How did the Titanic sink

							The crew on the bridge of the ship did not see that they were approaching
an iceberg until it was too late to take avoiding action. This iceberg
was not in an area of ocean where they expected to see any so it was a
surprise when they hit it.

The iceberg made a gash in the side of the ship for about 1/4 of its
length. There was no way that they could prevent water from getting in.
The internal design of the ship was not good. There were too many
internal routes for the floodwater to spread around and by-pass internal
watertight doors.

The ship flooded and eventually it sank. There was a lot of confusion
about its exact position when the collision was reported by the wireless
operator. At that date (1912) not all ocean going ships were equipped
with radio, and nobody had radar, so the nearest ships to receive the
distress calls were many hours sailing time away.
There was another design fault: not enough lifeboats to carry everybody
on board.

So poor design, weak navigation, the delay in help arriving plus the
inadequate lifeboats all lead to thousands of people dying in the
disaster. If any one of these things had been done better then more
people would have survived.

In most major disasters like this (including train and aeroplane crashes)
there is always more than one thing that happens to make the accident so
terrible and contributes to the loss of life.