Costa Concordia
New pictures are emerging of last night’s Costa Concordia Disaster.
You can see the desparate situation faced by passengers in the above picture. We understand that the ship is now on its side on the coast of Isola del Giglio.
Early reports point to human error being a possible cause. Quite why the Concordia was sailing so close to land is hard to fathom. Ships normally pass the Isola del Giglio at a distance of well over a mile and the ship’s course is pre-programmed into the ships computer with alarms sounding if it deviates (although these alarms can be manually de-activated).
The ship’s track seems to show it passing at a significant speed, so loss of engine power doesn’t seem likely. These modern ships also use rotating “pods” for propulsion and steering rather than the traditional rear propeller and rudder, so steering failure is not likely to be a factor.
Local media are reporting that the Captain left the ship long before all passengers were evacuated which is extremely unusual as the Captain would normally co-ordinate any rescue attempt. The same reports suggest that the Captain is blaming a power failure for the disaster which again is most strange as the electrical power comes from the engines which were clearly operating given the speed of the ship. Pictures such as the one above also indicate that electrical power was maintained. The ship does have emergency backup power, however the ship is lit up like a Christmas tree which doesn’t suggest the use of emergency lights.
cruiseastute.com says …
“This is clearly a major disaster, and whilst we don’t know all the circumstances yet, it is certainly looking like human error caused it.”
