Concordia News: Please Post Here

[Ken711]

Also from the weekly report, the crane ship Ciclope is expected to arrive on site on Saturday, March 8th.

 

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/photos/of/ships/photo_keywords:8959049/ship_name:CICLOPE#740829

[Uniall]

I don't recall whether it was on this thread or one of the earlier threads that was closed by the Monitor for want of civil discourse. But, whichever thread it was, I tried to explain that some of the hard and fast rules protecting cruise ship owners from being sued by passengers in maritime court might be ripe for re-evaluation and major changes after scores of decades.

 

Read this article:

 

 

 

Carnival cruise passengers sue seeking $5,000 a month for life

 

Reprinted from MSN Money http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20140310&id=17422405&gt1=33009

 

 

MIAMI, March 10 (Reuters) - A group of passengers suing Carnival cruise lines for damages after an engine fire left their ship adrift for days are asking the company to pay $5,000 a month for the rest of their lives for medical bills and mental anguish.

A lawsuit brought by 33 passengers of the ill-fated 2013 voyage could change how cruise lines insulate themselves from legal actions, according to maritime legal experts.

A second pending lawsuit with three-times as many plaintiffs has the potential to further undo the advantageous legal position cruise lines have long enjoyed.

Both cases stem from a February 2013 incident when the Carnival Triumph broke down after launching from Galveston, Texas for what was to be a four-day cruise with a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

A fire broke out in the ship's engine room as it was returning from Cozumel. The Triumph was left without engine power, or air conditioning and working toilets. Stalled in the Gulf of Mexico for five days, passengers described human waste seeping into hallways, and being forced to sleep on deck under makeshift tarps with no cooked food.

A federal judge in South Florida last week finished hearing three weeks of testimony from passengers and is expected to issue a judgment in the next two months.

 

The Miami lawsuit is the first from the Triumph incident to go to trial, with others in preparation, according maritime lawyers.

In a statement, Carnival Corp said that while it recognizes its guests experienced uncomfortable conditions, everyone returned safely and were provided with a full refund, a free future cruise and an additional $500 per person.

"This is an opportunistic lawsuit brought by plaintiff's counsel and plaintiffs who seek to make a money grab," a company spokeswoman said.

One of the plaintiffs, Debra Oubre, 59, said she has experienced panic and anxiety attacks since the cruise, and also blames the experience for a urinary tract infection.

"It was chaotic. People were in dire need of help," said Oubre. "We were standing in line for food for five hours."

Federal judge Donald Graham has already ruled that the engine catching on fire is proof alone of negligence on the part of Carnival, a significant blow for the cruise line, according to Robert Peltz, a Miami maritime lawyer.

"It would seem rather obvious that ships shouldn't just catch fire and then have fire suppression systems that don't work," Peltz said.

Carnival has since started a fleet-wide "enhancement," including a major re-wiring of its engine rooms and improvements to fire safety and emergency power features.

Cruise lines like Carnival have successfully inoculated themselves against passenger lawsuits by printing stringent terms on their tickets that require passengers to waive their right to a class-action lawsuit.

Graham's ruling, which is expected to come in the next two months, could find the terms of conditions printed on the tickets, so-called "contracts of adhesion," to be overreaching.

The contracts have rankled some federal judges in southern Florida where several cruise lines are based, according to maritime lawyer, David Neblett. The splintering of myriad cruise cases for relatively meager sums clogs their calendars, he said.

One term of the ticket contract is that passengers can only bring their cases to the Southern District of Florida and plaintiffs lawyers complain that people coming from other states to litigate is too costly for them.

© Copyright Thomson Reuters 2014.

Edited March 11, 2014 by Uniall

[sidari]

Uni ... hopefully you will keep us up to date on the proceedings, i can understand a claim for medical bills but for a lifetime! mental anguish and a urine infection seriously ?

[Tonka's Skipper]

We discussed this to great length in the beginning.

 

The contracts we all sign have great clauses included to prevent the passengers suing the lines for almost anything.

 

All this proves is that, yes the courts will hear some cases, contract or not and no contract is unbreakable.

 

If they win, there will be more, similar cases filed.

 

As to what they deserve, that is a decision for brighter minds then mine.

 

AKK

[Uniall]

We discussed this to great length in the beginning.

 

The contracts we all sign have great clauses included to prevent the passengers suing the lines for almost anything.

 

All this proves is that' date=' yes the courts will hear some cases, contract or not and no contract is unbreakable.

 

If they win, there will be more, similar cases filed.

 

As to what they deserve, that is a decision for brighter minds then mine.

 

AKK[/quote']

 

Skipper

 

The has been a Maxim (Underlying principle) in Ango-American common law that contracts must be narrowly construed against the party who writes the agreement and parts of it will be declared null and void if they are so over reaching that it strips the other party of real rights.

 

That's what is in play here with the further maxim that the courts will protect themselves from udue burdens being placed on a single jurisdiction. The Miami Federal District court doesn't want to get stuck with ALL law suits by passengers from all over the country. So, they may allow passengers to file in their local Federal District Court.

[SomeBeach]

Court update:

 

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/03/11/costa-concordia-captain-i-m-a-scapegoat-for-carnival-cruiselines.html

[SomeBeach]

Greenpeace calls for Concordia to be scrapped in European country.

 

http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/english/costa-concordia-must-be-scrapped-in-eu-says-greenpeace-no700848

[Tonka's Skipper]

Greenpeace is about as useful as ***** on a bull!

 

AKK

[Mike.Minh]

Greenpeace is about as useful as ***** on a bull!

 

AKK

 

Why? Like them or not, they pointed to existing regulation, which is there for a reason.

[sidari]

“The company is not responsible for what happens on board the ship,” Foschi told the court.

 

So it must be different in Italy than in the UK!

 

Some years ago a Firefighter died when he went into a lake to rescue two teenagers with a rope around his waist, the rope became entangled on an underwater obstruction and his co workers were unable to get him out.

 

The Chief Fire Officer was taken to court under the charge of Corporate Manslaughter due to the Fire Authority not providing the correct equipment with which to carry out water rescues.

 

So if the CFO is responsible for what happens despite not being in charge of an incident and not being there then surely "Foschi" is talking out of his rear end!

[drarill]

Don't know if this has been discussed, but I read this article a couple of months ago

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/costa-concordia-wreck-to-be-moved-and-dismantled-in-june-1.2491662

Does anyone know where the Concordia will be dismantled? The article mentions a couple of options.

[chengkp75]

Hey, all;

 

Just ashore from work.

 

Here's my take on cruise ship elevators. Tonka, I have to disagree with you, the elevators are powered by the emergency generator. When we did our mandated monthly test of the emergency generator under load, you got a momentary loss of power to the elevators, so we scheduled this for minimum pax count times, and with lots of announcements.

 

Now, if the emergency generator is off-line, the elevator will stop wherever it is when the power goes out, regardless of whether it is between decks or not.

 

The elevators are programmed to move to a mid-point (deck 5 or so, depending on the ship) if a fire alarm in the fire zone the elevator is in, to provide a "fire block" to the chimney of the elevator shaft, but that is not the case here.

 

Unfortunately, no one is ever assigned to check elevators, in my experience. The only time you would check the elevators is after the pax muster is taken, and there are missing pax. Then the evacuation teams would recheck cabins, and public areas, and then engineering from the quick response team would be sent to check.

 

Having said that, the elevator alarm, that is activated from the cab, is on battery power, and would alarm on the bridge, so anyone trapped could signal quickly that they were there, and then personnel would go free them. Rather than winding a cab up or down, you would open the deck doors above the cab, and then climb down the ladder in the shaft, and let the pax out of the escape hatch in the cab ceiling.

 

I haven't had time to read all the linked articles, or catch up on the trial news, but just wanted to chime in. The problem, in my opinion, is that because Schettino declared that everyone was to return to their cabins, no muster was taken, and I doubt if one was ever completed to see who was at the boats or not. I would have to review the official report's timeline to see if the completion of the muster was ever reported to the bridge, or whether things had gone completely to s*** on the bridge by then, because the ship was basically going over by the time he decided to abandon ship.

[qtlikeme]

Hey, all;

 

Just ashore from work.

 

Here's my take on cruise ship elevators. Tonka, I have to disagree with you, the elevators are powered by the emergency generator. When we did our mandated monthly test of the emergency generator under load, you got a momentary loss of power to the elevators, so we scheduled this for minimum pax count times, and with lots of announcements.

 

Now, if the emergency generator is off-line, the elevator will stop wherever it is when the power goes out, regardless of whether it is between decks or not.

 

The elevators are programmed to move to a mid-point (deck 5 or so, depending on the ship) if a fire alarm in the fire zone the elevator is in, to provide a "fire block" to the chimney of the elevator shaft, but that is not the case here.

 

Unfortunately, no one is ever assigned to check elevators, in my experience. The only time you would check the elevators is after the pax muster is taken, and there are missing pax. Then the evacuation teams would recheck cabins, and public areas, and then engineering from the quick response team would be sent to check.

 

Having said that, the elevator alarm, that is activated from the cab, is on battery power, and would alarm on the bridge, so anyone trapped could signal quickly that they were there, and then personnel would go free them. Rather than winding a cab up or down, you would open the deck doors above the cab, and then climb down the ladder in the shaft, and let the pax out of the escape hatch in the cab ceiling.

 

I haven't had time to read all the linked articles, or catch up on the trial news, but just wanted to chime in. The problem, in my opinion, is that because Schettino declared that everyone was to return to their cabins, no muster was taken, and I doubt if one was ever completed to see who was at the boats or not. I would have to review the official report's timeline to see if the completion of the muster was ever reported to the bridge, or whether things had gone completely to s*** on the bridge by then, because the ship was basically going over by the time he decided to abandon ship.

 

Hello chengkp75 : I am a survivor and all along the thought that passengers were trapped in the elevators has haunted me! At no time, from our arrival at deck 4 at our muster area, to finally loading the lifeboats, to our arrival on shore, did anyone ask us our name, cabin # or nationality. We were first asked these questions as we boarded the passenger ferry the morning of January 14th to be taken from Giglio Island to the mainland at Porto Santo Stefano! We did not listen when we were told to leave the lifeboat area and go up to deck 5 to a lounge area to await further instructions. The stairways were congested with passengers and we made the decision to stay at the lifeboat area along with a significant number of our fellow passengers. It was not too long after that we were finally allowed to board our lifeboat and reach the pier at Giglio.

[chengkp75]

Uni;

 

As I've stated above, the only time the crew checks the elevators for trapped pax is when the cab alarm is pressed.

 

 

Sid

 

While I agree with you on the macro level, I strongly disagree on the micro level.

 

I have met many mechanics (jacks of all trades) on cruises who had been cabin stewards or waiters on previous cruises and applied for a transfer to Engineering Department (Hotel Maintenance on a few cruise lines) from Houskeeping or Food and Beverage departments. I'm very surprised to hear that this would be possible. Every member of the Deck and Engine departments are required to be credentialed mariners. Perhaps the crew were merchant mariners prior to joining the cruise industry, and were only able to start in Hotel, but had mariner's credentials to change to the engine department.

 

Furthermore, many of these stewards/waiters are well trained in assisting the specialized fire fighting teams, emergency medical teams, and life boat crews. There's no reason they can't assist eleveator evac, as well.While many of the hotel department are, by necessity, assigned to these emergency duties, I would not say that they are "well trained", since for the most part the only training they get, or that is required, is onboard.

[chengkp75]

Hello chengkp75 : I am a survivor and all along the thought that passengers were trapped in the elevators has haunted me! At no time, from our arrival at deck 4 at our muster area, to finally loading the lifeboats, to our arrival on shore, did anyone ask us our name, cabin # or nationality. We were first asked these questions as we boarded the passenger ferry the morning of January 14th to be taken from Giglio Island to the mainland at Porto Santo Stefano! We did not listen when we were told to leave the lifeboat area and go up to deck 5 to a lounge area to await further instructions. The stairways were congested with passengers and we made the decision to stay at the lifeboat area along with a significant number of our fellow passengers. It was not too long after that we were finally allowed to board our lifeboat and reach the pier at Giglio.

 

qtlikeme;

 

Unfortunately, your statements just go to show the endemic problem that Costa appears to have, and that the Concordia in particular presented. In my opinion, Schettino should have sounded the alarm when the ship blacked out, so that the muster could have been initiated. If nothing more than a temporary blackout occurred, all the company would have been liable for would be some free drinks. Secondarily, it appears that without that "official" call to muster the pax, none of the officers or crew took it upon themselves to ensure that a pax count was taken. While I've always said that until s*** hits the fan that you'll never know who will run towards the fire or away, this is a classic example of why realistic emergency training needs to be mandatory for all crew on all ships, but especially cruise ships.

[Uniall]

Uni;

 

As I've stated above, the only time the crew checks the elevators for trapped pax is when the cab alarm is pressed.

 

Cheng

 

I never ever post what ships crews do or do not do. I leave that subject entirely up to to you professional seamen.

 

What I have posted, from the beginning, is my legal opinion of what the law (probably) would require regardless of what the regulations or common practice.

 

I have taken a lot or flack and been subjected to personal animus on several threads (some closed down by the administrator) but time and legal proceedings have confirmed and corroborated my postions.

 

I believe most western courts would hold owners and/or officers liable for deaths to passengers trapped in elevators if the ship's crew did not check elevators in an abandon ship emergency.

[chengkp75]

Cheng

 

I never ever post what ships crews do or do not do. I leave that subject entirely up to to you professional seamen.

 

What I have posted, from the beginning, is my legal opinion of what the law (probably) would require regardless of what the regulations or common practice.

 

I have taken a lot or flack and been subjected to personal animus on several threads (some closed down by the administrator) but time and legal proceedings have confirmed and corroborated my postions.

 

I believe most western courts would hold owners and/or officers liable for deaths to passengers trapped in elevators if the ship's crew did not check elevators in an abandon ship emergency.

 

Couldn't agree more with your statement re: liability. However, in the case of the Concordia, by the time the abandon ship was ordered, all semblance of organization had gone out the window, so there was no thought of a pax count being made, and therefore no way to tell whether everyone was accounted for or not. It has always been my belief, based on experience, that mustering pax during an emergency is akin to herding cats, so the sooner you start it, the better off you are. As I've stated above, my professional belief is that Schettino failed by not instituting a muster as soon as the ship blacked out.

 

I appreciate your legal point of view and input, as I will be the first to admit I don't know squat about trial law, concerning myself with mainly with Jones Act details, and my personal responsibility and liability as a merchant marine officer.

[Tonka's Skipper]

Hey, all;

 

Just ashore from work.

 

Here's my take on cruise ship elevators. Tonka, I have to disagree with you, the elevators are powered by the emergency generator. When we did our mandated monthly test of the emergency generator under load, you got a momentary loss of power to the elevators, so we scheduled this for minimum pax count times, and with lots of announcements.

 

Now, if the emergency generator is off-line, the elevator will stop wherever it is when the power goes out, regardless of whether it is between decks or not.

 

The elevators are programmed to move to a mid-point (deck 5 or so, depending on the ship) if a fire alarm in the fire zone the elevator is in, to provide a "fire block" to the chimney of the elevator shaft, but that is not the case here.

 

Unfortunately, no one is ever assigned to check elevators, in my experience. The only time you would check the elevators is after the pax muster is taken, and there are missing pax. Then the evacuation teams would recheck cabins, and public areas, and then engineering from the quick response team would be sent to check.

 

Having said that, the elevator alarm, that is activated from the cab, is on battery power, and would alarm on the bridge, so anyone trapped could signal quickly that they were there, and then personnel would go free them. Rather than winding a cab up or down, you would open the deck doors above the cab, and then climb down the ladder in the shaft, and let the pax out of the escape hatch in the cab ceiling.

 

I haven't had time to read all the linked articles, or catch up on the trial news, but just wanted to chime in. The problem, in my opinion, is that because Schettino declared that everyone was to return to their cabins, no muster was taken, and I doubt if one was ever completed to see who was at the boats or not. I would have to review the official report's timeline to see if the completion of the muster was ever reported to the bridge, or whether things had gone completely to s*** on the bridge by then, because the ship was basically going over by the time he decided to abandon ship.

 

 

 

 

Hi Chief, good to see you back!:D

 

As I wrote it, I was referring to those cargo sip, *stemwinders* that had elevators!:eek:

 

The 2 that I sailed on, when the power went out and/or the emergency power kicked in, the lowered to the next deck level and the single door was released.

 

 

I do of course bow you your experience and knowledge on the passenger ships!

 

 

AKK

[chengkp75]

Hi Chief' date=' good to see you back!:D

 

As I wrote it, I was referring to those cargo sip, *stemwinders* that had elevators!:eek:

 

The 2 that I sailed on, when the power went out and/or the emergency power kicked in, the lowered to the next deck level and the single door was released.

 

 

I do of course bow you your experience and knowledge on the passenger ships!

 

 

AKK[/quote']

 

Hey, Skipper;

 

I've been on one class of container ship that had an elevator, and it was such a pain in the butt that Otis started denying that they had ever made it! On the cruise ships, there is usually one electrical engineer whose sole responsibility is to maintain the elevators. The side load on elevator tracks caused by ship's motion is h*** on the floor sensors and door interlocks.

[sidari]

Hi Cheng ... Welcome back, i was quite surprised to read that no checks are made on the lifts in the event of an emergency unless someone calls for help.

 

I can understand that the signal from a lift on the bridge could be missed in all the confusion of every other warning signal and light flashing, with regard to the reply you made about taking people out via the escape hatch that is all well and good for able bodied people of course but for those who are not in good health, infirm or on a Scooter then that option is not a viable one.

[chengkp75]

Hi Cheng ... Welcome back, i was quite surprised to read that no checks are made on the lifts in the event of an emergency unless someone calls for help.

 

I can understand that the signal from a lift on the bridge could be missed in all the confusion of every other warning signal and light flashing, with regard to the reply you made about taking people out via the escape hatch that is all well and good for able bodied people of course but for those who are not in good health, infirm or on a Scooter then that option is not a viable one.

 

Well, the systems are designed with the premise that a TOTAL blackout of the ship (main generators and emergency generator) is not a likely situation (one reason that the USCG requires a two hour test of the emergency generator, not just running, but actually on-line generating power, every month for US flagged vessels), but unfortunately, situations like the Concordia and the Triumph show that without periodic testing, it can happen. So, the normal scenario would be that if normal power is lost, the elevator can continue to operate until it reaches a deck, and then the doors will open and let folks out.

 

In an emergency situation, there should be one deck officer assigned to monitor the "fire status" board, only, and not be distracted by navigation alarms, radio calls, etc, etc. But that depends on proper training. The fire status board generally will indicate fire detector status, fire door status, and things like elevator alarms.

 

Unlike most high-rises, I haven't seen a panel that would tell you where every car is at any one moment, so locating the all the cars and determining whether they are at a deck, and whether the doors are open is difficult. I'm not saying this would be a bad idea or impossible to do, and it is tragedies like this that lead to further regulation and training to prevent similar things happening again.

[sidari]

Thanks for the info, do the lifts on cruise ships have a slot on the top of the door for a Lunar key to be inserted to over ride the door closer so that the doors can be opened in order to look either up or down to see where the car is as you can with land based ones ?

 

Do you know what the maximum heel/tilt to port or starboard would be before the lifts will stop working ?

[chengkp75]

Thanks for the info, do the lifts on cruise ships have a slot on the top of the door for a Lunar key to be inserted to over ride the door closer so that the doors can be opened in order to look either up or down to see where the car is as you can with land based ones ?

 

Do you know what the maximum heel/tilt to port or starboard would be before the lifts will stop working ?

 

There is an override key both for the car doors as well as the deck doors. Nearly all engineering types carry one on their key chains.

 

Haven't researched the heel angle question for elevators, that may be either IMO regulated or class society. Most things on ships are designed to work up to 25-30* of heel (which would be very scary to most passengers), but that is not to say that it would be smooth operation, or make it easy to hand wind a car.

[qtlikeme]

I read recently that if "Abandon Ship" is called on a cruise ship, it means each passenger is refunded their fare. I understand from reading this, that the decision is not taken lightly and that a captain and the company that owns the ship would want to do everything but call abandon ship if there was any chance that the ship could be saved and also the passengers stay on board. I am also wondering if anyone knows the obligation to compensate passengers in the event of this situation? We now understand that the minimum payment for passengers is 11 thousand euros per passenger, but can not find it written anywhere, the circumstances when this compensation would be necessary. If this payout is necessary if abandon ship is called in addition to the refund, then there was indeed a huge amount of money at stake if all passengers were entitled to this. I am starting to understand the delay and what might have been part of the reason for it!! It was all about money.....as so often things in this world are!!! Also the fact that a lost life is only worth 70 thousand euros really sickens me!!!

[chengkp75]

I read recently that if "Abandon Ship" is called on a cruise ship, it means each passenger is refunded their fare. I understand from reading this, that the decision is not taken lightly and that a captain and the company that owns the ship would want to do everything but call abandon ship if there was any chance that the ship could be saved and also the passengers stay on board. I am also wondering if anyone knows the obligation to compensate passengers in the event of this situation? We now understand that the minimum payment for passengers is 11 thousand euros per passenger, but can not find it written anywhere, the circumstances when this compensation would be necessary. If this payout is necessary if abandon ship is called in addition to the refund, then there was indeed a huge amount of money at stake if all passengers were entitled to this. I am starting to understand the delay and what might have been part of the reason for it!! It was all about money.....as so often things in this world are!!! Also the fact that a lost life is only worth 70 thousand euros really sickens me!!!

 

To begin with, there is a difference between the signal for passenger mustering (continuous ringing of ship's general alarm) and the decision to actually abandon ship. There have been several ships where the decision was made to muster the passengers in order to get the accountability taken care of, and to get them out of the way, and then they were released back to normal cruise activity after the emergency was dealt with. I've never heard of a refund being guaranteed for being mustered, or even a minimum payment for this. Could you please post your source? I'd be interested in researching. Now, if the passengers actually had to enter the boats, and the boats were launched, leaving the ship, then I would say that the lines would be liable for some form of compensation. Also, since cruise ships are flagged in different countries, I don't see who could enforce a blanket refund requirement on all cruise ships. This may be a line specific thing, and spelled out in the cruise contract, but again I've never heard of it.

 

The decision to muster the passengers is not taken lightly, but from my perspective, not for money reasons, but for safety, as controlling a crowd of several thousand when they feel threatened is not easy, and accidents can happen. It is also bad for the company's PR to have signaled an emergency situation where passenger safety was considered to be imminently threatened. The decision to abandon a ship is even more important, as everyone is always safer on the ship than in boats, unless the ship is in imminent danger of sinking. But in the Concordia's case, not even the muster was called, so there was no way of knowing where all the passengers or crew were, and this is the most time consuming part of the emergency management plan. Once you have herded the cats into a pen, and counted them, loading them into the boats is the easy part.