Concordia News: Please Post Here

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

Well, it's not a very pleasant thought, but with 4000 passengers on board it should have been someones job to think about.

 

Agreed. It would be prudent to assume that there are people in the elevators and to act accordingly.

 

I don't go in elevators on cruise ships. Period. I like the stairs and I'm concerned about the crowding and spread of illness. But the thought of being trapped in an elevator on a ship that is failing and filling with ocean water....its so horrifying. When i can no longer use the stairs anymore, I don't think I'll be cruising. And if the power goes out on a ship, I know the first thing ill be thinking is....is there anyone in the elevators?

[Tonka's Skipper]

The bottom line here is simple!

 

This is the 21 st century, we go to the moon, and dive to the deepest oceans, biuld sky scrapers and biuld massive ships with thousands of people on board.

 

There dam well should be a way in a emegency to get the elevators to stop at a deck and the doors to open and then shut down!

 

 

No more discussion needed!

 

AKK

[sidari]

Tonka .... it seems more prudent to spend Billions of $ sending spacecraft to Mars than sorting out issues here on Earth!

[Max49]

It could certainly be done at a relatively cheap cost especially if it was originally built into the ship.

 

Many of the more expensive homes have a standby generator that automatically starts as soon as the power goes off. I'm sure a ship could have the same thing even if designated just for the elevators. One generator could be programmed to move one elevator at a time to the nearest floor, open the door and cut current and move power to the next elevator.

I have not read any thing about it but will this inquiry go into the lack of any one getting people off the lifts? Do we know for sure that bodies were found in elevators?

I think this would be right up there with the worst ways to go.

[watertheodds]

Power Failure

 

Frequent Elevator related issues are related to safe exit of Residents when the Elevator stops midway when Power Failure happens. When Power fails, as a safety mechanism, all brakes are applied in the Elevator, so it stops where it is – this could be between two floors. Hence, the doors do not open. This causes panic for the Resident, especially if the inside lights and fans also switch off. Most modern Elevators have battery backup for the light and fan inside the Elevator and also come with the mechanism of Automatic lowering of the Elevator to the Ground Floor when Power Failure Happens.

 

http://apartmentadda.com/blog/tag/elevator-safety/

[CostaSmurfette]

At least three were seen to have been in the glass elevators as the ship started to list...another passenger's eyewitness statement to that effect was posted here a couple weeks ago.

 

The internal elevators are nowhere near as bad as those glass ones.

 

At least the internal ones would effectively be in a tunnel when the ship is on its side, thus people could potentially use the roof escape hatch and crawl along the shaft in its now almost horizontal state.

 

Those in glass elevators have no such escape route when a ship is listing. The elevator is attached by one side only, it effectively hangs on that side attachment when the ship is vertical and horizontal...there is nothing that pax could crawl up or along, even if they did manage to get out of the top hatch...nowhere to go since the drop from the elevator to what was the wall on the ship normally and that would be the floor on a capsized ship could be 40 or so feet below them...that drop would likely kill you on its own, let along if there was any debris in the way.

 

Equally in the glass elevator, you see and hear everything going on around you...including the water level rising...you would, effectively, be trapped in a reverse fish bowl.

 

So Max is right...being stuck in an elevator on a capsized ship, especially the glass elevators, would be a truly horrific way to die cos you would be just waiting for the moment. In the internal elevators it would be dark, relatively quiet and you would be standing or sitting on what used to be the wall of the elevator or shaft, you might be confused into which was up and down, spacially disoriented...and again waiting for rescue that never comes, and inevitably death.

 

Ship elevators DO NOT have emergency power source, the power goes, they stop...usually tween decks and the doors do not release without maintenance crew assistance. Having seen it happen too many times on a variety of vessels over the years from ferries to cruise ships, its always the same...power goes off = elevators stop = maintenance crew required to "rescue" occupants and more often than not, the elevator concerned is out of service for at least 24 hours afterwards for safety checks, computer control reboot etc.

[sidari]

"So Max is right...being stuck in an elevator on a capsized ship, especially the glass elevators, would be a truly horrific way to die cos you would be just waiting for the moment. In the internal elevators it would be dark, relatively quiet and you would be standing or sitting on what used to be the wall of the elevator or shaft, you might be confused into which was up and down, spacially disoriented...and again waiting for rescue that never comes, and inevitably death"

 

If you climb out of the hatch at the top of the car then there should be no reason why you would not go up to the nearest floor because the landing doors can be released from inside the shaft.

 

watertheodds .... An interesting feature but what it does not say is what happens if for some reason the back up battery power fails! it is a long way to the Ground floor depending on where you are, hopefully the brake would automatically kick back in.

Edited October 22, 2012 by sidari

[sidari]

Looks like another Barge has arrived on site this morning, not sure what it is carrying though.

[CostaSmurfette]

"So Max is right...being stuck in an elevator on a capsized ship, especially the glass elevators, would be a truly horrific way to die cos you would be just waiting for the moment. In the internal elevators it would be dark, relatively quiet and you would be standing or sitting on what used to be the wall of the elevator or shaft, you might be confused into which was up and down, spacially disoriented...and again waiting for rescue that never comes, and inevitably death"

 

If you climb out of the hatch at the top of the car then there should be no reason why you would not go up to the nearest floor because the landing doors can be released from inside the shaft.

 

 

Fair enough...if the ship is in its upright position...

 

But since Concordia is on her side, the glass elevators will be effectively dangling with a 40ft plus drop below to what was a wall on a deck landing that is now the floor (with the furniture, fixtures and fittings that were on the floor when the ship was upright all in a heap), nowhere to get out and crawl to cos there is nothing to crawl on.

 

Glass elevators were designed for buildings, they have never been tested on a listed ship...cos no-one ever considered that a ship the size of Concordia would fall over onto its side. The mindset has been build them big, build them with glitzy bits like glass elevators cos they would never sink or fall over....standard design complacency, never build redundancy into it cos it'll never be needed.

 

Concordia has shown that these ships are not perfect, they can and do fall over - the cause of why it fell over is not important per se, but the fact that it DID go over has unveiled all sorts of design and equipment issues that had largely been ignored under the "it'll never happen, so we do not need to worry about that" file.

 

People ask why engineering staff did not go to the elevators when she went over...simple really...the deck became the wall, the wall became the deck...

 

The image below....Carnival Magic's glass elevators....in the vertical, they are fine, but in the horizontal they are potentially lethal cos there IS nowhere to go...

[CostaSmurfette]

This is Costa Concordia's atrium and glass elevators.....the angle of the photo is fairly close to that of her final resting place and it shows just how difficult, if not impossible, it would be to reach the glass elevators or escape from the glass elevators in the event of a severe list.

 

On the lower decks, there are deck "landings" which are quite well set back from the elevator tracks as they rise up the atrium, the upper decks have no deck landings, just a very large decorated shaft containing all the elevators.

 

The elevators do have escape hatches on their roof, however, in a situation that they found themselves that night, those elevator escape hatches are rendered useless since there is nowhere to escape to once outside of the capsule.

 

No-one can get to the doors from the deck landings when the ship is heeled right over, so no engineers would be able to rescue anyone from those elevators.

 

They are designed to be easily evacuated when the ship is upright, but they cannot be evacuated when the ship is listing.

 

Why do you think they tell pax NOT to use elevators in an emergency?

 

Why DON'T they disable them in a drill, thus giving pax a more reliable and lifelike experience...afterall, in the drill, most pax use the elevators without a second thought cos they are able to do so.

 

The accident has highlighted inherrent dangers in the glass elevator use on ships...now whether it will be ignored, remains to be seen.

[Ken711]

Looks like another Barge has arrived on site this morning, not sure what it is carrying though.

 

Looks like some pre-fabricated steel on its deck.

[Tonka's Skipper]

I see the steel sections on deck and a large housing unit at one end.

 

AKK

[sidari]

If and i say If the people involved were not mobile enough to climb then that may well be a reason that they perished, once the trap door was open there would be an opportunity for able bodied people to climb the Lift car running guide which would be your Floor! once at the next landing they would have been able to release the Lobby/Hallway doors with the Inside release handle that is assuming they are there on ship installed lifts.

 

Schindler make quite a lot of Lifts/Elevators that are on cruise ships and ceratinly the enclosed ones.

[CostaSmurfette]

If and i say If the people involved were not mobile enough to climb then that may well be a reason that they perished, once the trap door was open there would be an opportunity for able bodied people to climb the Lift car running guide which would be your Floor! once at the next landing they would have been able to release the Lobby/Hallway doors with the Inside release handle that is assuming they are there on ship installed lifts.

 

Schindler make quite a lot of Lifts/Elevators that are on cruise ships and ceratinly the enclosed ones.

 

Most of those who use the elevators on a regular basis tend to be elderly/infirm, so climbing anything would not be an option.

 

Even less so when the elevator is on its side rather than up/down when the ship listed over into it's final position, even at 10 or 20 degrees of list, those elevators have little support for anyone to manage climbing out of them, let alone making it to a deck level. One false move or a slip of a hand or foot and you will literally plummet from that single track....remember those glass lifts are NOT enclosed inside a tube shaft, they hang on a single trackway...you misstep or lose footing and you are off, there are not even any grab rails to try and reach, its all shiny brass and glass...there is sod all tween you and the bottom of whatever side was a wall but is now the floor and that can be close on 100ft depending on where the elevator stopped during the emergency. Even the most mobile or pax would be hard pressed to manage that.

 

It is easy to say that these things are reasonably simple to get out of when they are in the upright position and stuck.....have someone go get the equipment, bit of jiggery-pokery, a ladder and voila, you're out.

 

But since these are now laying on their sides and they do not have the bonus of the enclosed elevators of being in a square tube like shaft that could be walked or crawled along...these glass elevators have one side on the ship with three sides effectively in the air...no amount of fit pax or crew could have reached anyone stuck inside on Concordia or gotten them out.

 

Having one of those glass bubbles stop dead when the ship is upright can be scary enough....now place yourself inside that glass bubble with a 20-30 or 40 degree list and your goose is not just cooked, it is cremated.

[watertheodds]

Just thought I'd throw the safety information out there on elevators. True enough that perhaps the battery packs would not be in working condition if indeed installed on the elevators for automatic movement to a floor during a power outage - would not be the only thing not in working condition on the Concordia that night. However, I do find it difficult to believe that there are not safety controls in place to move an elevator to a safe resting spot if power is lost. Also, immediately after the ship hit the rocks and power was lost, the list would not have been at a point of disaster for any occupants to not be able to be rescued. BUT if CS says it's so then it must be.....

 

I don't understand the continued comments about elevators being used during a safety drill. I have sailed on HAL, Celebrity, Princess, RCCL and Norweigean and never have elevator use been allowed to go to muster stations on my cruises.

 

In any event, as I said many many posts ago, from what I have heard and read about Costa I think the entire cruiseline is incompetent from top to bottom. Yes, the Captain is a putz and is personally responsible for his fateful decisons that night but Costa deserves most of the credit for this disaster. I would not sail Costa if it were free.

[balf]

the trap door was open there would be an opportunity for able bodied people to climb the Lift car running guide .

 

And when the power came on again when you were half way up?

 

David.

[sidari]

David ... why would the power come back on? it was totalled! if a back up had been available no one would have been in the lift cars because they would have taken them to a floor in order to leave.

 

 

Watertheodds ... I get what CS is saying but given the choice between doing nothing and doing something i know where i stand, even more so having been trained in not just Lift/Elevator person(s) stranded situations but also persons trapped in the Mechanisms within the Lift Shafts and the Lift motor rooms. Having sailed with Costa i would not say that All of the staff are incompetant, you do not cut down the Orchard because of one bad apple.

 

Here is a reply from today that i have had from a guy who deals with Lifts for a UK company.

 

 

"There is no requirement in UK legislation or standards to fit secondary

power supplies to drive lifts except 'fire-fighters' lifts. Firefighters

lifts are usually only installed in new buildings over 8 floors high or

higher than the fire fighters equipment can reach. They incorporate many

special features and they are double the price of an equivalent passenger

lift.

Any lift can be fitted with a backup supply to drive it to any

pre-designated floor or return it to the main landing. There is a cost.

Some backup supplies are battery powered and others from a standby

generator.

 

Lifts on ships are also special. They can operate normally when the ship

lists at an angle in rough seas. I am not an expert on ship lifts but there

will be an angle from the vertical at which the lifts will not operate

properly"

 

So it may be that in the end it comes down to Cost as to why there are no back up systems for Lifts/Elevators on ships! because we know they are available.

[Cruising Ken]

Well whatever it is, it's lit up like a christmas tree:)

[Tonka's Skipper]

Well whatever it is, it's lit up like a christmas tree:)

 

 

Its a housing unit, basicly a block of rooms with 3 levels of walkways/balconies around all sides.

 

These are common on oil rigs and work barges. If you remember back, Titan agreed to provide housing for the workers on the site or on the mainland but not take up the islands hotel space.

 

AKK

[Ken711]

Its a housing unit' date=' basicly a block of rooms with 3 levels of walkways/balconies around all sides.

 

These are common on oil rigs and work barges. If you remember back, Titan agreed to provide housing for the workers on the site or on the mainland but not take up the islands hotel space.

 

AKK[/quote']

 

Thanks Tonka.

[SomeBeach]

Just finished catching up here after a week away.

Thanks for helping me get up to date with the project.

[balf]

David ... why would the power come back on? it was totalled! if a back up had been available no one would have been in the lift cars because they would have taken them to a floor in order to leave.

 

 

 

But how many people get in a lift knowing this- lift stops, lights go out, panic builds up leading to hysteria. They don't know whether the ship is sinking or if this is just a temporary power cut. After half an hour they want out so start to exit through the escape hatch. Of course if they knew that the power would not be resorted this would relatively safe, but if as is most likely this is just a power outage and in the pitch dark no one had contacted them?

 

It took the Concordia disaster to force ships to hold the drill before sailing, could it also force the installation of emergency lift backup.

 

David.

[CostaSmurfette]

But how many people get in a lift knowing this- lift stops, lights go out, panic builds up leading to hysteria. They don't know whether the ship is sinking or if this is just a temporary power cut. After half an hour they want out so start to exit through the escape hatch. Of course if they knew that the power would not be resorted this would relatively safe, but if as is most likely this is just a power outage and in the pitch dark no one had contacted them?

 

It took the Concordia disaster to force ships to hold the drill before sailing, could it also force the installation of emergency lift backup.

David.

 

Take it one step further, replace the glass elevators with standard enclosed ones. At least then if the ship tips over like Concordia did, anyone inside the elevators would have a fighting chance of escape via the enclosed elevator shaft instead of potentially hanging in mid-air and with no-where to go, as is the case with the current glass elevator design.

 

And to those who say it cannot be done, I believe that the HAL Vista 1 & Vista 2 ships have classic enclosed elevators in their atriums, not the glitzy glass ones as per many of the Costa, Carnival fleet and the Royal Caribbean etc ships.

 

OK so the classic enclosed elevators are not so fancy, they don't give the WOW factor like the glass elevators do...but the issues connected to a ship with these elevators ever having such a serious accident that it would be left on its side wasn't thought about when these things were on the drawing boards...it cannot have been thought of, otherwise a safe evacuation procedure/design would have been incorporated into them somehow.

 

But then that would have added costs...just as Sidari commented, the safety attachments that could be installed do not appear to have been.

 

It would be interesting to see what the various cruise lines who routinely use this type of elevator actually think of them after the Concordia....and whether pax across the lines would think twice about using them in future too...afterall, if the power goes out for any reason, as Balf says, it could bring on panic, moreso if the weather is rough and the ship is all over the place when the power goes.

 

It's all very well having these pretty elevators...but they ain't alot of good when they are disabled and the ship is on its side...there is NO escape from them and NO-ONE will be there to get you out.

[sidari]

"It took the Concordia disaster to force ships to hold the drill before sailing, could it also force the installation of emergency lift backup."

 

David ... Can i ask where you got the above info from ? every ship listed below that we have been on carried out the Muster/Safety drill prior to sailing including the one on the Costa Deliziosa over Xmas 2011.

 

If there was to be a power outage during the daytime at least the Glass lifts would have some light to them from the Atrium assuming it is not enclosed whereas the enclosed lifts would presumably have non, a good example is Brilliance of the seas where part of the Port side Midship is Glass the length of the Lift shafts meaning you can look out to sea.

 

That class of ship means people can be seen in the Glass lifts regardless of where they are and would be easy to spot with a flashlight.

[balf]

"

 

every ship listed below that we have been on carried out the Muster/Safety drill prior to sailing including the one on the Costa Deliziosa over Xmas 2011.

 

If there was to be a power outage during the daytime at least the Glass lifts would have some light to them from the Atrium assuming it is not enclosed whereas the enclosed lifts would presumably have non, a good example is Brilliance of the seas where part of the Port side Midship is Glass the length of the Lift shafts meaning you can look out to sea.

 

That class of ship means people can be seen in the Glass lifts regardless of where they are and would be easy to spot with a flashlight.

 

I accept that this is your experience on the ships you have sailed on, but there was no compulsion for them to do this. I have sailed on ferries that gave a very trunkated drill when we were were well into the voyage (P&O ferries Southampton to Bilbao)

 

No lifts would have any light in a total power outage when it was dark.

 

David.