Titanic's tragic final moments revealed in first 3D scan

Titanic's tragic final moments revealed through first 3D scan - Photo 1.

The scans were made for the new National Geographic and Atlantic Productions documentary "Titanic: The Digital Resurrection" - Photo: Atlantic Productions/Magellan

According to the Independent , the latest digital scans confirm the accounts of many witnesses, showing that engineers worked until the last minute to keep the Titanic's lights on.

Titanic in its final hours

The 3D replica was created by robots that dived 3,800m to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, taking more than 700,000 images to create a "digital replica" of the wreck.

One of the new details discovered by the scans is a window that may have been smashed by an iceberg, which appears to support survivors' accounts of ice and water entering the passenger compartments during the impact.

A computer simulation also showed holes in the hull, about the size of an A4 sheet of paper.

This was most likely the cause of the ship's sinking, resulting in the deaths of 1,500 people after the ship hit an iceberg in 1912.

"The ship still has stories to tell," said Titanic analyst Parks Stephenson.

The scans were made for a new documentary by National Geographic and Atlantic Productions called Titanic: The Digital Resurrection .

“Like a crime scene, you need to see the evidence clearly, in the context of where it was found,” Stephenson said. “Getting a comprehensive view of the entire wreck site is key to understanding what really happened here.”

Titanic's tragic final moments revealed through first 3D scan - Photo 2.

The Titanic sank, killing 1,500 people, after hitting an iceberg in 1912 - Photo: Atlantic Productions/Magellan

The lights were still on when the Titanic sank.

Although the Titanic's manufacturers had claimed that the ship was unsinkable, the ship suffered massive damage when an iceberg tore through six compartments, flooding them. Over the next several hours, the ship began to list severely. Passengers reported that the lights were still on as the ship sank.

Because the boiler room is located at the rear of the bow - where the ship broke in two - experts were able to observe some of the boilers, which were dented inward, still operating. A valve was also seen in an open state, with water still flowing into the power generation system.

The engineering team responsible for staying on board to continue shoveling coal into the furnace all died in the disaster.

They sacrificed their lives to ensure that the light remained on, allowing the crew to lower the lifeboats.

Simulations of the ship also show that although the Titanic only grazed the edge of the iceberg, it caused a series of holes to tear along the ship's hull.

"The difference between the Titanic sinking or not was very small details. These were holes the size of a sheet of paper," said Simon Benson, a visiting lecturer in naval architecture at Newcastle University.

"But the problem was that those small holes were spread across a large section of the hull, so water slowly but continuously poured in through all those holes, and eventually the watertight compartments gave way and the Titanic sank."

The Titanic, owned and operated by the British company White Star Line, sank in the early hours of April 15. Scans also revealed passengers' personal belongings scattered around the nearby seabed.

The wreck is rapidly deteriorating underwater and could disappear completely within the next 40 years.