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Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. GIGLIO, Italy — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. On January 13, as more than 4,000 passengers and crew struggled to board lifeboats on the sinking Concordia, Captain Francesco Schettino abandoned both them and the ship. For locals in Giglio who tried to help, there's no forgetting that night. After the ship hit the reef, the engine room flooded and generators failed, causing a power outage that sent the ship adrift until it eventually crashed offshore and capsized. Evidence presented at the trial showed Schettino downplayed the severity of the situation in communications with the Coast Guard and delayed an evacuation order, then abandoned ship before all the passengers and crew were off.
Environmental concerns and salvage
"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them." Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink. Ten years after the deadly Costa Concordia cruise line disaster in Italy, survivors still vividly remember scenes of chaos they say were like something straight out of the movie "Titanic."
Costa Concordia is gone, but horror lingers 10 years later
An investigation focused on shortcomings in the procedures followed by Costa Concordia's crew and the actions of her captain, Francesco Schettino, who left the ship prematurely. He left about 300 passengers on board the sinking vessel, most of whom were rescued by helicopter or motorboats in the area. Schettino was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Collision and rescue
Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it! With Giglio Island lying in a protected marine area, environmental issues relating to the Concordia wreck were of particular concern. The vessel was on the edge of an underwater cliff, leading to worries that the ship might slip and break apart, causing an oil spill.
Wrecking Near the Shore
What caused the cruise ship disaster? - CNN
What caused the cruise ship disaster?.
Posted: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 08:00:00 GMT [source]
The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection. Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable.
More from CBS News
The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors. Giglio’s vice mayor at the time, Mario Pellegrini, had climbed on board the listing ship that night to help coordinate the rescue, and found sheer chaos in the absence of orders from the captain or crew. He recalled he finally climbed down after the last passengers and crew had been evacuated, at around 6 a.m. The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona.
Costa Cruises May Face Further Lawsuits Over Costa Concordia Disaster - The Maritime Executive
Costa Cruises May Face Further Lawsuits Over Costa Concordia Disaster.
Posted: Wed, 29 Dec 2021 08:00:00 GMT [source]
The Costa Concordia was owned by Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & PLC. When launched in 2005, it was Italy’s largest cruise ship, measuring 951 feet (290 metres) long with a passenger capacity of 3,780; by comparison, the Titanic was 882.5 feet (269 metres) long and could accommodate up to 2,435 passengers. It featured four swimming pools, a casino, and reportedly the largest spa on a ship. In July 2006 the vessel undertook its maiden voyage, a seven-day cruise of the Mediterranean Sea, with stops in Italy, France, and Spain. Before that she had been lying on her side where she'd been grounded after hitting a rock while passing too close to the Italian island of Giglio, where 32 people died on the night of the accident. It took an unprecedented operation, what the salvagers call a parbuckling, to roll the ship over into a position where she can be refloated.
Regulatory and industry response
Despite receiving its own share of criticism, Costa Cruises and its parent company, Carnival Corporation, did not face criminal charges. NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing. Details of the final moments of the 32 people who died in the Costa Concordia cruise ship tragedy have emerged in a prosecution report. A little more than an hour after impact, the crew began to evacuate the ship.
Pictures: 5 Cruise Ship Disasters That Changed Travel
Ester Percossi recalled being thrown to the ground in the dining room by the initial impact of the reef gashing into the hull “like an earthquake.” The lights went out, and bottles, glasses and plates flew off the tables. “It was right to be here, to pay tribute to those victims, but the primary motivation is to thank and greet the people who helped me that night, from Giglio,” said survivor Luciano Castro. “For us islanders, when we remember some event, we always refer to whether it was before or after the Concordia,” said Matteo Coppa, who was 23 and fishing on the jetty when the darkened Concordia listed toward shore and then collapsed onto its side in the water. Some other crew members also face charges, as do management figures from the company Costa Cruises, which owns the ship that is still lying on its side and not expected to be removed until September at the earliest.
(CBS News) GIGLIO, Italy - Six months ago today, we all learned the name Costa Concordia. The cruise ship ran aground and capsized off the Italian island of Giglio. Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship that sank off the coast of Italy in January 2012, is finally leaving her resting place. The ship is being towed to a port in Genoa, Italy, where it will be salvaged. Evidence introduced in Schettino’s trial suggests that the safety of his passengers and crew wasn’t his number one priority as he assessed the damage to the Concordia. The impact and water leakage caused an electrical blackout on the ship, and a recorded phone call with Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini, shows he tried to downplay and cover up his actions by saying the blackout was what actually caused the accident.
Bells rang out earlier Thurday in the same Giglio church that opened its doors that freezing night and took in hundreds of passengers who abandoned ship and reached shore in lifeboats. Some had climbed off the lopsided liner on rope ladders after it flipped onto its side; others were plucked from the decks by rescue helicopters. More than 4,000 passengers and crew were onboard the doomed Costa Concordia when it struck rocks after Schettino allegedly changed course in order to carry out a sail-by salute of a Mediterranean island to impress holidaymakers.
The total cost of the disaster, including victims' compensation, refloating, towing and scrapping costs, is estimated at $2 billion, more than three times the ship's $612 million construction cost. Costa Cruises offered compensation to passengers (to a limit of €11,000 per person) to pay for all damages, including the value of the cruise; one third of the survivors took the offer. Ultimately, it took more than an hour for Schettino to give the order to abandon ship. By that point, the vessel was already tilted at a 30-degree angle, complicating some of the rescue effort. About 20 minutes later, even as hundreds of passengers continued to await rescue, Schettino abandoned his post and left his second in command in charge of the evacuation. Twelve minutes later, the latter also abandoned his post, with about 300 passengers still on board.
But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger. Costa Concordia disaster, the capsizing of an Italian cruise ship on January 13, 2012, after it struck rocks off the coast of Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. More than 4,200 people were rescued, though 32 people died in the disaster. Several of the ship’s crew, notably Capt. Francesco Schettino, were charged with various crimes.
He is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a disaster, failing to inform authorities of what had happened and abandoning ship while dozens of passengers were still onboard. It was a national drama with an eccentric cast of characters – a reckless villain, his secret lover and a hard-done-by hero – that has riveted the country for three years. The hulking mass of the capsized 115,000-tonne cruise ship, which for 900 days lay seemingly unmovable and partly submerged in the Mediterranean, became a metaphor for the political and economic ills of an entire nation. The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner. The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The blackout after the ship’s engine room flooded and its generators failed.
