Costa Concordia SINKING

[Globetotter]

Ah, well. It's not like I'm going to run for Miss Congeniality or anything...

 

The captain answered that it was dark in response to the commandant telling the captain that he should be telling the commandant how many dead bodies there were. To me it doesn't read like his mind was slipping...it reads like the patient version of "How the f--- am I supposed to know? It's dark and I can't see f--- all!"

 

In response to the repeated demands to go up the rope, the captain was trying to explain something about another boat. We never get to hear what he would have said because he was interrupted by the commandant.

 

I would like to hear from the other officers on board the lifeboat.

 

Maybe you're right about the darkness thing, but he could have got back on board. He's saying that a rescuers boat had stopped, but whatever that had to do with him not going back to the ship, it's a matter that could have been solved, it was around midnight when the conversation occurred and the last passenger was rescued two hours later,if not more. I can't believe he could not go back, if not at that exact moment, maybe some time later.

And anyway, he shouldn't have got off the ship in the first place.

After been listend again today, he's still been charged, so there must be a reason...., unfortunately.

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

Ah, well. It's not like I'm going to run for Miss Congeniality or anything...

 

 

 

The captain answered that it was dark in response to the commandant telling the captain that he should be telling the commandant how many dead bodies there were. To me it doesn't read like his mind was slipping...it reads like the patient version of "How the f--- am I supposed to know? It's dark and I can't see f--- all!"

 

In response to the repeated demands to go up the rope, the captain was trying to explain something about another boat. We never get to hear what he would have said because he was interrupted by the commandant.

 

I would like to hear from the other officers on board the lifeboat.

 

All I got from that conversation was that he was tossing out anything that came to mind and hoping one of them would stick. He *wasn't* going back.

[Shogun]

Hi All,

 

having spennt time with captains and other senior officers on a cruise ship

 

one thing is very clear, there is a chain of command, if captain has a melt

 

down, then you have a first officer, who may be a captain in his own right,

 

might even have a staff captain to assist, there appears that the chain of command collapsed all apart from the pursur.

 

time will tell, but from the storries folks are telling any assistance or direction came from, from ships crew, be they waiters or dancers

 

not ships officers so what happened to all of them, are some among the missing

 

yours Shogun

[cruiserfanfromct]

Some people can keep their cool in a stressful situation. It's worth mentioning that Sully took control in an accident in which he had no control. Schettino was facing a nightmare scenario caused by his own doing.

 

The teenage car crash is a good analogy, in my opinion. The sudden realization that you have done something terribly, terribly wrong and reach a point of panicking denial and wishing that it was only a dream - "This can't be happening". I don't think any of us can sit here comfortably in front of our computers and say what we'd do in a situation like that. Some people would take charge and some people would mentally 'check out'. Fight or Flight and all that.

I agree that "Some people would take charge and some people would mentally 'check out'. Fight or Flight and all that." That is precisely WHY people who mentally 'check out', and that would be me included, should never be given the responsibility of captaincy of a 114,500 ton monster cruise liner. Nuf said.

[luckybogey]

Originally Posted by 4kids3dogs2cats&fish

I agree as well, except I think the port anchor should have been the one deployed in order to get a better pivot point to swing the ship around counter clockwise. One other thing is that I think the captain waited to swing the ship until the ship cleared the town's harbor in order not to block the harbor with the ship for the foreseeable future.

I don't question the starboard anchor being dropped since the ship was listing to port. I do question the location of dropping the anchor which seems to have facilitated the capsizing to starboard due to Concordia's draft.

[Milaandra]

Maybe you're right about the darkness thing, but he could have got back on board. He's saying that a rescuers boat had stopped, but whatever that had to do with him not going back to the ship, it's a matter that could have been solved, it was around midnight when the conversation occurred and the last passenger was rescued two hours later,if not more. I can't believe he could not go back, if not at that exact moment, maybe some time later.

And anyway, he shouldn't have got off the ship in the first place.

After been listend again today, he's still been charged, so there must be a reason...., unfortunately.

 

Well, that's one thing I find confusing and that's why I'd love to hear the testimony of the other officers.

 

The commandant, who may be the most obnoxious man on the planet, has told the captain to climb up a rope that people were climbing down. How do you do that? How do you even get close to the rope if there is a boat in the way?

 

I just don't quite get what's going on.

 

Why would people be climbing down the side if they could walk to the remaining lifeboat, and if they couldn't, how could the captain walk to them? Is that why he and his officers launched the last boat? So they could reach them from the water? If so, why did they end up sailing to the island?

 

Last I heard, the judge had decided to keep the captain in custody pending his decision. Has that changed? Was he charged?

[astrocruises]

Has anyone heard anything about when the First Officer (arrested with the Captain) is due in court?

[Loonbeam]

Good question. I will assume marine salvage follows similar rules as to residential fire salvage. Once the ship is cleared for item salvage, a room by room sweep will be done by teams of 2 or more. Each room's personal items will be bagged in evidence style bags and tagged with origin as well as inventoried. If possible, residents of a room will be identified and property returned where salvageable, repairable. This process is often videotaped as well for security purposes.

 

Common areas are tougher. Items will be bagged and tried to match to claims but there will be a good bit of unclaimed stuff.

 

Items that leave the ship into the water will probably be lost without official recovery as they wash up on shore or sink.

 

Environmental Threat. We all hope that salvaging of the fuel can proceed maybe tomorrow according to reports that the salvage operation can begin if the Italian authorities give consent.

 

We don't want to see those ship tanks begin to leak out and contaminate the whole area including the beautiful beaches along the coast.

 

In my last recent trip to Rome, I spent a fantastic day at one of the main

beaches serving Rome, the Lido di Ostia, that was packed with people on a warm summer day. It was a great open beach, similar to the famous beaches of Florida and Southern California.

 

Anyway, I hope that they can expedite the fuel recovery.

 

Yet, there will be always leaks.

 

There will be leaks of other chemicals into the sea from the many other chemicals and tanks on board the ship.

 

Other salvage operations will be interesting, when one thinks of all of the money, valuables, still on the ship.

 

Does anyone know how passengers can ever get back valuables, jewelry, cash, etc, that they had in their cabin?

[GioRaf]

A new perspective:

 

Communications is a funny thing....a word to one person may have a different meaning to another.

 

For whatever reason, the captain may have said to the person (unknown) who was charting the course...or watching the GPS map (unknown), make a turn 300 meters from the coast. The key word here is "coast". If that word was interpreted (rightly or wrongly) as the tip of la scala which is the outermost visible "land" by the captain....and the person(s) manning the GPS and charts interpreted it as the mainland, not including the two little islands....then we have an accident.

 

In fact, the rock he hit was almost 300 meters off the mainland. The disaster may have been caused by something as simple as miscommunications and confusion about where 300 meters started.

 

This does not condone any of the actions.....I'm just trying to understand the captain's original statement vs the facts....and it's just possible that he was measuring from a different point then his crew. Should not happen...but.....

 

According on what said by news here in Italy, Scuba Divers had found underwater the exact point where the ship had hit the rock and it was 8 meter underwater (the part left on the sea, the other 3 meters are still inside the hull) and from 92 to 96 meters from the mainland.

 

The divers found evidence about this.

 

How with a ship about 300 mt long you could go near mainland at 1/3 distance of your ship lenght ?

[Jimnbigd]

I guess the Concordia is about the same size as the Carnival Conquest I was on last May. 112,000 tons I think. Sometimes the pictures are deceiving since there is nothing to compare the size too. Do we know yet why the captain steered the ship so close to the rocks in the first place?

[cls711]

delete

[mistshar]

I'm Italian and as first i would like to say i'm indignated for the shame the ship's captain, Francesco Schettino has put all over us, we are not like him, we are accurate on what we do.

 

Please do not feel that the way the captain behaved in this circumstance shamed all Italian because it DID NOT. From what I understand after the tragedy your countrymen took people from the ship into their homes and helped them in numerous ways. They were kind to them. This one awful man cannot destroy the wonderful way that the Italian people treated all the victims of the ship during the tragedy that befell them that night. Please, please don't feel shame. You should be full of pride.

[Immebsmom]

What I find telling is there are no additional conversations being released with the captain back on board talking to the coast guard and giving them the information that they wanted he to provide. I think if that was available the attorney for the captain of the Concordia would have already been in the press and either playing it or pointing out that they only did a portion of the recordings, not all of them.

 

The best thing we have taken from this is that we will always keep our cell phones with us, and we will keep a small wallet with credit cards, photo id and cash and I will put copies of all other docs on a flash drive. May require a slightly bigger purse on the cruise but that is nothing compared to the time and convenience it would provide in this situation. In addition, while we have always had a meeting place on board the ship, we will now have one off the ship. I really like the idea of a post office. Never would have thought of it.

 

Finally, I am sending prayers for all of those missing or with loved ones missing or who did not make it out and their families. It is a terrible situation for everyone.

[Canadian Karebear]

I agree it seems that the captain is scared and incoherent and is unable to cope. The commander is yelling at him and threatening him at no avail. They should have stopped ordering him to go back to the ship and sent the police to get him right away as he was pretty much useless based on conversation. I wonder if the port authority just could not believe that a captain could be so incoherent and just kept trying to hold him responsible. I can't help but think of another captain in desperate times, the famous Captain Sully, who landed the plane in New York on the water and managed to save all his passengers. This was another situation that could have ended in disaster but did not because of Captain's actions. This was an underpaid Captain in a desperate situation with lots of panicking passengers (ok, not 4,000). However, his calm command, clear head, and calm organized crew saved everyone and he became a hero rather than a villain.

 

Sully was definitely someone that we should all hope is our pilot, our captain on a cruise ship or someone that we can trust with our lives.

Sadly not everyone reacts to a stressful situation in the same manner. It doesn't matter how much training you have, there are some that just can't hack it.

I know of Firefighters that were new to the job, got to one bad fire or had to rescue one burn victim and never returned to the job again.

People handle these things based on more factors than just training.

 

I hope that there are more people like Sully in this world. People that would give their life to rescue others. I hope my next cruise has a captain that has the maturity and foresight not to hit anything and if he does, be able to handle the outcome in a calm and professional manner.

[volvo99]

The only problem with your logic is that the airline industry has never been safer and is getting safer each year...so much for "watering down safety regulations..." In fact, the fatal accident rate for U.S. airlines is almost one-half of what it was 20 years ago.

 

Those dang capitalistic corporate mongers...Cubana and Aeroflot - now there are some real safe airlines...:rolleyes:

 

 

No sir; the flaw with your logic is that an absence of accidents = safety. I call it lucky. When you water down a safety culture, have an increasing number of lower time, less experienced crews, have a net loss of air traffic controllers and outsource maintenance to third parties, the risk factors simply increase.

 

Now compare that with a cruise line using english impaired, poorly paid third world staff with bare minimum safety training, who reportedly lied about the state of their stricken ship prior to evacuation, and you have a recipe for disaster that the cruise lines created for their own bottom line.

[reallyitsmema]

I don't question the starboard anchor being dropped since the ship was listing to port. I do question the location of dropping the anchor which seems to have facilitated the capsizing to starboard due to Concordia's draft.

Do we actually know when the anchor was dropped? I haven't seen anything other that the anchor was dropped. Only the investigation will be able to tell us when and where the anchor was dropped and how far it dragged before it snagged on something. If the ship was going 9 knots as some have said, the ship would have taken some time and distance to stop.

[ghstudio]

According on what said by news here in Italy, Scuba Divers had found underwater the exact point where the ship had hit the rock and it was 8 meter underwater (the part left on the sea, the other 3 meters are still inside the hull) and from 92 to 96 meters from the mainland.

 

The divers found evidence about this.

 

How with a ship about 300 mt long you could go near mainland at 1/3 distance of your ship lenght ?

 

The question is what people thought/think MAINLAND means. does it include the rocks off the coast of Giglio or not. Those rocks are shown on charts as islands with water separating them from the main body of land. It could be a simple communications problem between the captain who also assumed that the rocks were part of the mainland...and the individual(s) plotting the course and actually running the ship. If they thought that "mainland" did not include the two rocks, that would explain why the ship was where it was. It was, in fact 300 meters off of the main ground of Giglio when you exclude those two rock outcroppings/islands...and it would explain why the captain believed they were 300 meters off the mainland.

 

I am not addressing why anyone would take a ship that large that close to the island.....just trying to understand why it might have been where it was and this is a very plausible theory.

[AAAAmerican]

Dear Mikalsen,

 

I have to provide facts for you to know too.

 

The Ship was mostly helped by the Local Population. As you may have seen by now.

 

 

The Captain was ..in one word (IMHO) has a new name... WORTHLESS.

 

 

 

 

He did not follow the firms methods and/or even command his staff and crew well. Training and/or the lack of it was missing.. yes as we are seeing even paying passengers with Life Preservers on ,have now lost there own lives. You may have seen now even a five year old child, God Bless her soul.

 

 

You mention the US AIR Jet which landed in New Jersey ( Not New York) in the Hudson River also. He was very well TRAINED in using a glider. So yes his command of glider skills came in and saved all the souls aboard, yes he made sure all were out of the craft safely too.He did his job well!

 

It is Training which enhances skills and command situations.

 

As many, or should I say most on this CC THREAD have cruised a wee bit.. .

 

 

Myself seeing Very Poorly done and thought-out procedures as well action in many Cruise Lines as well the ships are in desperate need of corrections.

 

A perfect example is RCL :NYSE had contracts with the City of Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey to inject a lot of monies to build more dock and safety areas.. To DATE not one even Copper Plated US Cent has been exchanged to the City from the firm RCL :NYSE.

 

ANOTHER EG: Carnival Dream we had been on the first ship trip from mid-town ( NYC,NY ) they never even measured for the basic of the Gang Plank.. thusly causing Passengers Safety and time to be in dander and wasted. yes none of the FOUR visits had the proper SAFE Gang Planks. This was the longest lines ever to get aboard any ship in Town (NYC,NY) for us.

 

ETC..ETC...

 

You are able to see maybe to the Bean Counters Now at the HQ do not care about us Cruisers much anymore in even safety ..eh...

 

In the USCG LIFE SAVING Drills aboard the Ships you can not see, hear nor and/or told what to do aboard anymore. People will listen and watch if shown and/or told !

 

These DRILLS are vital !

 

I hope and pray this starts the Safer days of cruising again now. CRUISE LINES need to CARE about the Passengers more!

 

 

 

I agree it seems that the captain is scared and incoherent and is unable to cope. The commander is yelling at him and threatening him at no avail. They should have stopped ordering him to go back to the ship and sent the police to get him right away as he was pretty much useless based on conversation. I wonder if the port authority just could not believe that a captain could be so incoherent and just kept trying to hold him responsible. I can't help but think of another captain in desperate times, the famous Captain Sully, who landed the plane in New York on the water and managed to save all his passengers. This was another situation that could have ended in disaster but did not because of Captain's actions. This was an underpaid Captain in a desperate situation with lots of panicking passengers (ok, not 4,000). However, his calm command, clear head, and calm organized crew saved everyone and he became a hero rather than a villain.

[Davyjonesrugrat]

Do you have a link? Please?

No im afraid that it was on the telly so I cant do a link. Hopefully it will come on the bbc.co.uk/news site shortly stating it again

 

rgds

:)

[GioRaf]

The News just said that Schettino was order to be "confined" on his home.

 

This mean he its not in jail but its on his home.

Technically he its detained, just on his home.

He can not go out, can not talk with anyone and police can go (and sure will go) anytime on his apartment to check his presence.

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

The question is what people thought/think MAINLAND means. does it include the rocks off the coast of Giglio or not. Those rocks are shown on charts as islands with water separating them from the main body of land. It could be a simple communications problem between the captain who also assumed that the rocks were part of the mainland...and the individual(s) plotting the course and actually running the ship. If they thought that "mainland" did not include the two rocks, that would explain why the ship was where it was. It was, in fact 300 meters off of the main ground of Giglio when you exclude those two rock outcroppings/islands...and it would explain why the captain believed they were 300 meters off the mainland.

 

I am not addressing why anyone would take a ship that large that close to the island.....just trying to understand why it might have been where it was and this is a very plausible theory.

 

Forgive me, I am not a boater so I don't really even know how to even ask this question. But do captains issue orders relative to something like the "coast" or the "mainland" or relative to the *ship.* It seems to me any orders would have been given as "Turn the ship this many degrees in this direction" as opposed to "Take the ship toward the mainland."

[FinlandGuy]

The News just said that Schettino was order to be "confined" on his home.

 

This mean he its not in jail but its on his home.

Technically he its detained, just on his home.

He can not go out, can not talk with anyone and police can go (and sure will go) anytime on his apartment to check his presence.

 

I assume this means there's trust that he wont escape and/or damage someone or himself.

[Davyjonesrugrat]

More ebay items and reports that there is some short selling and profit taking of Carnival stock - anything to make a profit in the wake of tragedy! :confused::eek:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Costa-Concordia-Launching-Ceremony-Medallion-/300651116787?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item460033f8f3

 

Im sorry but I find this offensive, how can anyone contemplate doing this when they are still searching for survivors. Shame on you Joseph Falco, lookout mountain TN

[luckybogey]

Do we actually know when the anchor was dropped? I haven't seen anything other that the anchor was dropped. Only the investigation will be able to tell us when and where the anchor was dropped and how far it dragged before it snagged on something. If the ship was going 9 knots as some have said, the ship would have taken some time and distance to stop.

 

Good point on dragging however the AIS data shows that the ship was moving between 1-2 knots at this point in time. It is my understanding that the ship was dead in the water with no engines almost immediately after impact due to engine compartment flooding.

[ghstudio]

Forgive me, I am not a boater so I don't really even know how to even ask this question. But do captains issue orders relative to something like the "coast" or the "mainland" or relative to the *ship.* It seems to me any orders would have been given as "Turn the ship this many degrees in this direction" as opposed to "Take the ship toward the mainland."

 

What they should do and what they actually do are sometimes unrelated. We don't know, at least at this point, what was said...we don't even know if anyone was looking at the paper charts or the captain was relying on one individual to watch the instruments and guide the ship....we actually don't know very much at all....