THE discovery of two large pieces of the Titanic's hull has indicated that the ship sank much faster than previously believed, researchers have revealed.
The hull pieces were a crucial part of the ship's structure and make up a bottom section of the vessel that was missing when the wreck was first located in 1985.
After the bottom section of the hull broke free, the bow and stern split, said Roger
Long, a naval architect who analysed the find. The stern, which was still buoyant and filled with passengers, probably plunged toward the ocean floor about five minutes later.
David Brown, a Titanic historian, said: "It would have been immediately terrifying."
Previous researchers believed the ship broke in only two major pieces, the bow and stern, which was how the sinking was depicted in the 1997 film version of the catastrophe.
Before the latest find, Mr Brown estimated that the stern took 20 minutes to slide into the water. "What we assumed was it broke up because it sank," Mr Brown said. "Now we know it sank because it broke up."
The newly discovered sections, located about a third of a mile from the stern of the wreck, were examined during an expedition in August. Titanic experts met this week to discuss their analysis of the find.
The sections, both about 40ft by 90ft and once a single section, were in good condition, with red bottom paint still visible. The missing sections had been believed to have fragmented into hundreds of small pieces.
The 46,000-tonne liner was billed as "practically unsinkable", but it struck an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank about two and a half hours later, on 15 April 1912, killing 1,500 people.
