Concordia News: Please Post Here

[SomeBeach]

Can't a guy have a beer break and a potty break around here......... LOL

 

No!

 

Please tell us what the missing minutes ????

(shades of Watergate tapes - history repeats itself)

 

Not really missing minutes. NatGeo went with a certain number of minutes from the "newer" released tapes. Sidari posted them as the show listed them. CT had the time frame that was released early last year. The courts will have the whole sequence.

[mickey_d_mouse]

Flame me if you like, but I don't believe the captain was as cowardly as everyone makes him out to be.

 

Without the radio transmission from the Coast Guard ordering him back on board many I think would have been praising the captain. Instead one piece of damning evidence from the very beginning before any other facts were known has nailed him prematurely in MHI.

 

Accepted the captain has final responsibility but there is far more to this and the programme the other night asked more questions than gave answers.

 

 

Esprit it wasnt so much the getting off but also not one person sighting him or his officers helping us passengers get off, not one and I have spoken to a lot of my other survivors, he was too busy getting chnaged to make sure no one knew he was the captain.

[mickey_d_mouse]

Accidents can and do happen. It's not so much that Schettino "f...ed up" -- it's his actions immediately following the mishap that most people have a HUGE problem with.

 

There have been NO reports of Schettino helping just ONE passenger on that ship before he bailed for dry land.

 

What an insult to his crew -- especially British dancer Rose Metcalf who was one of the last to get off the ship after helping countless passengers, putting them ahead of her as everyone scrambled to get off. And the Hungarian musician who paid with his life in order to save others. Not to mention the other crew members and passengers who met their untimely deaths.

 

There have been many accounts of bravery and stories of passengers and crew members with boundless courage. Not a single one of them involves Schettino. The moment this personification-of-spinelessness fell into a lifeboat and refused to get back, watching his ship sink while safe on dry land, was the moment Schettino became the BLOODIEST WIMP of a captain the world has ever known!

 

 

SO SO SO SO SO WELL SAID

[MDSue]

Thinking back onto Tonka's statement about never going on board a Carnival Corp ship...

 

Bottom line...revenue played a part in Concordia's demise...she was not fully functioning, her captain had been pressured into doing a sail by knowing the ship was going to be met by a repair crew the next day...makes for an accident waiting to happen.

 

You have brought up many excellent points throughout this discussion, but I believe that you are drawing your own conclusions about who is at fault and I have yet to see one factual report that anything other than a huge error on the part of the captain caused this ship to sink. Additionally, the actions of the captain after the ship crashed into the rocks, is well documented and shows he intentionally withheld crucial information from the Coast Guard, his crew, and the passengers that made the disaster even worse.

 

I have yet to read anything factual that indicates a problem or multiple problems with the ship's functioning caused this crash or that the captain was pressured into doing a sail-by of the island (is it possible he made the decision- not his superiors, and he failed to pay attention to where the ship was actually heading, or that his near miss a while back made him over-confident a second time around). That's not to say there were no extenuating factors that contributed to the fiasco, but I believe the captain, not the ship, nor it's parent company, had anything to do with the human error that led the ship onto the rocks.

 

I hope all the facts eventually come out and we will know the full story of what happened in complete detail, but as of yet, I've seen nor read anything yet that exonerates the captain from this incident.

 

I do whole-heartedly agree with you that new safety standards must be put in place to insure that no other ship ever suffers the same fate.

[watertheodds]

IMO the real "bottom line" is the implication of bridge equipment error is conjecture of the attorneys that are representing the passengers in the remaining suits against Carnival/Costa and the attorneys representing the Captain. The huge settlements they are looking for must come from the deep pockets of Carnival/Costa thus they need to show gross negligence by the cruise line. While I personally think gross negligence is valid in their keeping of a rogue captain, I did a little back research this afternoon and only found that the black box was what was malfunctioning on the bridge. The information I read said the black box still recorded bridge activities up to after the accident and only stopped recording during the abandoning of the ship. As I said - I did a LITTLE research (I was at work after all - lol) so yes there probably are other things that needed repair - but....it's a big ship with lots of moving parts. What I read indicated that it was checked at each port by port authorities / coast guard and deemed safe to sail.

[Cruising Ken]

Looks like a really bad day to be in Giglio:(

[Vampire Parrot]

CostaSmurfette posted

The minimum equipment list failings are well known and documented....

Please provide a reference. It would be interesting to see what equipment had failed.

 

Note:

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/94/Costa_Concordia_2.JPG

shows that Costa Concordia had at least two radars. Two are visible on the top mast just ahead of the flags.

 

VP

[sidari]

CT ... No idea if you went back some pages to catch up but the Nat geo programme showed the chart that was carried on Concordia that night(maybe not the actual one but the same one) which does not show Le Scole on it, the large scale map of the Island does show it.

 

VP ... There may have been two radar bowls but how do we know there was anything in both of them? you know a bit like the 4th funnel on the Titanic.

 

SB ... I could only give what the show gave to copy to here, plus we do not know if what was pasted by CT was the correct translation from what was said in Italian to English as we have seen previously on CC.

Edited January 16, 2013 by sidari

[Vampire Parrot]

VP ... There may have been two radar bowls but how do we know there was anything in both of them? you know a bit like the 4th funnel on the Titanic.

 

The radars aren't in the domes. On the picture I posted a link to there are two radars visible which at sea are usually rotating. They look to me as if they are manufactured by SAM Electronics AG - many cruise ship radars are.

 

It is a SOLAS requirement that every passenger vessel over 3000 tons must have two working radars.

 

There is absolutely no way Costa Concordia would have gone to sea without a working radar. Any bridge officer who stood watch on a ship which they knew before the ship left port had no radar would be foolish in the extreme.

 

VP

[cruiserfanfromct]

CT ... No idea if you went back some pages to catch up but the Nat geo programme showed the chart that was carried on Concordia that night(maybe not the actual one but the same one) which does not show Le Scole on it, the large scale map of the Island does show it.

 

The point I was trying to make is there was no damn good reason to get that dangerously close in the first place! To perform an unannounced and unscheduled fly-by to an inconsequential tiny dark island at a time when most - if not all of the passengers were dining or watching shows was an egregious and unconscionable deviation of duty which resulted in the charges currently being brought against Schettino.

 

It goes against every ounce of common sense to think for one minute that Costa / Carnival would have ordered this maneuver and risked what we now know as the costliest maritime disaster - not to mention the cost of the recovery to just please ONE person on that island (who BTW turns out wasn't even there that night.)

 

It was the actions immediately after the incident that really showed the captain's true colors. Why were the passengers ordered back to their cabins when it was obvious to him that the ship was sinking? If he wanted to keep everyone calm he could have stuck with his electrical fault excuse but had everyone go to their muster stations and explain it was just a precaution. Instead of being concerned about the safety and well being of his passengers and crew he was more interested in talking to headquarters about his exit package and what to say to the press. This caused the delay that ultimately killed the 32 helpless souls, IMHO.

[sidari]

VP .. thanks for pointing out my error .... ;) the ones i have seen on cruise ships usually have the name Sam on them as you say, have to agree that having no working radar at all would be totaly foolish.

 

On the picture you posted the link to did you notice the damage to the Bow plating below and to the right of the word Concordia? from a previous incident.

 

CT ... I believe in time and as was said in the Nat geo programme that the Bridge officers were working on deciding if the ship would Float or Sink! this would have taken time and although they would have known with 3 compartments together breeched it would sink they would not have known the extent of the damage. The time taken to get people to see how bad the damage was meant that decision would impact on when and if the Lifeboats needed to be used.

you have to face the fact that this was not some 30 foot boat but a cruise ship that was filing initially with tons of water which prevented people from taking their normal route to Engine rooms etc which would have added even more time to giving the information the the Bridge officers.

Edited January 16, 2013 by sidari

[SomeBeach]

Concordia Captain "regrets" nothing.

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16531308-former-costa-concordia-captain-i-regret-nothing?lite

[sidari]

NBC ... are they only news outlet getting stories from Schettino ?

[Tonka's Skipper]

The radars aren't in the domes. On the picture I posted a link to there are two radars visible which at sea are usually rotating. They look to me as if they are manufactured by SAM Electronics AG - many cruise ship radars are.

 

It is a SOLAS requirement that every passenger vessel over 3000 tons must have two working radars.

 

There is absolutely no way Costa Concordia would have gone to sea without a working radar. Any bridge officer who stood watch on a ship which they knew before the ship left port had no radar would be foolish in the extreme.

 

VP

 

Agreed!.AKK

[cruiserfanfromct]

CT ... I believe in time and as was said in the Nat geo programme that the Bridge officers were working on deciding if the ship would Float or Sink! this would have taken time and although they would have known with 3 compartments together breeched it would sink they would not have known the extent of the damage. The time taken to get people to see how bad the damage was meant that decision would impact on when and if the Lifeboats needed to be used.

you have to face the fact that this was not some 30 foot boat but a cruise ship that was filing initially with tons of water which prevented people from taking their normal route to Engine rooms etc which would have added even more time to giving the information the the Bridge officers.

Unfortunately the way the captain was manually navigating the ship at the time of impact, it might as well have been a 30-foot cigarette speed boat. Nobody goes to Giglio to watch Costa cruise ships speed by so exactly who he was trying to impress is highly questionable.

 

IMHO to have the passengers report to their muster stations with life jackets on as a precaution (while using the electrical fault excuse to ensure calmness) instead of sending them back to their cabins would have been the prudent thing to do. If it turned out it was not necessary to abandon ship then at that point the passengers could have been told to go back to their cabins. It seems Schettino was reading the emergency manual in reverse and interjecting falsehoods. It's obvious this man's major concern was his career and the press as displayed in his indecisiveness, stalling and leaving the ship incognito (he took the time to change into civilian clothes while people were fighting for their lives).

 

[SomeBeach]

NBC ... are they only news outlet getting stories from Schettino ?

 

And that matters... why?

Maybe they are the only ones that will listen to him.

Here is part of what he said.

Schettino claimed he had no way to tell how many people were still on board when he left the vessel.

"People don't understand that the ship is 58 meters (nearly 200 feet) wide, so you don't have a chance to see who else is left on the other side. And in the moment the floor started to become steeper, you have no other option: To die, or to swim," he said. “So, I regret nothing."

 

I thought he "fell" or "tripped." :rolleyes:

[SomeBeach]

Unfortunately the way the captain was manually navigating the ship at the time of impact, it might as well have been a 30-foot cigarette speed boat. Nobody goes to Giglio to watch Costa cruise ships speed by so exactly who he was trying to impress is highly questionable.

 

IMHO to have the passengers report to their muster stations with life jackets on as a precaution (while using the electrical fault excuse to ensure calmness) instead of sending them back to their cabins would have been the prudent thing to do. If it turned out it was not necessary to abandon ship then at that point the passengers could have been told to go back to their cabins. It seems Schettino was reading the emergency manual in reverse and interjecting falsehoods. It's obvious this man's major concern was his career and the press as displayed in his indecisiveness, stalling and leaving the ship incognito (he took the time to change into civilian clothes while people were fighting for their lives).

 

 

Reporting to Muster stations would have been a good idea to allow time to make sure everyone got to their proper station. There were 700 passengers that boarded that day and had not been to a drill. How many were first time cruisers that had no idea what to do? It was time wasted to insure people were where they needed to be.

[watertheodds]

And that matters... why?

Maybe they are the only ones that will listen to him.

 

Here is part of what he said.

 

Schettino claimed he had no way to tell how many people were still on board when he left the vessel.

"People don't understand that the ship is 58 meters (nearly 200 feet) wide, so you don't have a chance to see who else is left on the other side. And in the moment the floor started to become steeper, you have no other option: To die, or to swim," he said. “So, I regret nothing."

 

I thought he "fell" or "tripped." :rolleyes:

I guess the lifeboat he and his fellow officers were in couldn't motor over to the other side of the ship and survey the situation from the water ???

[sidari]

CT .... right after the impact they had no power so were the ships officers wrong for telling people they had a Blackout due to an Electrical problem and one that was clear for All to see? at that time no one knew the extent of the damage caused and we can only guess because we were not there that this was the reason they were told to return to their cabins.

 

"so exactly who he was trying to impress is highly questionable" early press reports claimed that the Hotel Director had asked to pass by Giglio! that fact has yet to be proved, though he was on the Bridge at the time of the collision.

SB ... I asked the question out of curiosity as it seems they are the only media outlet reporting what he says, with regard to the "trip or falling into a lifeboat" there was also a story possibly reported by NBC where Schettino says he was sat on the rock facing the ship for an hour!

 

Notice that there has been no confirmation of which lifeboat he was supposed to be in nor any of where he got out of it on Giglio! and no word from the crew member who was in charge of steering it.

 

 

 

[SomeBeach]

Sid, according to the video that was recording Bridge activity (and released back in Feb, 2012) Schettino asked at 9:51, " so are we really going down?"

At 9:54 he was recorded saying to tell passengers it was a blackout.

At 9:56 he called his Costa contact to tell him he f'd up.

At 10:30 he was still refusing to sound the alarm.

At 10:44 the ship came to rest at Giglio.

It wasn't until 10:51 he gave the order to abandon.

He wasted valueable time in preparing his passengers and in notifying the CG how serious his "taking on water" was.

Keep in mind, the CG was a good 40 minutes away, on the mainland. They should have been told the truth right from the start. Why weren't they? That's right, once they are notified, the CG takes command and Schettino did not want to give that up until he tried to cover his a$$.

[sidari]

SB .. I think everyone agrees that there was a long time before the Abandon ship order was given, but we as onlookers do not have All of the facts before us to make a Black and White conclusion on the decision of the Bridge officers and their reason for taking the time that they did.

 

As far as i know the telephone conversation between Schettino and his boss has still not been disclosed, which i would have thought would be picked up by the voice data recorder.

 

The ships voice data recorder will have the more indepth record of what happened and who said what and at what time, one thing many experts in the maritime field agree on is that it would have been foolhardy to launch lifeboats with the ship still moving into deeper water and being blown along by the wind.

 

As a guess i would say that Schettino was hoping that the ship would beach itself near to the entrance of Giglio port and keep itself upright enough to get passengers off safely.

 

One thing that could have been done to try to help calm people would have been to tell them just how close they were to the island of Giglio.

[Ken711]

The captain of the Costa Concordia, which ran aground a year ago leaving 32 dead, understands why people “hate” him, but said he has no regrets.

 

The cruise ship carrying vacationers hit the rocks off the Italian island Giglio when it went off its preprogrammed course so that islanders could get a better view of the vessel.

 

In an interview with NBC News, the captain, Francesco Schettino, who is accused of multiple manslaughters and wrecking and abandoning ship (he reportedly left the ship before it had been emptied of passengers), said he was misunderstood.

 

“Everybody believes that I was escaping from the sinking ship,” he said. However, Schettino recalled that he “tried to make an effort to make sure that I was the last one to leave the ship—from the sinking side."

 

He added that the blame should be shared with lower-ranking officers on the ship that night, who, he claims, handed control of the ship over to him minutes before running aground. He said, "I regret that I was trusting [of that officer]. I was trusting him before the accident, and also after the accident. And I have been living with these things inside me. I will never trust anyone anymore because this was a very deadly mistake."

 

Schettino also said he had no way of knowing how many people were still on board the ship when he got off: “People don't understand that the ship is 58 meters [nearly 200 feet] wide, so you don't have a chance to see who else is left on the other side. And in the moment the floor started to become steeper, you have no other option: To die, or to swim." He added, “So I regret nothing."

 

The captain, currently in Naples, declined to attend the memorials held to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the tragedy.

 

This guy still doesn't get it, it's so sad. He's still making excuses.

[cruiserfanfromct]

Concordia Captain "regrets" nothing.

 

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16531308-former-costa-concordia-captain-i-regret-nothing?lite

 

Wow! Thanks for the link SB.

 

This was written by an Esquire journalist in response to Schettino regretting nothing:

 

"It takes a certain man, a stupid man, to show off for a girl while piloting a billion dollar cruise ship carrying more than 4,200 souls. It takes a terrible man to abandon ship ahead of the passengers he's put in danger after he runs aground. But it takes the absolute worst kind of man to say "I regret nothing" on the anniversary of the day his ego killed 32 people."

Schettino: "You don't have a chance to see who else is left... And in the moment the floor started to become steeper, you have no other option: To die, or to swim."

 

Schettino: '"I only left because I FELL into a lifeboat when ship listed"

 

UNBELIEVABLE!!! Like you said, he could have easily motored over to the other side to see who he left behind and helped, like the deputy mayor of Giglio who climbed up the ropes to help and assumed the role the Coast Guard asked of this spineless excuse of a captain. Instead he sits on the rocks incognito having changed into civilian clothes, then hails a cab and disappears into the Giglio night. Next morning he gives a press interview using the sorry a$$ excuse the rocks were not on his chart.

 

He is truly the worst kind of man!!!! Not surprising his name is now synonymous with coward.

[sidari]

CT .... I suppose he regrets nothing because he believes "he" has done nothing wrong!

 

"It takes a certain man, a stupid man, to show off for a girl while piloting a billion dollar cruise ship"

 

Odd that the writer makes no claims that he was not showing off to the other guests on the Bridge that night!

 

In the latest Discovery channel programme on the ship, the Mayor of Giglio says that 5 metres from the Reef the water is 10 Metres deep and at 10 Metres the water is 30 metres Deep, so had the Stern been turned earlier in the 13 seconds that it took for the Helmsman to carry out the task Concordia may well have sailed by Le Scole reef unscathed.

[cruiserfanfromct]

CT .... I suppose he regrets nothing because he believes "he" has done nothing wrong!

 

"It takes a certain man, a stupid man, to show off for a girl while piloting a billion dollar cruise ship"

 

Odd that the writer makes no claims that he was not showing off to the other guests on the Bridge that night!

 

Odd that you would find odd the writer made no claims he was showing off for the male Hotel Director or the male Head Waiter instead of the 20-something female dancer whose bikini and booze laden suitcase was found in his cabin. (Before you go off on this -- there is proof the suitcase was there -- see official court testimony and diagrams drawn by the person in question herself to court officials).

 

In the latest Discovery channel programme on the ship, the Mayor of Giglio says that 5 metres from the Reef the water is 10 Metres deep and at 10 Metres the water is 30 metres Deep, so had the Stern been turned earlier in the 13 seconds that it took for the Helmsman to carry out the task Concordia may well have sailed by Le Scole reef unscathed.

Sid, come on now, the point is he should never have gotten so DANGEROUSLY close at such a HIGH rate of speed as to have missed by a hair! There is absolutely NO excuse for this highly preventable accident to have happened in the first place and definitely NO excuse for the captain's deplorable actions immediately following.

Edited January 17, 2013 by cruiserfanfromct