Italian Cruise Ship Disaster

Costa Concordia: blame game begins between cruise ship owners and captain
Nick Squires on Giglio
20 Jan 2012

In a damning criticism, the president of Costa Cruises, Pier Luigi Foschi accused Francisco Schettino of having "character problems" and failing to tell the company the whole truth of the scale of the accident for crucial minutes before an order to abandon ship was given.

The death toll so far is 11, with 21 people from half a dozen countries still missing.

"Had it been abandoned before, we would not have lost human lives," Mr Foschi said.

Mr Schettino insisted through his lawyer yesterday that he kept his superiors fully informed of the unfolding drama, while Costa Cruises accused him of gross negligence and trying to cover up the accident.

Bruno Leporatti, the 52-year-old captain's lawyer, said: "It goes without saying that Francesco Schettino kept Costa informed of everything that was happening on the ship," as the 114,500 tonne ship started taking on water after hitting the rocks off the island of Giglio last Friday evening.

The exchanges between him and port authorities will have been recorded in the ship's Voyage Data Recorder, the nautical equivalent of a plane's black box, which are being scrutinised by Italian police and prosecutors.

But Mr Foschi contradicted Mr Schettino's account yesterday, saying the commander had only contacted the company at 10.05pm – 23 minutes after the ship smashed into the rocky shoals.

He said the Captain had told the company's command centre that the ship had simply suffered an electricity "blackout", rather than a catastrophic breach that led to it being grounded on a rocky shelf near Giglio's tiny port.

"Personally, I believe he was not honest with us," said Mr Foschi. Asked if he thought the captain was drunk or on drugs, he said: "I believe he was not emotionally balanced. He was seeing his ship sinking in front of him." He strenuously denied suggestions that the company had connived with the captain not to order the ship's evacuation in order to avoid a massive compensation payment to passengers.

An Italian shipping lawyer explained: "If the vessel had been abandoned the captain would have lost command of the ship," an Italian shipping lawyer said.

"It would have passed to the captain of the port and the company would have lost the value of the vessel immediately."

Mr Foschi said: "I assure you absolutely that no one thought in financial terms. That would be a choice that would violate our ethics." Costa Cruises had only realised the enormity of the situation when the captain finally gave the order to abandon ship at 10.58pm – 76 minutes after hitting the rocks, he said.

A source within Costa Cruises told The Daily Telegraph: "What is now critical to the investigation is that 70 minute period between the collision and the captain giving the mayday call. The question is, what was the ship saying to the command centre – was it accurate or misleading?

"The sense within the company is that the command centre was entirely misled in those early stages. The captain was telling us 'It's an electrical blackout, we'll get back to you.'"

Mr Schettino is under house arrest at his home in Meta di Sorrento near Naples and is likely to face charges of abandoning his ship, causing a shipwreck and multiple counts of manslaughter.

The firm considers itself an injured party in the accident, which industry experts say could turn out to be the biggest maritime insurance claim in history.

"This will probably be the largest compensation in the history of maritime accidents," said Antonio Coviello, an insurance expert with Italy's National Research Council. "Just compensation for passengers who lost their belongings will be around 30 million euros" (£26 million).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9028865/Costa-Concordia-blame-game-begins-between-cruise-ship-owners-and-captain.html

I still don't see where the Coast Guard was doing an adequate, conscientous job. Stop telling the confused captain what he should do, for Pete's sake, and organize boats, choppers, everything on shore to go in and rescue the passengers and crew!

10:10pm: The "abandon ship" signal is given: seven short whistles and one long. Lifeboats begin their deployment.

- 10:20pm: The coastguard launches rescue operations with the help of speedboats and helicopters. Giglio's 800-strong population turns out in force to help transfer passengers to shore. Many passengers jump into the chilly waters instead of boarding lifeboats.

The people who carry the insurance for these ships should crack down that was a half billion dollars ship crew by the cheapest crew that the crew line could find.

Costa Concordia captain ‘cried like a baby’ after the crash
Agence France-Presse
Jan 20, 2012

ROME — The captain of the wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship “cried like a baby” as he hugged its chaplain
hours after the Costa’s crash, the luxury liner’s priest said in an interview Friday.

That priest does not think much of confidentiality.

Well, in all fairness, David, this alleged weeping jag was not within the sanctum sanctorum of a confessional.

Even so, the guy is a blabbermouth; not to his professional credit.

Even so, the guy is a blabbermouth; not to his professional credit.

Agreed. But largely irrelevant.

It is all about what the market dictates unless fools around the world trust fools who bury a national economy for a few fanciful outcomes.

Society needs balances and controls on businesses by way of governments oversights and the citizens need to have oversight on both businesses and government as both are wonderful servants but are poor masters.

'It's all a publicity stunt': Captain Coward claims bosses knew about sail-by salutes years before cruise ship tragedy
By Nick Pisa On Giglio Island and Pamela Owen
Last updated at 5:27 PM on 22nd January 2012

Cruise ship captain Francesco Schettino has claimed that his bosses knew about the tradition of 'sail by salutes' and that he was asked to do them for publicity stunts, it has emerged.

The news comes as the death toll rises to 13 and the number of people missing 20. The body of a woman was found by rescuers on deck seven, about 10 metres below the water line.

It has also emerged that there could be a number of unregistered passengers aboard the ship, making the number of missing people much higher.

According to details of an interview with Schettino, 52, he said that Costa Cruises 'knew about the regular practice' of sailing close by islands and it was carried out 'all around the world'.
He told prosecutors and the investigating judge, in documents leaked by the Italian media, that the company planned the salutes to time with local public holidays on the islands they were due to cruise past.
Schettino's latest claims were a direct contradiction of what Costa chief Pierluigi Foschi said last week at a press conference where he said a 'sail by had been authorised just once before' in the summer of 2010 off the island of Procida, close to Naples.

His version of events in the 135 page judicial document now raises serious questions over just what Costa Cruises knew the night of the disaster and it may explain why Schettino waited for more than an hour to raise the alarm and why he made a series of phone calls to company chiefs at their HQ in Genoa.
They have always insisted that he had 'lied to them' over the incident where the Concordia scrapped rocks and that he made a 'serious error of judgement' in sailing so close past the island of Giglio - just 350ft instead of the regulatory five miles.
Schettino said: 'The salute to Giglio was arranged and wanted by Costa before we left Civitavecchia [the port of departure]. It was for publicity reasons. We have carried out those sail by salutes all over the world - Sorrento, Capri. I have sailed past Giglio other times - when I was captain of Costa Europa.'

'The sail past Giglio had been advertised in the daily ship news letter - we should have done it the week before but we couldn't because the weather had been bad. They insisted. They said, "We can be seen and we can get some publicity", so I said OK.

'The plan was that we should have been around half a nautical mile off the coast but in the end we were 0.28 of a nautical mile away,' adding how Costa knew all about the sail pasts and that they had always been happy for him to do so.

Schettino also told judge Valeria Montesarchio how he called Costa operations manager Roberto Ferrarini the night of the disaster and told him that he intended to turn the boat around and sail towards the port of Giglio and try and beach the ship.
He said: 'Ferrarini said to me "Yes...do that.." then when the ship had grounded and we spoke again he said, "At this point...more than this...we won't sink anymore," although more than 300 passengers and crew were still onboard at the time and needed to be evacuated.
Schettino also added how in one final call Ferrarini had asked him to download all the detail from the Voice Data Recorder on the bridge's black box and added: 'I'll be honest with you. For the 15 days beforehand we had been reporting that the VDR was broken and we had asked for it to be fixed but it never was.
He has been ridiculed for abandoning the vessel before passengers and one of the latest recordings, released by Italy’s La Repubblica newspaper, an official can be heard asking the captain whether everyone is going to abandon ship.

Sounding breathless, Schettino replies: ‘I’m going to stay here.’ The coastguard asks again: ‘So only you are going to stay there?’

He replies: ‘I’m the only one who will stay here.’ Signing off, the coastguard says: ‘Very good, Captain. Continue with the evacuation and we’ll speak later. Keep your mobile with you.’

In another tape recording released last week, an exasperated Gregorio De Falco, head of the local coastguard, ordered Schettino back to his ship to co-ordinate the rescue.

The captain later told investigators he ‘tripped and fell’ into a lifeboat.

Officials have also said there could be a number of unregistered passengers aboard the vessel, complicating the issue of exactly how many people are missing.

'There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine passengers aboard the ship,' said Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official in charge of the rescue effort.
Gabrielli said that relatives of a Hungarian woman told Italian authorities that she had telephoned them from aboard the ship and that they haven't heard from her since the accident.

He said it was possible that a woman's body pulled from the wreckage by divers on Saturday might be that of the unregistered passenger.

But the identity of that body and of three male bodies, all badly decomposed after days in the water, have yet to be established.

Gabrielli said they have identified eight other bodies: four French, an Italian, a Hungarian, a German and a Spanish national.

Until Sunday, authorities had said that 20 people are still missing.
Meanwhile the owners of the Costa Concordia are offering survivors a 30 per cent discount off future cruises in a bid to stave off lawsuits expected to costs hundreds of million of pounds.

The decision will be an insult to passengers, many of whom are still battling to get over the trauma of what happened that night.

A spokesman for Costa Cruises said they were trying to do everything possible to keep their customers happy and said the discount would be offered to those wanting to stay loyal to the company. He refused to comment about the ongoing investigation. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2090214/Costa-Concordia-captain-Francesco-Schettino-claims-bosses-knew-sail-salutes.html?ito=feeds-newsxml