Table Of Content
I took up a new form of self-therapy and started writing, and I would cry sometimes of course. Unfortunately, later on, I learned that two fellow musicians had lost their lives. My friend, a Hungarian violinist, who lost his life, had just gone down to his cabin. Eventually a little rescue boat was sent for us, and I will always say, jumping in this little rescue boat was like jumping back to life. I knew where the life raft I was supposed to get on was located, and I knew it would now be under water. But no one came from the bridge, and of course the ship, in the meantime, was still performing this very macabre choreography of slowly capsizing.
Costa Cruises and its parent companies
And three giant Costa cruise ships are anchored near La Spezia, "motors running, lights on, and with small crews aboard," Fortune reporter Eric J. Lyman wrote. I left the bar and found myself stumbling along sloping corridors with passengers and crew members. Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 300-meter (1,000-foot) long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering.
Moment of Impact
He is accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all those on board were evacuated. “From the happiness and wonder of being on a cruise, we passengers became panic stricken and fell over. Even as the crew began to frantically assess the damage and start the emergency diesel generator, Schettino ordered them to tell passengers that the ship had simply suffered an electrical outage and that everything was under control. The same erroneous information was given to the harbour master at Civitavecchia. Just as the ship was making its way north-west along the coastline, Schettino called for the vessel to be steered close to Giglio as a way to “salute” the island. Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of US-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered.
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The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing. Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated. Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors.
Escape: The Wreck of the Costa Concordia, Part 10
At least six people died after a cruise ship capsized off the coast of Italy Friday. Ray Suarez discusses some of the legal and safety issues stemming from the disaster with longtime travel writer Rudy Maxa, currently the host of "Rudy Maxa's World" on PBS, and Richard Alsina, a lawyer specializing in maritime law. GIGLIO, Italy (AP) — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.
In July 2014 the Concordia—outfitted with a number of steel containers serving as flotation devices—was towed to Genoa, Italy, where it was dismantled for scrap. The total cost of the disaster, including victims' compensation, refloating, towing and scrapping costs, is estimated at $2 billion, more than three times the ship's $612 million construction cost. Costa Cruises offered compensation to passengers (to a limit of €11,000 per person) to pay for all damages, including the value of the cruise; one third of the survivors took the offer. Almost immediately questions were raised concerning the conduct of Schettino and other crew officers. In July 2013 four crew members and Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator pled guilty to various charges, including manslaughter. He was charged with manslaughter as well as causing the wreck and abandoning ship.
Costa Concordia Captain Found Guilty Of Manslaughter : The Two-Way - NPR
Costa Concordia Captain Found Guilty Of Manslaughter : The Two-Way.
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The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner. Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it! “Every one of us here has a tragic memory from then,” said Mario Pellegrini, 59, who was deputy mayor in 2012 and was the first civilian to climb onto the cruise ship after it struck the rocks near the lighthouses at the port entrance.
The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse
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The lifeboats wouldn't drop down because the ship was tilted on its side, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on the side of the ship for hours in the cold. People were left to clamber down a rope ladder over a distance equivalent to 11 stories. Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. “I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats. Dozens of cruise ships, out of commission during the pandemic that brought tourism and demand for trips on the massive liners to a halt, have been docked off Italy's coasts for a year and a half.
But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case. Following the conclusion of the righting operation, the ship was kept on the platform while further inspections were made and the starboard sponsons attached. Locals are unhappy about unsightly liners marring the seaside views, making constant sound, and the potential for their negative environmental impact on the surrounding towns, according to a Fortune report published Monday. Rose Metcalf, a dancer who had been performing on the ship, was one of the last people to be winched to safety by a helicopter after clinging to the stricken vessel. "Usually there are 700 people on the island at this time of year, so receiving 4,000 people in the middle of the night wasn't easy," she said.
That includes ships operated by companies MSC Cruise ships and Costa, Fortune reported, some of which are docked near Rome's main port of Civitavecchia. Rescue teams searched for survivors and helicopters evacuated the last 50 people on the deck. "Everything happened really fast. Everybody tried to get a life boat and people started to panic. A lot of people were falling down the stairs and some were hurt because things fell on them. "It was difficult to walk. First it moved once, then to the left and then more on the right. The boat was tipping one side. You could see the ship was sinking more and more. In half an hour it sank halfway into the water," she said. This was the very beginning of my personal nightmare, because I had to perform a gruelling evacuation of the ship.
The hulking mass of the capsized 115,000-tonne cruise ship, which for 900 days lay seemingly unmovable and partly submerged in the Mediterranean, became a metaphor for the political and economic ills of an entire nation. Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 300-metre long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. The anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the COVID-19 pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of virus outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. "I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after," he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats.
As the Costa Concordia made its final journey out of the port of Giglio, some survivors and families of victims looked on as a final farewell. In the aftermath of the disaster, legal claims mounted against the owner of the ship, Costa Cruises. They included lawsuits by the region of Tuscany and a €189m suit by the island of Giglio, which claimed that the accident and the presence of the downed vessel hurt tourism and the local economy. Instead, he said he did it as a favour to the ship’s head waiter, who was a native of Giglio, and to give his passengers a beautiful view of the island.
Evidence introduced in Schettino’s trial suggests that the safety of his passengers and crew wasn’t his number one priority as he assessed the damage to the Concordia. The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger. An investigation focused on shortcomings in the procedures followed by Costa Concordia's crew and the actions of her captain, Francesco Schettino, who left the ship prematurely. He left about 300 passengers on board the sinking vessel, most of whom were rescued by helicopter or motorboats in the area.
But the night of the disaster, a Friday the 13th, remains seared in his memory. Ultimately, it took more than an hour for Schettino to give the order to abandon ship. By that point, the vessel was already tilted at a 30-degree angle, complicating some of the rescue effort. About 20 minutes later, even as hundreds of passengers continued to await rescue, Schettino abandoned his post and left his second in command in charge of the evacuation. Twelve minutes later, the latter also abandoned his post, with about 300 passengers still on board. It was a national drama with an eccentric cast of characters – a reckless villain, his secret lover and a hard-done-by hero – that has riveted the country for three years.
"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them." Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink. “It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said.
