Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

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Madzng
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Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by Madzng »

Why did it go so wrong?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16558910
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16559991

There is a telephone interview with one of the Stewards on the BBCs' website.

Three people are confirmed dead after a cruise ship carrying more than 4,000 people ran aground off Italy.

The Costa Concordia hit a sandbar on Friday evening near the island of Giglio and listed about 20 degrees, after which people tried to reach land in lifeboats or by swimming.

Rescue teams have been going from cabin to cabin, searching for survivors.

Italians, Germans, French and British were among the 3,200 passengers. There were also 1,000 crew on board.

“We were very scared and freezing because it happened while we were at dinner so everyone was in evening wear” Mara Parmegiani Passenger

Helicopters evacuated the last 50 people on the deck who were in a "worsening" situation.

Three people were confirmed dead, Italian coast guard officials said on Saturday morning - fewer than the six or eight deaths reported by Italian media earlier.

The Costa Concordia had sailed earlier on Friday from Civitavecchia port near Rome for a Mediterranean cruise, due to dock in Marseille after calling at ports in Sicily, Sardinia and Spain.

One thousand passengers were Italian, with 500 Germans and 160 French.

A few dozen British passengers are believed to have been on board, said the UK Foreign Office, which is sending a team to the scene.

'Groaning noise'

Passengers were eating dinner on Friday evening, when they heard a loud bang, and were told that the ship had suffered electrical problems, one passenger told Italy's Ansa news agency.

AdvertisementCabin steward Deodato Ordona says the ship suddenly began to tlt.
"We were having supper when the lights suddenly went out, we heard a boom and a groaning noise, and all the cutlery fell on the floor," said Luciano Castro.

Passenger Mara Parmegiani told Italian media there were "scenes of panic".

"We were very scared and freezing because it happened while we were at dinner so everyone was in evening wear. We definitely didn't have time to get anything else. They gave us blankets but there weren't enough," she said.

The 290-metre (950 ft) vessel ran aground, starting taking in water and listing by 20 degrees, the local coast guard said.

Orders were given to abandon ship, Deodato Ordona, a cabin steward on the Costa Concordia, told the BBC.

"We announced a general emergency and took passengers to muster stations," he said.

"But it is hard to launch the lifeboats, so they moved to the right side of the ship, and they could launch."

Elderly passengers were crying, said Mr Ordona, adding that he and some others jumped into the sea and swam roughly 400 metres to reach land.

Rescued passengers are being accommodated in hotels, schools and a church on Giglio, a resort island 25km (18 miles) off Italy's western coast.

Searches are still going on for "possible missing people", regional official Giuseppe Linardi told the Italian broadcaster RAI.


Coast guard official Francesco Paolillo, a local coast guard official, told the AFP news agency there was a a 30m hole in the ship but that it was too early to say what exactly had happened.

"We think this happened as a result of sailing too close to an obstacle like a reef," he said.

Costa Cruises, the company which owns the ship, said it could not yet say what had caused the accident.

"The gradual listing of the ship made the evacuation extremely difficult," a statement said. "The position of the ship, which is worsening, is making more difficult the last part of the evacuation

Costa Concordia
Entered service in 2006
Built by Fincantieri in Italy at a cost of 450m euros (£372m; $570m)
Capacity for 3,780 passengers
1,500 cabins, including 12 suites, five restaurants and 13 bars
Four swimming pools and five Jacuzzi whirlpool baths
A 6,000 sq m (64,600 sq ft) spa with gym, sauna, Turkish bath and solarium
Sports pitch, cinema, theatre, casino and disco
Source: Costa Cruises and cruise industry websites
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JK
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by JK »

Hers are some more photos. It says the ship was 4 miles off course.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... scene.html
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by JFC »

Sandbar?....There is a piece of "rock" the size of a truck embedded in the hull? Apparently no 'Mayday" call until the evacuation was well underway...........

Amazing that there were not more people missing or dead.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by JK »

and the liferafts stranded on the hull....can you imagine being in a chute when she heeled over. What a mess.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by BilgeRat1 »

I'd say somebody is going to have some major "splainin" to do here. Good Lord, what were they even doing that close inshore?? There was also a report on the BBC that the captain, who has been detained, was one of the first ones off. In the BBC photo of the damage, you could see into the ship... Far beyond "rumpled plating".
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by JK »

Sounds like pandemonium onboard after the ship hit.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/14/world/eur ... f=obinsite

The thing that caught my attention is that this is a routine passage for this ship. To be this far off of course in a 6 year old ship with the most modern nav gear is amazing.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by The Dieselduck »

Good lord, what an epic fail.

I'm on holidays in Mexico, and already wasted quite a bit of time composing a reply to this thread, but got lost. Anyways just wanted to point out this ship is Carnival Splendor's sister ship. You might recall, that's the ship that was blacked out for days off of Mexico last year. News story seem to frame this incident to a problem with electric power, followed by grounding. The giant rock seems to have clearly lodge itself into the enginnering space, see the white tanktop ripped open. I find it strange too that the stabilizer fin is fully extended but undamaged.

Italy being such a good friend of Carnival, will of course sweep this under the rug like usual, kind of like what they did with the splendor. This is just the beginning, salvaging this will be a whole different animal. With a reported full load of fuel aboard, probably around 1400 tons, this could make the MSC Rena look like a cake walk.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by al2207 »

another Carnival cruise unforgettable trip , they are lucky , they were near the coast when the ship capsize . I will be extremely curious to have more info about that electrical problem .
it seem important to mention all these cruse ship are built on same technical basis . If you take a cruse you are on your own do not count on crew to act upon the incident they will be the last to be informed after the captain had left
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by Wyatt »

Have you noticed how fast youtube is removing all the raw videos of the crews shots of the water ingress inside the vessel. As fast as the videos are put up they are being taken down. Have seen some amazing videos of water pouring in through cracks or leaking seals on windows that are 2 stories high and filling a large restaurant area. Wonder why these videos are being removed? Lawsuits?
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by JK »

I can't help wondering what the ships stability book says about uncontrolled flooding that the Captain took her to shallow water. Can you imagine if she had been in deep water, it would be the Poisidin in real life. I wonder where she would have hung, at 80* or 80* below the water until everything filled up.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by al2207 »

we still do not have any report from the splendor of the sea engine failure back 2 years ago
Carnival keep tight list of sailor working for them , if somebody talk to media it goes on black list and will never be employed again
i will be not surprised if Carnival is buying video take by passengers and have confidentiality agreement
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by Wyatt »

I am perplexed at the large hole on the port side but with the vessel lying over on its starboard side. I am thinking that the initial hole was created on the port side and then they steered toward the shore and then holed the vessel on the starboard side. It is quite obvious that that large hole on the port side would basically make pumping out the water a useless attempt at futility. I am wondering which compartments this hole flooded, and whether there was any possibility to ensure cross flooding could be stopped. The size of the hole is so substantial that the ingress of water would have been unbelievable and immediate. I have seen no information on the speed of the vessel, for it must have been traveling at a good rate of speed. Some passengers described a heeling of the vessel like it had turned sharply and then the hit. This would lend to the fact the port stabilizer was not damaged even though it was fully extended, the stern port quarter was swinging to port when the hull hit the rock. This would indicate the wheelhouse realized they were much to close to a rock on the port side and quickly turned to starboard to alter course around it. There is also some speculation on what the chart plotter was set at. This vessel is so large that if this equipment was set to a scale too large, that the image on the screen might not be dispaying an exact position due to the size of the icon on the screen being to small to indicate the exact position of the vessel in relation to the rocks. So much information that we need to know and I wonder whether we will ever kknow the truth?
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Costa Concordia’s Guest Services Manager Speaks Out

Post by JK »

http://gcaptain.com/shame-you-costa-concordias/

and the company throws the Captain under the bus:
http://gcaptain.com/cruise-line-blames- ... sta/?37693
and declares 93 million, so far, in damages.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by JollyJack »

There ya go, the Captain did it! Jolly Jack carries the blame again. It will be interesting to see the report of the official enquiry.
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Re: Italy cruise ship Costa Concordia aground near Giglio

Post by al2207 »

normally after loss of power emergency generator should kick in and supply emergency power within 30 seconds
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