Italian Cruise Ship Disaster

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What a nightmare for the people aboard this ship.

The number of significant negligent errors made by the captain of this vessel that caused and contributed to the deaths and injuries of those on the ship, and which resulted in mind-boggling property destruction, is almost beyond belief.

Quote:

The New York Times
January 16, 2012
Cruise Ship Owners Blame Human Error as Death Toll Rises
By GAIA PIANIGIANI and ALAN COWELL

GIGLIO, Italy — The owners of a $450 million cruise ship that ran aground and capsized near an Italian island, killing at least six people, blamed human error by its commander, saying on Monday that he made an “unapproved, unauthorized maneuver” to divert from its programmed course.

The company had earlier suggested that the 52-year-old skipper, Francesco Schettino, may have taken the ship, the Costa Concordia, and its complement of 4,200 passengers and crew, including 120 Americans, too close to the rocky shoreline. News photographs on Monday showed the vessel half-submerged and canted over at an extreme angle with its funnel jutting out over the Mediterranean waters, almost within touching distance of Giglio’s port.

Rescue efforts were suspended indefinitely on Monday after the stricken cruise liner slipped on its rocky resting place and settled farther into the water, according to the firefighters heading the operation. At least 15 people, including two Americans, were still missing.

“We still hope to find somebody alive,” said Sergio Ortelli, the mayor of Giglio, walking up and down the dock on Monday morning. “But the more time passes by, the less hope we have.”

At a news conference in the Italian port of Genoa on Monday, cited in news reports, Pier Luigi Foschi, the chairman and chief executive of Costa Cruises, said the company “will be close to the captain and will provide him with all the necessary assistance, but we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error.”

Mr. Foschi also said the vessel was carrying 2,300 tons of fuel but there were no signs of leakage so far.

He said the company’s ships were fitted with alarms that sounded when they deviated from preprogrammed courses. “This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa,” he said.

On Sunday, the company said Captain Schettino, of Naples, Italy, may have caused the crash by taking the ship too close to Giglio, an island off the coast of Tuscany and the Argentario peninsula.

The Italian police detained Captain Schettino for questioning on charges of manslaughter, failure to offer assistance and abandonment of the ship.

With its shares falling by almost 16 percent in London on Monday, Carnival Corp., the owner of Costa Cruises and the world’s biggest cruise operator, said the incident would cost at least $95 million and probably result in additional costs that could not yet be determined.

“At this time, our priority is the safety of our passengers and crew,” Micky Arison, Carnival’s chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. “We are deeply saddened by this tragic event, and our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives.”

The ship grounding came just as the luxury cruise industry’s busiest time of year was getting under way, and travel agents expressed fear that it would lead to a big drop in bookings. Roughly one-third of all cruise vacations are arranged in the January-March quarter.

In service since 2006, the Costa Concordia, which cost $450 million when new, was promoted by the cruise line as one of its biggest and most modern luxury vessels, with year-round sailings, 1,500 cabins, swimming pools with retractable glass roofs and a range of pricing options, primarily targeting passengers from Europe.

The ship was constructed by Fincantieri Cantieri Navali Italiani SpA, a leading shipbuilder based in the northeast port of Trieste. Fincantieri is building another ship for Costa, the Costa Fascinosa, at a cost of roughly $700 million, scheduled to go into service in May.

On Sunday, rescue workers searched the luxury liner for survivors and found three, including a couple on their honeymoon who was found inside a cabin, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for the Italian fire brigade that rescued them.

Later, rescuers evacuated the ship’s purser by helicopter, hoisting him strapped to a stretcher. The purser, Manrico Giampedroni, 57, from the northwestern region of Liguria, had a broken leg.

Rescuers searching the vessel found the body of a man in a corridor, The Associated Press reported on Monday. On Sunday, divers found the bodies of two elderly men, one from Spain and one from Italy, both wearing life jackets, said Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro, a coast guard spokesman. The discoveries brought the confirmed death toll to six.

On Sunday, Costa Cruises issued a statement saying that “there may have been significant human error” by Captain Schettino that caused the ship to run aground on a rocky outcropping near this resort island on Friday.

“The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and in handling the emergency, the captain appears not to have followed standard Costa procedures,” the statement said.

The statement appeared to diverge from the company’s comments on Saturday when it said that the Costa Concordia had followed the normal course it follows “52 times a year.” The company had also commended Captain Schettino, saying he “immediately understood the severity of the situation” and “initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/europe/death-toll-rises-to-6-in-italian-cruise-ship-accident.html?_r=1&hp

Costa still has to explain why the passengers had not been instructed in emergency evacuation procedures as soon as the ship set sail (the instruction was scheduled for later in the day of the crash), or why, according to some passengers, the crew appeared untrained to handle the emergency and evacuation procedures, which resulted in more panic and chaos. It also appears that the evacuation order was delayed too long, and that the distress signal requesting help from from other ships and boats was not sent until after the evacuation order was given.

The captain is being detained for suspicisions of manslaughter, failing to offer assistance, and abandoning the ship.

He denies abandoning the ship, but, if that accusation proves true, it is really the absolute last straw against offering him any mercy in terms of legal punishments.

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IMO Capt. Schettino should be summarily executed.
How did a coward like that ever get a master's papers to begin with?

4 Replies

@Lustig Andrei,

I wrote this yesterday on the What made you grimace thread:

The cruise ship off of (well, close to) the island of Giglio, part of Tuscany, going down inexorably on a reef for not yet proven reasons, captained by a guy I take as italian that sounds like a fool but maybe there is still a chance he is not the out and out liar I take him for*, with passengers that seemed to have fended for themselves with spare help from captain or crew; that is the impression in reports - except one guy who stayed to help people get out, and was recently rescued himself. We don't know it was only that guy that helped.

* Captain quoted in one piece I read as saying the power failed and then the ship had big noise (or something like that); passengers saying there was a big bump and then the lights went out while dishes plummeted. Captain going on about they're being 300 meters from (rocks) per map; reports of cruise boat routines (routines!) to do a dip/bow to island communities.

This is just hours after I finished Rita Levi-Montalcini's excellent autobiography, she being a science nobel prize winner (nerve growth factor) who endured a lot of whoohah as a girl born in the victorian era in Turin, eventually having labs in St. Louis and Rome, but doing some of her early work in her bedroom hiding from the nazis in Florence. Anyway, at the end of the book, she goes into the negatives and positives of italian behavior re science funding, interesting to me as one more piece of the puzzle. Italophile that I am, I've read endless accounts by italy interested writers, including italians, about the place being Dysfunction Centrale, my words for it. Sometimes there are good points to that, as she describes, but this present occasion seems like a prototype scenario re poor ship driving.

The book, should anyone be interested, is "In Praise of Imperfection".
I take it she's still alive, re wiki - born in 1909.

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I never realized how basically unregulated the cruise ship industry is.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/17/world/europe/death-toll-rises-to-6-in-italian-cruise-ship-accident.html?ref=world

1 Reply

@firefly,

I just returned from a 10-day cruise of the Caribbean, and we had to have a safety drill before we set sail. We had to don our water vests and go to the collection point when they sounded the alarm. They announced this practice drill at least 15-minutes before sounding the alarm. For those who didn't bring one with them, they were told they would be provided one. They also explained how to wear the vests, and its use. Everyone had to be accounted for before they let everybody go.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Someone I know who also just returned from a Caribbean cruise told me they had the same safety drill you described either before the ship set sail, or immediately after it set sail, I don't remember which, but he was shocked that the Italian ship hadn't had the drill at all.

But, an additional factor on the Italian ship was that the captain apparently waited too long before giving the evacuation order, the ship was already starting to tilt. That made it more difficult to lower the life boats, more difficult for people to get out of certain areas of the ship, and just the increasing tilting would have created more panic and chaos.

I was reading that there are mechanisms on a ship like that that are designed to go into effect to prevent tilting and keep the ship upright, and part of the investigation will be to look at whether those functioned or not or whether they functioned and failed.

3 Replies

@firefly,

cruising is a pasttime of which I could never understand the draw. You arer in this huge top-heavy freak of nature thrown together with people who youd never ever hang out with in life, and being served by people who have relatively little familiarity with the sea or the technology of the cruise ship.
Then you commit 10 dqays to a month to living the life wishing you could jump ship and swim to an island on the horizon.
I went on one cruise by insistance of my wife. Good thing she hated it too.
Sitting on a ship being force fed like a veal calf mad me feel like we were being fattened up for some ceremony in which we would be "served-up".

If youve gotta get that type of travel out of yer system, book passage on a fruit freighter to some central American port. We did that once with our family and another family. Everybody loved it. It was as if we were part of the ship, not some artificial existence that was made up just for us.
The food was great and ample, just not sinfully wasteful. The cooks (they were called cooks) always had extra treats and snacks and they served a high tea and there was entertainment that was all part of the ships mission. (the kids were engaged in geography hgames and map reading) . The banana boat cruises would take on maybe 25 to 30 passengers tops.
I dont think Id book a ride a Great Lakes Ore carrier though, they seem to have design issues. I was on one in the 80's as part of a DMIR project and we went from the Mesabi to an offload facility for Jones and LAughlin steel. The three day ride was , lets say, exciting and it was just around the time after Gordon Lightfoots song

3 Replies

It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the industry.

David

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@farmerman,

I love the way that the news was saying that the ship, after it struck the rock, has been listing to starboard. IT SUNK!!! it aint listing. That part of the boat is resting comfortably on the bottom and the reason that the rest of the ship hasnt disappeared is because the bottom is rather shallow.
I think that this baby will become a "reef". since these things are modularly built I assume they could refloat it after an underwater patch job, but theyll probably have to use the floaty bags to get that beast out of its cradle.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

cruising is a pasttime of which I could never understand the draw. You arer in this huge top-heavy freak of nature thrown together with people who youd never ever hang out with in life, and being served by people who have relatively little familiarity with the sea or the technology of the cruise ship.
Then you commit 10 dqays to a month to living the life wishing you could jump ship and swim to an island on the horizon.
I went on one cruise by insistance of my wife. Good thing she hated it too.
Sitting on a ship being force fed like a veal calf mad me feel like we were being fattened up for some ceremony in which we would be "served-up".

Thay did THAT to u????????
What 'd happened to the food resisters ???

David

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

yes they kept us in pens and force fed us and rubbed our belliies with beer.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

yes they kept us in pens and force fed us and rubbed our belliies with beer.

WoW! No wonder u didn't like it.
Even non-libertarians don 't like that.

How was the beer ?

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

I almost suspect he is pulling our collective leg.

1 Reply

@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

IMO Capt. Schettino should be summarily executed.
How did a coward like that ever get a master's papers to begin with?

Make him walk the plank ?

0 Replies

@roger,

I can never tell whether DAves questions are in the spirit of recognizing irony or not. He can be such a literalist sometimes.

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@firefly,

True; some ships have drills before sailing, and some after. I remember that, because my wife got seasick on our first cruise to the Caribbean some decades ago. She threw up on the tender level during the drill - after embarkation.

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@firefly,

I went on a couple of those cruises as well - in the Carribbean and Mexico. In both cases, they did a drill almost immediately after setting sail. These types everyone gets on at the same place and cruises for a certain number of days and then all get off.

I think the difference in this Italian cruise is - people embarked and disembarked at different locations. So you may have come on at destination A, they had a drill that day, but then the next day at destination B - Fred came on board - I believe the requirements are to have drills every so many days. So I was all set having been in the drill, but poor Fred missed it and so he had to wait 10 days or whatever for the next one.

1 Reply

@Linkat,

Water jackets are always in the stateroom, and putting them on is very simple. The back side of the entry door has a notice on where your group should go when the alarm sounds - usually 6 or 7 short blasts and one long one.

Even when we are provided instructions in the ship's theater before the drill on how to put on the water jacket for the first time, many go with them already on. We are grouped by letters and numbers, and each passenger is identified by the ship's staff.

I think it's pretty efficient.

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How stable are cruise ships like the Costa Concordia?
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21360-how-stable-are-cruise-ships-like-the-costa-concordia.html

0 Replies

This speaks for itself. The Captain abandoned his ship and refused an order to return to it.

Quote:

‘Go On Board!’ Transcript Shows Cruise Captain Resisted Returning to Ship
By Associated Press
January 17, 2012

Here is a translation of the transcript of the conversation between Capt. Francesco Schettino, commander of the grounded Costa Concordia, and Capt. Gregorio De Falco of the Italian coast guard in Livorno. In the conversation, De Falco repeatedly orders Schettino to return to the ship to oversee the evacuation, while Schettino resists, making excuses that it’s dark and that the ship is listing. The audio was first made available on the website of Corriere della Sera, and the Italian coast guard confirmed its authenticity Tuesday to The Associated Press.

—De Falco: “This is De Falco speaking from Livorno. Am I speaking with the commander?”

—Schettino: “Yes. Good evening, Cmdr. De Falco.”

—De Falco: “Please tell me your name.”

—Schettino: “I’m Cmdr. Schettino, commander.”

—De Falco: “Schettino? Listen Schettino. There are people trapped on board. Now you go with your boat under the prow on the starboard side. There is a pilot ladder. You will climb that ladder and go on board. You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear? I’m recording this conversation, Cmdr. Schettino…”

—Schettino: “Commander, let me tell you one thing…”

—De Falco: “Speak up! Put your hand in front of the microphone and speak more loudly, is that clear?”

—Schettino: “In this moment, the boat is tipping…”

—De Falco: “I understand that, listen, there are people that are coming down the pilot ladder of the prow. You go up that pilot ladder, get on that ship and tell me how many people are still on board. And what they need. Is that clear? You need to tell me if there are children, women or people in need of assistance. And tell me the exact number of each of these categories. Is that clear? Listen Schettino, that you saved yourself from the sea, but I am going to… I’m going to make sure you get in trouble. …I am going to make you pay for this. Go on board, (expletive)!”

—Schettino: “Commander, please…”

—De Falco: “No, please. You now get up and go on board. They are telling me that on board there are still…”

—Schettino: “I am here with the rescue boats, I am here, I am not going anywhere, I am here…”

—De Falco: “What are you doing, commander?”

—Schettino: “I am here to coordinate the rescue…”

—De Falco: “What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?”

—Schettino: “No, I am not refusing.”

—De Falco: “Are you refusing to go aboard commander? Can you tell me the reason why you are not going?”

—Schettino: “I am not going because the other lifeboat is stopped.”

—De Falco: “You go aboard. It is an order. Don’t make any more excuses. You have declared ‘abandon ship.’ Now I am in charge. You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me? Go, and call me when you are aboard. My air rescue crew is there.”

—Schettino: “Where are your rescuers?”

—De Falco: “My air rescue is on the prow. Go. There are already bodies, Schettino.”

—Schettino: “How many bodies are there?”

—De Falco: “I don’t know. I have heard of one. You are the one who has to tell me how many there are. Christ.”

—Schettino: “But do you realize it is dark and here we can’t see anything…”

—De Falco: “And so what? You want go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!”

—Schettino: “…I am with my second in command.”

—De Falco: “So both of you go up then … You and your second go on board now. Is that clear?”

—Schettino: “Commander, I want to go on board, but it is simply that the other boat here … there are other rescuers. It has stopped and is waiting…”

—De Falco: “It has been an hour that you have been telling me the same thing. Now, go on board. Go on board! And then tell me immediately how many people there are there.”

—Schettino: “OK, commander”

—De Falco: “Go, immediately!”
http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/01/17/go-on-board-transcript-shows-cruise-captain-resisted-returning-to-ship/

An Italian judge has placed the Captain under house arrest.

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Italian Cruise Ship Disaster

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