Titanic Incident

The Titanic Incident was an event that occurred on Christmas day where Max Capricorn attempted to wipe out all life on Earth by crashing the Titanic onto the planet's surface. Ultimately, his plan failed when the Tenth Doctor prevented the crash, saving the remaining passengers and the human race.

The Incident
On December 2008, the vessel, under the command of Captain Hardaker, travelled to Earth to allow its passengers to experience the Earth holiday of Christmas. The vessel was bedecked with Christmas decorations and its band performed Christmas songs. Some facts related to the holiday were skewed by the ship's poorly-informed history expert, Mr Copper. (TV: Voyage of the Damned) The Tenth Doctor, fresh from leaving Martha Jones on Earth in the aftermath of the Year That Never Was, (TV: Last of the Time Lords) and a brief encounter with his fifth incarnation, (TV: Time Crash) accidentally collided his TARDIS with the Titanic, (TV: Last of the Time Lords, Time Crash) though neither vessel was damaged. The Doctor boarded the vessel, effectively as a stowaway, and befriended several passengers as well as crewmembers Copper and Astrid Peth.

Unknown to the passengers and crew, Max Capricorn had arranged for the Titanic to be destroyed in Earth orbit to take revenge on the board of directors of his company, who had forced him out of his own firm. Captain Hardaker, terminally ill, had agreed to pilot the vessel in return for his family being taken care of. Capricorn, himself a cyborg, also boarded the vessel but expected to be protected from the disaster and later rescued.

Hardaker orchestrated matters so that the ship's shields would be lowered as three small asteroids approached the vessel. The resulting impact killed most of the crew and passengers (including Hardaker), but did not destroy the vessel outright. Capricorn had arranged for the Hosts' programming to be changed so that they would kill any survivors. Over the next few hours, the Doctor and his friends, assisted by the Titanic's only surviving bridge crewmember, Midshipman Alonso Frame, worked to stop it from crash-landing on the Earth, which the Doctor feared would cause an explosion strong enough to wipe out all life on the planet.

Efforts to stabilise the orbit failed and the Titanic entered the Earth's atmosphere. After defeating Capricorn and rendering the Hosts harmless, the Doctor narrowly prevented the Titanic from crashing into Buckingham Palace in London, and started the vessel's secondary storm drive by using the heat of re-entry to fire it up, returning it to space. The vessel, under the temporary command of Alonso Frame, was salvaged after he sent a distress call. (TV: Voyage of the Damned)

Panda used a Time Scrunchy to travel onboard the Titanic, where he was chased by the Heavenly Host when they began to attack the passengers of the ship. (PROSE: From Wildthyme with Love)

Aftermath
After the incident with the Titanic, the Doctor relocated Mr. Copper to Earth for his own safety, providing him with millions of dollars in cash on a credit card. (TV: Voyage of the Damned) With help from Harriet Jones, Mr. Copper would go on to found the Copper Foundation, which would prove to be a big help in thwarting the Daleks during the Planetary Relocation Incident a few months later. (TV: The Stolen Earth/Journey's End)

Parallel world
In a parallel world, a spacefaring replica of the RMS Titanic fell from the sky on 25 December 2008, crashing into Buckingham Palace. Donna Noble and her immediate family saw the falling ship on the news from the safety of Firbourne House, then felt the shockwave as it crashed. (TV: Turn Left)While the resulting explosion wasn't enough to wipe out all life on Earth, (TV: Turn Left) as could have been the case, (TV: Voyage of the Damned) it obliterated London and resulted in a mushroom cloud which covered the whole of southern England with radiation.

Watching the cloud rise over London, Sylvia Noble mournfully assumed that everyone they knew had died.

The crash of the Titanic led to a refugee crisis, starting a series of events which resulted in the country becoming a police state. (TV: Turn Left)