Costa Concordia Progress

The operation to salvage the stricken Costa Concordia is coming to the end of its first  phase.

You may remember from earlier posts that a platform to stand the ship on was to be built on the sea bed and that metal tanks called ‘Sponsons’ were to be welded to the side of the ship.

The platforms and anchor points have been completed and most of the sponsons are now in place.

The next stage of the operation will see the sponsons filled with water to help pull the ship upright and then filled with air to refloat the ship.

The operation is nearly ready to go, however Italian officials have suggested that further checks need to be made into the state of the ship to avoid any environmental damage from unknown holes in the side of the ship touching the sea bed. There is speculation that this could delay the next phase until 2014.

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Costa Concordia

The Costa Concordia hit a rock close to the Isola Del Giglio, Italy on 13^th January 2012. In this article we piece together the various stories and reports of the disaster to create a comprehensive review of events to date. Of course further details will emerge later this year during the inquiry and trial of the captain as well as during the salvage of the vessel and we will provide further updates in our daily articles.

It is 9:42pm on the night of 13^th January 2012. The Costa Concordia, a 952ft long Italian cruise ship with 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew on board, is on a seven night cruise bound for the Italian port of Savona. Passenger muster drills which legally don’t have to be carried out for 24 hours but are normally completed before or shortly after sailing have not taken place.

The ship has left the Italian mainland port of Civitavecchia, a major cruise embarkation port and the main port for the Italian capital Rome, at 7:33pm. The 114,137 ton vessel built in 2006 is the largest ship ever to have been built in Italy and one of the larger cruise liners in the world.

The Captain, Francesco Schettino, has turned off the ship’s navigation alarm at 9:39pm and is navigating by sight as he deviates from the programmed course to perform a sailpast of the Isola del Giglio. Some Costa ships have occasionally performed this sailpast before but Schettino is taking the €450million Concordia much closer to the island claiming that “I knew those seabeds well. I had done the move three, four times”.

The ship’s Maitre d’hôtel is on the bridge watching the ship sail past his home having been invited by the Captain. Schettino himself is on the phone to retired Costa Captain Mario Palombo telling him “Seeing as we’re passing the island, we’ll sound the siren for you”. Suddenly he sees waves breaking on the Le Scole reef about 800 metres south of the entrance to Giglio harbor on the east coast of the island. He turns the Concordia abruptly but the side of the ship hits the exposed reef at 16 knots embedding a large rock in the port side of the ship and creating a 160ft gash. Two long strips of steel are sheared from the ship’s hull breaching three of the seven watertight compartments.

Most passengers are in the main dining room when they hear a loud bang and feel a shudder. Dishes crash to the floor and the ship lists to port. A crew member speaking over the ship’s public address system blames the situation on an electrical failure.

A few minutes later the head of the engine room warns Captain Schettino that the ship has an irreparable 70 metre tear in the hull and that the engines and generators are submerged. The Concordia now continues north past Giglio harbor under her own momentum.

At 9:56pm, Schettino phones Roberto Ferrarini, an officer at Costa Cruise’s head office. “Roberto, I ****ed up” he says.

At 10:10pm, the ship makes a sharp turn south causing it to list to Starboard by about 20 degrees. This list would later cause difficulty in launching the lifeboats.

At 10:12pm, the ship is contacted by the coastguard on the Italian Mainland following mobile phone calls from passengers to Italian police reporting that the ship was in trouble. An unidentified crew member tells the coastguard that the ship is suffering from an “electrical blackout”.

At 10:20pm, passenger video footage shows passengers in lifejackets being told by the crew that “everything is under control” and urging them to return to their cabins.

At 10:26pm, the Captain tells the Port of Livorno’s harbormaster that the ship has taken in water on the port side and requests a tug.

At around 10:30pm, nearly an hour after the collision, the ship’s cook claims that Captain Schettino orders dinner, whilst a police patrol boat calls the Concordia but receives no reply.

It’s 10:42pm when the ship’s crew finally sound the general emergency alarms and alert port authorities to the collision.

At 10:44pm, the Concordia comes to rest at Punta Del Gabbinara leaning at an angle of 70 degrees in 20 metres of water. Some passengers jump into water and swim to shore whilst others are forced to wait as the crew delay launching the lifeboats.

The off-duty captain of the Costa Serena, Roberto Bosio, happens to be onboard catching a lift back to Savona. Bosio, suspecting that ship is doomed, begins to co-ordinate the evacuation of the ship whilst, back on the bridge, video shows Captain Schettino seeming confused and dithering about what to do.

Finally, at 10:50pm, the order to abandon ship is given.

At around 11:30pm, according to investigators, Captain Schettino leaves the ship.

At 12:42am Captain Schettino tells the coastguard that he’s in a lifeboat, he would later claim that he tripped and fell into it.

At 1:04am an Air Force officer is lowered onboard from a helicopter and reports 100 people still aboard.

At 1:46am Italian Coastguard Captain Gregorio De Falco contacts Schettino in the lifeboat and orders him to get back onboard the ship. Schettino makes various excuses as to why he can’t.

At 3:44am, the Air Force officer reports that around 40 to 50 passengers are still on board.

At 4:46am the Port of Livorno harbormaster notes that the evacuation is completed in his log.

The days immediately after the disaster

Italian dive teams began to search the wreck and sea bed the following day (14^th January 2012) in an operation that lasted for 16 days until 30^th January.

The divers worked in pitch black conditions with large items of furniture floating around inside the wreck. They worked in pairs for safety searching each area slowly in a zigzag manner for up to 40 minutes at a time. The two torches on their helmets provided visibility from a few inches to about 2 feet.

On 14^th January two South Korean newlyweds Jeong Hye Jim and Kideok Hanmarito who were rescued from a cabin two decks above the waterline. The ship’s Cabin service director Manrico Giampedroni was also rescued after suffering a broken leg.

The search effort had to be suspended several times as the ship, which was resting on a marine ledge with a drop of 68m, shifted slightly. Holes were blasted into the Concordia’s hull to access further areas.

On 20^th January, divers recovered the body of the 16^th victim on deck 4.

On 28^th January the 17^th victim, Peruvian crew member Erika Fani Soriamolina was recovered from a submerged part of the wreck on deck 6.

On 12^th February, after being delayed due to poor weather at the site, the Dutch salvage firm Smit began to remove 2,380 tonnes of fuel and oil from the ship.

Despite the diving operation being terminated on 31^st January, information from passengers guided rescue teams to the location of 8 further bodies on 28^th February including that of 5-year-old Dayana Arlotti.

On 22^nd March the bodies of Americans Barbara and Gerald Heil, Christina Mathi and Norbert Josef Ganz of Germany, and Giuseppe Girolamo, an Italian were discovered in a location believed to be in the ship’s hull.

On 24^th March the de-fuelling operation was completed.

The Future

It is believed that although the Concordia will be recovered to an Italian port, it is likely to be a total insurance loss and will therefore be broken up for scrap. The CEO of Costa Cruises told an American Senate committee “We believe that the wreck can no longer be put to use”.

For more information about the salvage operation, please consult our previous article.

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Costa Concordia Satellite Image

The salvage operation which will re-float and then remove the Costa Concordia from the Isola Del Giglo in Italy will be the biggest and costliest in history, the ship’s owners Costa Cruises revealed today.

The £190m project will begin in the next few days but will take over a year to complete.

Stage 1 – Flotation tanks to be attached to the side of the hull

An Italian-American consortium Titan-Micoperi will carry out the salvage operation on the ship which is currently lying on rocks at an angle of 80 degrees.

Stage 2 – Chains will prevent the wreck sliding during the lifting operation

A 40m platform will first be built underneath the ship and the 160ft gash in the hull repaired.

Stage 3 – Platform will support the ship during operation

Once all parts are in place, two cranes will pull the Concordia upright before it is re-floated and taken away.

Stage 4 – The Concordia is ready to be pulled upright

Once the wreck is removed the platform will be dismantled, the sea bed cleaned, and marine flora replanted.

Stage 5 – The ship is pulled upright and will rest on the platform ready to be floated

The operation will be co-ordinated on the Italian mainland in order to reduce the impact on normal port operations.

cruiseastute.com says …

“The scale of this operation is unprecedented and is additionally complicated by the fact that the area is environmentally sensitive meaning that the ship can’t be cut up.”

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Captain Francesco Schettino

The Captain of the Costa Concordia had already damaged another ship whist sailing too fast into the German port of Warnemunde it emerged today.

Francesco Schettino was at the helm of the Costa Atlantica manouvering at a speed of 7.7 to 7.9 knots when he damaged the German Cruise Ship Aida Blu in June 2010.

Schettino responded at the time that he didn’t know the speed limit.

Meanwhile, according to the leaked prosecution evidence, the Concordia’s first officer Ciro Ambrosio has stated that “The captain told us not to tell the harbourmaster anything about what had happened. He said to tell them that everything was under control”.

Schettino, described in court papers by retired Costa captain Mario Palombo as “a liar and he is too proud”, remained under house arrest. Palombo also accused the disgraced captain of having difficulty manouvering large ships in his 2003 profile.

The post Disgraced Costa Concordia Captain Had Already Crashed Another Ship appeared first on Cruiseastute Blog.

Costa Concordia Bridge

Italian Channel TV5 have obtained dramatic new footage of the bridge during the Concordia Disaster.

The 8 minute video shows the crew urging the Captain Francesco Schettino to abandon ship but the Captain, on the phone for much of the footage, ignores them and seems to be pre-occupied with minor issues.

One of the crew tells him “Captain, the passengers are starting to get into the lifeboats on their own”, Schettino doesn’t seem bothered replying “Whatever .. Whatever…OK”.

The chief investigator Francesco Verusio was unaware that the footage existed. He said “None of the officers mentioned it. I have asked for it and it will form part of the inquiry.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzXTRMIcbSo

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Costa Concordia

Carnival Corporation which runs the Costa Cruises line along with other big players such as P&O, Cunard and Princess has today announced that it is reviewing safety procedures in light of the Concordia disaster.

Mickey Arison, chairman and CEO of Carnival Corporation defended their safety record as being “excellent”, but admitted that the tragedy had “called into question” their emergency response procedures. He went on to say “While I have every confidence in the  safety of  our vessels and the professionalism of our crews, this review  will evaluate all  practices and procedures to make sure that this kind  of accident doesn’t happen  again”.

Retired U.S. Navy Captain James Hunn will conduct the revue. Captain Hunn is currently the company’s senior vice president of  Maritime Policy & Compliance.

cruiseastute.com says …

“Modern cruise ships are exceptionally safe – they have to be designed, built, operated and maintained under international  law.

However, as ships get larger, evacuating more passengers is obviously going to be more problematic. The largest ships such as Oasis Of The Seas can carry over 6,000 passengers and it can be a struggle even to disembark them during port visits.

It would also seem that some lines are not conducting evacuation drills with the passengers for up to 24 hours after sailing (the legal limit). This is clearly not good practice.

We also question the wisdom of storing lifejackets in cabins. Sending everyone down to their cabins is the last thing you want to do when a ship is taking on water.”

The post Carnival Group To Review Safety After Concordia Disaster appeared first on Cruiseastute Blog.

Francesco Schettino

The blame for the Costa Concordia Disaster continued to edge towards under fire Captain Francesco Schettino today.

A recording of radio messages with the Italian coastguard on the mainland clearly show that Schettino had left the ship well before the evacuation was complete. The coastguard Captain then orders him back aboard whilst Schettino makes excuses as to why he can’t return.

Schettino claimed today that he had slipped into a lifeboat and was unable to get back aboard. Quite why the Captain was anywhere near a lifeboat when he should have been co-ordinating the rescue has not been explained.

cruiseastute.com says …

“Unless something major comes to light this tragedy is certainly looking like human error and possibly even recklessness on the part of the Captain and maybe some other members of the crew”

The post More Bad News For Disgraced Concordia Captain appeared first on Cruiseastute Blog.

Costa Concordia

With the international media wildly speculating about the cause of last week’s Costa Concordia disaster, cruiseastute.com takes a more restrained look.

We know that the cause of the tragedy was hitting a rock – this much is obvious from the pictures emerging of the ship with a 160ft gash in the side. But why did it hit the rock?

Engine/Power Failure

I think we can rule this one out. The Concordia was over a mile off course but made no attempt to contact the coast guard. The rock was struck at high speed evidenced by the large gash in the side. Passengers apparently called the coast guard who then contacted the bridge. It was the bridge who blamed power failure. We are expected to believe that the ship had lost power, drifted over a mile and hit a rock at high speed with no power and no-one contacting the coast guard. I think not.

Navigation Systems/Steering Failure

The Concordia is a modern ship using Electrical pods under the ship for propulsion. These pods also steer the ship in contrast to the traditional main propellor and rudder system.

What are the chances of all the pods failing at the same time? Yes, it could be a computer problem, but if it was, why did the Captain not realise the problem and alert passengers and coastguard long before hitting the rock? The Captain also says that he turned the ship to avoid hitting the rock. Whilst he blames his charts for not showing the rock, he makes no mention of navigational systems failure – why would he do this when the position of the rock on the charts would not be relevant if he was experiencing computer problems. I think we can forget this one.

Human Error

Ruling out the first 2 possibilities leaves us with Human Error as the likely cause of the disaster. The first question is why was the ship so far off course. The course would have been pre-programmed into the computer and would be monitored by GPS. An alarm would have sounded immediately, so why didn’t it – or had the system and alarm been manually overridden?

Even if the computer had failed to alert the crew – surely someone on the bridge would have noticed a large inhabited island which they were supposed to miss by over a mile. It has become known that ships in the Costa fleet had taken to sailing very close to the island to show off – was this why the ship was there?

We could also question why the Captain left the ship so quickly – most Captains would have remained until all passengers had left. The ship wasn’t even fully sinking and was close to shore, so it’s not likely that he panicked about saving his own life – was he subconciously trying to get away from his or a crew member’s mistake?

So, it’s probable that the cause was human error, but we’ll keep an eye on things as events unfold and report back if other factors become obvious.

The post What Could Have Caused The Costa Concordia Sinking? appeared first on Cruiseastute Blog.

Manrico Giampetroni

Cabin service director Manrico Giampedroni was found in one of the semi-submerged restaurants onboard the stricken ship. Reports suggest that, unlike his Captain, he had stayed behind to rescue passengers but was stranded after falling and breaking his leg.

Last night, South Korean newleyweds Jeong Hye Jim and Kideok Hanmarito were also rescued.

Meanwhile, the Captain, Francesco Schettino and first officer Ciro Ambrosio were still being detained by police on the Italian mainland. Local media are reporting that Schettino abandoned the ship at around 11:30pm with the initial rescue not completed until over 3 hours later at 3am.

A 160ft hole is now clearly visible in the side of the Concordia with a large rock embedded at one end of it.

cruiseastute.com says …

“It’s great news that people are being found alive, however a significant number of people are still missing. The gash in the side of the ship clearly shows the cause of the disaster and the question now remaining must be how it occurred. It was obviously hit at speed, suggesting that engine failure was not to blame. As each day passes the blame points more in the direction of the Captain who did not exactly cover himself in glory with his actions or lack of them during the rescue”

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Captain Francesco Schettino Arrested

The blame for the Costa Concordia tragedy was falling on the shoulders of Captain Francesco Schettino yesterday.

Schettino was in charge of the 5 year old $570 million ship equipped with state of the art navigation equipment which hit rocks off the Isola del Giglio on Friday killing at least 2 French tourists and a Peruvian crew member. The bodies of 2 elderly men were found by divers inside the ship on Sunday.

A statement issued by Costa Cruises firmly placed the blame on Schettino stating “Preliminary indications are that there may have been significant human error on the part of the ship’s master, Captain Francesco Schettino, which resulted in these grave consequences”.

The company statement went on to suggest the cause of the disaster “The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and in handling the emergency, the Captain appears not to have followed standard Costa procedures”.

Although Costa will be wanting to point the blame far from themselves, the facts of the matter – the speed of the ship, the fact that the Captain was one of the first off the ship, and the deviation from the correct route, would appear to support the company’s statement.

Meanwhile Italian prosecutors have seized the ship’s equivalent of an airline black box, the VDR (voyage data recorder) and arrested Schettino with likely charges including manslaughter, causing a wreck, and abandoning the ship before all the passengers were evacuated.

It has also emerged that the standard lifeboard drill (muster) had not been carried out. Although this drill is not legally required until 24 hours after sailing, standard practice with most cruise lines is to carry it out either prior to sailing or within the first hour. It is certainly unusual to have served dinner (as in this case) prior to carrying out the drill.

cruiseastute.com says …

“As we suggested yesterday, this tragedy is certainly looking like human error on the part of the Captain. Emerging details continue to make bad reading for Francesco Schettino with some members of the crew suggesting that he handled the ship like a Ferrari”.

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