Timeline of United States discoveries four days into the ship's maiden voyage, "Titanic" struck an iceberg and sank two hours and forty minutes later, early on April 15, 1912. The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 of the 2,223 people on board, making it one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in history. After nearly 74 years of being lost at sea on the bottom of the ocean floor, a joint Franco-American expedition led by American oceanographer Dr. Robert D. Ballard, discovered the wreckage of the RMS "Titanic" two miles (3 km) beneath the waves of the North Atlantic on September 1, 1985. Ballard
Sinking of the RMS Titanic believed that ice posed little risk; close calls were not uncommon, and even head-on collisions had not been disastrous. In 1907, , a German liner, had rammed an iceberg and suffered a crushed bow, but was still able to complete her voyage. That same year, "Titanic"s future captain, Edward Smith, declared in an interview that he could not "imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that." As "Titanic" approached her fatal collision, most passengers had gone to bed and command of the bridge had passed from Second Officer Charles Lightoller to First