Thomas Andrews, the man who designed her, has.
Fortunately, he is onboard.
ls it bad? We're losing the boiler rooms.
Have you assessed the damage? The carpenter sounded the ship.
Wilde and Bo xhall have had a look.
lt's not good.
Right, then.
Time we had a look ourselves, isn't it? The situation isn't good.
Hold 1 , a vast space behind the bow, was one of the first areas to start flooding.
Now the water reaches up six entire floors, all the way from the keel to the well deck.
Hold 3 flooded to 20 feet in the first 1 0 minutes.
Since then, the depth has doubled.
Boiler Room 6 is now under 1 0 feet of water.
One by one, the water is overcoming Titanic's defenses and taking over the ship.
Sir, we've lost Boiler Room 6.
l've ordered the two men in there to evacuate.
-- Are the fires damped? -- Yes, sir.
What about elsewhere on the ship? All dry apart from Boiler Room 5.
Good.
Well, get all the stokers to the boats, and let's hope it doesn't come to that.
Sir, if we can get some suction for it, maybe we can reduce the flooding.
But we'll have to open the watertight doors to run the hoses.
Aye.
Make the call.
Yes, sir.
Mr.
Hoskin, call the bridge.
Have them unlock the watertight doors.
Paxton : The watertight doors cannot be raised electrically.
The button on the bridge keeps them locked in the up or down position.
Despite the bridge unlocking them, someone still has to open each huge door manually.
Goree, get that watertight door open.
Yes, sir.
Frank Goree is a greaser, pretty much the lowest rank onboard and perfect for the tough jobs.
All the forward compartments of the ship are now flooded.
The frontier, where the water is being held back, is Boiler Room 5.
Me and Mr.
Shepherd had just climbed back into Boiler Room 5 when engineer Harvey told the stokers they should go up to the boat deck.
Right, boys.
Everybody to their lifeboat stations.
Get a move on.
Not so fast, Barrett.
Yes, sir.
l need someone to stay behind as an extra pair of hands.
Right, sir.
Yes, sir.
And then the lights went out.
Dowdell : We took our time getting ready.
l had no idea how serious it was.
l really believed the Titanic was unsinkable.
l'm going ahead.
-- ls that okay? -- Of course.
We'll be fine.
Won't we, Virginia? Paxton : The water is starting to find its way into the electrics.
1 0,000 light bulbs illuminate the ship.
Without them, Titanic would be left cold, dark, and dead in the water.
Okay.
Come on.
Got to get going.
Dowdell : The moment l stepped out into the corridor, l knew it was bad.
The stairways were so crowded, you could hardly move.
lt was chaos.
People were moving every which way.
[ indistinct conversations .]
Paxton : ln third class, the passengers are not invited up onto the boat deck.
lnstead, they are told to wait below.
But panic is beginning to take hold.
lt's all right.
Just hold on to me.
The water is now finding its way out of the flooded holds through any open gap it can.
The entire front of the giant ship is filled with water.
Spiral staircases, installed to give the Black Gang direct access to the boiler rooms, have become wells of icy seawater a staggering six decks deep.
lronically, the only room at the front of the ship that isn't flooding is the swimming pool.
Thomas Andrews has completed his first-hand review of his great ship's status.
Well? [ sighs .]
The gross weight of the hull is 46,328 tons, but it's designed to displace 52,31 0 tons of water, a difference of some 6,000 tons.
Those 6,000 tons are what keeps the Titanic buoyant.
lf we lose five compartments, that's that extra 6,000 tons of buoyancy gone.
And that will mean the Titanic will sink.
Even before the first five compartments are completely full, the bow is going to start sinking.
The water that's in the fifth compartment will overflow into the sixth, and the sixth into the seventh.
Whole areas will become cut off.
[ crowd screaming .]
lt's important no one stays down there, Captain.
You need to get everyone on deck.
l'll have all the cabins locked.
But this may not happen.
l'm afraid it will happen, Mr.
lsmay.
You can be very sure of that.
Once this chain of events has been set in motion, it's a mathematical certainty.
What's your tipping point? When does your mathematical certainty become inevitable? When Boiler Room 5 floods.
Paxton : Boiler Room 5 has become the tipping point on which Titanic's life is balanced.
lf Barrett and the men there can hold back the water, Titanic can live.
And the cavalry is on its way.
Working their way forward from the engine room through the boiler rooms, chief engineer Bell and Frank Goree are bringing suction hoses linked to powerful pumps in the engine room.
lt's dry, sir.
Another length of hose here.
They could turn back the tide of water if they can reach Boiler Room 5 and help pump it dry.
The problem is, opening the watertight doors is only a good idea if the other side of the door is not already flooded.
On to the next one.
lf it is flooded, the water will spread.
Now let's get into Boiler Room 5.
What Bell and Goree don't know is that Boiler Room 5 is already beyond their help.
[ bell ringing .]
We couldn't believe it.
They were opening the watertight doors.
The door! The door! Shut the door! -- Open her up.
-- Sir! Seal the door! l need help, sir! Paxton : They are too late.
The water in Boiler Room 5 is already too high.
lt's flooded.
Let's away.
Whatever the fate of Boiler Room 5, it will be decided only by the men inside.
They are on their own now.
Right.
Let's try and get rid of some of this water.
[ indistinct conversations .]
Dowdell : Men and women were climbing over each other to get up there.
Every time we went up a stairwell, it was blocked.
You can't come up here, Miss.
Well, isn't this the way to the deck? You need to go back downstairs and follow the corridor.
What am l looking for? They kept telling us to go to a different part of the ship, but l don't think that there was any way to get to the upper deck.
Don't worry.
There will be someone down there to give you instructions.
Mum, you must put this on.
l will not.
Leave me.
Everyone else is wearing them.
Paxton : Most of first class is already up on the boat deck, but little appears to be happening.
-- Mum, please.
-- l am not putting it on.
-- Mother! -- No! -- l told you.
-- Help me.
Mother, please.
l told you.
l'll tell you again.
l'm not putting it on.
Long : Here, try this on.
These are the very latest in this season.
Absolutely everybody's wearing them.
[ chuckles .]
Mr.
Long, where did you get your life jacket from? ln my cabin.
They're in everyone's cabin.
There you are.
[ speaks indistinctly .]
Paxton : Berthe Mayne's scrapbook contains all her playbills and publicity shots, her reviews, and her photos.
For a woman crossing the Atlantic to start a new life, it represents a calling card and the only remaining link to her past.
She decides to go get it.
Hello! Dad? -- Oh, sorry.
-- l'm sorry, sir.
-- Are you the last one? -- Yeah.
Paxton : With C deck now successfully evacuated, the Captain has ordered all the rooms locked to prevent anyone going back down.
lt makes Berthe's decision one she will come to regret.
[ lock clicks .]
[ door rattles .]
Mayne: Hello? Hello! [ knocking .]
Hey! Please help! Paxton : On the boat deck of Titanic, there is confusion about what is happening.
No one knows how bad the situation really is.
Hold 2 in the bow of the ship is now full to capacity, and every additional ton of water in the hull is causing the bow to tip downwards.
As the damaged areas are pushed deeper underwater, more and more force is brought to bear on them.
Each of the rivets in Titanic's hull is 2 pounds of metal.
They have become brittle in the icy water.
The very things holding the great ship together begin to fail.
[ screams .]
Dowdell : Hold on to me.
Virginia? Virginia?! Virginia! Paxton : The bow is now so low that water is being forced into ventilation shafts, pipes, and ducts.
lt starts to move around the ship.
[ water gurgling .]
[ gasps .]
Help! Help! Paxton : Titanic would need at least 51 lifeboats to accommodate everyone onboard.
lt just has 1 6.
Unbelievably, this is four more boats than it is required by law to carry.
The Board of Trade believed that the more watertight subdivisions a ship has, the fewer lifeboats it needs.
Yet despite the shortage of seats, there aren't many takers.
No one has told the passengers the ship is actually sinking.
Women and children to the lifeboats, please.
Women and children, please.
Most still think that this is a drill.
Excuse me.
Will this take much longer? No, we're starting to fill the boats now, sir.
What? Man : Women and children first, sir.
Over there.
Lifeboat number 6.
Excuse me, sir.
Um, they want you in the lifeboats.
But -- but l thought it was a drill.
Yeah, l know, but l think we better do what they say, don't you? Come on, Mother.
l went back up to the boat deck and searched for my parents for quite a while.
Hey, Jack.
-- You found it.
-- Yeah.
-- Hey, you looking for Ma and Pa? -- You seen them? Oh, they were here a minute ago.
They took them over to a boat.
-- Which boat? -- l'm not sure.
l think it was on this side, though.
l thought Milton was probably right.
Most likely, they had left the ship already.
But l wanted to make sure.
-- Hey, Jack.
-- Yeah.
Mind if l tag along? Yeah, sure.
Well, goodbye, Mary.
Take care of yourself.
l'll see you both later.
Paxton : ln Boiler Room 5, the battle is turning in Titanic's favor.
By pumping the water out, Barrett and the men have succeeded in keeping the room almost dry.
That's just about all of it, sir.
Looks like we got this one beaten.
Good work, Barrett.
Looks like we might be all right after all.
But inside the coal bunker, the water is still building up.
The weight of all that liquid is pushing against the bunker doors -- doors that were not designed to be watertight.
[ creaking .]
The pressure makes the very metal begin to scream.
[ pounding .]
Titanic is about to die.
Paxton : Titanic is making her last stand against the water building up in her bow.
ln Boiler Room 5, the men have done everything they can to hold it back.
[ pounding .]
lt is not enough.
[ indistinct shouting .]
Help us! Barrett: l watched it happen.
l saw them get washed away in front of me.
Paxton : Two officers are lost.
The flow of water into the fifth compartment is constant.
Andrews' tipping point has been reached.
[ woman vocalizing .]
The loss of Titanic, a possibility from the outset, is now inevitable.
Titanic has two hours and one minute before she disappears beneath the waves forever.
Maybe they've caught a boat already.
Maybe.
But you would have thought that they'd say goodbye.
Sir, we've lost Boiler Room 5.
-- No.
-- Yes, sir.
Do you want to shut the waterproof doors again? No.
Leave them open.
Sir? Smith : We need the water spread evenly throughout the ship.
She needs to be level if we want to be able to launch those lifeboats.
Yes, sir.
Help! Help! Berthe.
-- Berthe! -- Quigg! Open the door.
l can't.
lt's locked.
Quigg : Where's your key? lt doesn't work.
lt won't budge.
Quigg! Quigg, don't leave me! l'm not gonna leave you.
l told you l'll never leave you.
l'm just thinking.
Stand back.
[ pounding on door .]
Stand back! [ sobs .]
You all right? Just get me out of here.
[ creaking .]
Dowdell : Most of the crowds had disappeared.
l don't even know where they went.
l was so focused on finding her.
lt wasn't until l found her doll that [ voice breaking .]
l looked everywhere l could for her.
[ water gurgling .]
Paxton : Water is now beginning to flow freely within the body of the dying ship.
As the flood levels increase, the watertight compartments fill until, because they do not reach the deck level, they flood over.
This creates a dreadful phenomenon when water comes down on you from above.
The flooding from above accelerates the spread of water throughout the ship, and in the meantime, it creates a further problem.
The weight of the water above the dry sections of the ship is making her unstable.
She is beginning to lurch to port.
The great ship's body is twisted and bent.
Her tortured fabric begins to groan.
Dowdell : Little by little, l felt the ship sinking.
The corridors were ankle-height with water, and l'd only been walking in them for a couple of minutes, but my feet were going numb.
Virginia? Paxton : The water now flooding onboard Titanic is 28 degrees Fahrenheit.
A human body can survive in this just a matter of minutes.
Virginia? Are you in here? Paxton : An average person can hold their breath for around a minute.
But in water of this temperature, it is not drowning that will bring death.
Those people who will die trapped on Titanic or in the waters around her will meet their deaths tonight through cold.
Titanic has reached the end of her journey.
Time is ticking away.
Sorry.
l'm not going without you.
l can't.
You know l can't.
l only came for you.
l only have you.
Shh.
[ passengers screaming .]
[ passengers screaming .]
Despite the Captain's efforts, the water is not flowing evenly throughout the hull.
The increased weight at the front of the ship is sinking her nose ever deeper.
The stern is starting to come clear of the water.
Things shift within the ship again.
Go, go, go, go.
Man : Everybody in the boats! Paxton : Titanic is beginning to tear herself apart.
7 5 minutes after impact, all the damaged compartments are filled to the water line, and the sheer weight of all that water is trying to drag the front of the ship down beneath the waves.
The ship's structure is put under incredible strain -- strain she was not designed to bear.
She has less than 60 minutes to live.
Paxton : With the flexing and bending of Titanic's hull, the ship is wringing the life out of herself.
She will be dead in under an hour.
[ clanging .]
Everybody who can must go.
[ clanging .]
What's that? The ship's flexing.
lt's time to get out of here.
No, not that.
The clanging.
Wait.
[ clanging .]
There.
lt's coming from that shaft behind the watertight door.
Get that door up.
Sir.
lt's Teffy.
Teffy, man.
[ groaning .]
-- Get that door open.
-- Aah! Goree: The wheel's gone.
Teffy, stay with me.
Are we sinking? Certainly looks like it.
Don't let me drown.
Don't let me drown.
Come on, my man.
Aah! Hold him steady there.
Please.
Please.
Make this end.
[ creaking .]
Frank, get yourself back to the engine room.
Get back to the engine room.
That's an order.
Goree: l'm not leaving him, sir.
Frank, it's every man for himself now.
But, sir! Go on.
Get yourself out of here.
-- Take the boat crew list.
Get up on deck.
-- Sir.
Teffy.
Steady.
[ gunshot .]
We'll soon have you out of there, son.
Aah! Come on.
Thank you, sir.
Each of Titanic's first three funnels services a pair of boiler rooms.
But most large ocean liners had four funnels, so the White Star Line had a fourth dummy funnel built.
The only things inside it are ventilation ducts and ladders.
Frank Goree aims to follow the engineering walkways beneath the fourth funnel all the way up to the boat deck.
lt is a quarter past 1 :00, 95 minutes after the collision.
Look at that.
There's only a dozen people in there.
lf they're sending the lifeboats away, they might as well put some people in them.
Should we try and get one? You go if you want.
l'm waiting for Mom and Dad.
No, you're probably right.
l'll wait here.
Dowdell : By the time l reached the boat deck, most of the boats were gone, but there were still people everywhere.
Oh, Virginia.
-- Virginia! -- Elizabeth! Man : Barrett, get over here.
How long have you been at sea, Barrett? 1 0 long years, sir.
Right.
About time you learned to sail, then.
Take charge of this boat.
Right, sir.
Yes, sir.
Right, lads.
Take her away.
Elizabeth.
Elizabeth! Wait! -- Elizabeth.
Man : Sorry, Miss.
This boat is full.
You'll have to wait for the next one.
But that's my little girl.
Elizabeth! Man : All right, then.
But we can't haul it back up again.
You'll have to jump.
Careful, Miss.
But then l thought, ''lt's not getting any nearer.
'' Man : Thank God.
Oh! Right.
Come on.
Let's move on.
Paxton : Frank Goree hasn't managed to get on deck.
The exit door is wedged shut or locked or both.
He has little choice but to keep climbing.
[ creaking .]
Goree: ''April 1 5, 1 91 2, from Titanic.
Goodbye, all.
Goree of Southampton, England.
'' Paxton : Titanic has five minutes to live.
Water is starting to pour through portholes, doors, and passageways.
lt is this secondary flooding that sends Titanic over the edge.
Despite the damage to the hull, it will be this flooding from above that will finally sink her.
Good luck, Jack.
Good luck to you, too.
[ passengers screaming .]
[ water splashes .]
But you are coming, boy, aren't you? l told him l would be with him in a minute.
Sure.
l'll be right with you.
l never saw him again.
Come on.
You can do this.
You know you can do this.
Those few seconds between our jumps meant the difference between being sucked into the water or being pushed out by the backwash.
l was pushed out.
[ passengers screaming .]
As Titanic sinks, those in the bow section are taken under with the ship.
Some are trapped in air pockets, so they can breathe for a while.
As the water pressure builds up, the air pockets reach a point where they simply implode [ air hissing .]
killing anyone still alive inside.
Titanic had embarked with more than 2,200 souls onboard.
At least 2/3 of them would die in the icy water left in her wake.
But the survivors, their lives would never be the same.
Many of them would remain forever haunted by the things they saw and experienced that night.
Barrett: As a rule, a stoker never carries a watch at work.
You'd think l'd know, wouldn't you? The most incredible thing l've seen, and l don't know when it was.
Paxton : Fred Barrett testified before the U.
S.
and U.
K.
inquiries into the disaster.
Keep her steady.
Afterwards, he disappeared from history.
He was never heard of again.
The rumble and roar continued, as the tearing and wrenching as boilers and engines were torn from their beds.
Suddenly, the whole superstructure seemed to split.
[ creaking .]
[ passengers screaming .]
Paxton : Jack Thayer graduated from the University of Pennsylvania and went into banking.
ln 1 945, after a bout of depression, he took his own life.
He was 51 .
[ creaking .]
[ screams .]
[ passenger screaming .]
[ woman vocalizing .]
Dowdell : First the bow disappeared, and then, shortly after, the whole ship was devoured.
lt's the only way to describe it.
Devoured by the ocean.
Paxton : Elizabeth Dowdell attended the New York premiere of the Titanic film ''A Night to Remember'' in 1 958.
She passed away in Bronx, New York, at the age of 7 0.
Her charge, Virginia Emanuel, age 5 on this day in 1 91 2, lived until 1 97 2.
J.
Bruce lsmay resigned as the chairman of the White Star Line and became a virtual recluse.
He died of a stroke in 1 937.
[ woman crying .]
lt seems that Berthe Mayne had not been such a secret from the Baxter family as Quigg had thought.
Mary and her mother took her in, and she lived with them in Montreal for several months.
Eventually, she returned to Europe and resumed her career as a singer in Paris.
She never married.
Frank Goree, Quigg Baxter, Edward Smith, Joseph Bell, Thomas Andrews, and Milton Long were lost together with more than 1 ,500 others.
We may never know the exact number.
Only 337 bodies were ever recovered.
Titanic sank at two minutes past 2:00 a.
m.
, exactly 2 hours and 22 minutes after the impact with the iceberg.
Andrews had built a ship as perfect as human brains could make her.
But it was not enough to stop the water.