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The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection. The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona.
"Was To Be Our Best Experience": Survivors Recount Italy Ship Disaster
Making things worse, the crew had dropped the anchor incorrectly, causing the ship to flop over even more dramatically. 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 impact and water leakage caused an electrical blackout on the ship, and a recorded phone call with Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini, shows he tried to downplay and cover up his actions by saying the blackout was what actually caused the accident. The Costa Concordia was owned by Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & PLC.
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“I did that to calm the passengers down, I feared that otherwise there would be panic,” Schettino said in his defence at trial. Ester Percossi recalled being thrown to the ground in the dining room by the initial impact of the reef gashing into the hull “like an earthquake.” The lights went out, and bottles, glasses and plates flew off the tables. “It was right to be here, to pay tribute to those victims, but the primary motivation is to thank and greet the people who helped me that night, from Giglio,” said survivor Luciano Castro. 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. But after eight years in the US and then Italian court system, they lost their case. The boat would stay off the coast of the island for another ten years until being removed in 2014.
Safety regulations
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. Rescue teams searched for survivors and helicopters evacuated the last 50 people on the deck. "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. Elizabeth Nanni, of Isola del Giglio Tourist Information, said those who arrived on the island were survivors in a state of shock, ''desperate people looking for each other'' and people suffering from hypothermia after jumping into the sea. Some people decided it was too difficult to get on to a lifeboat and chose to swim, with a number safely reaching the nearby island of Giglio. "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.
Costa Concordia workers find body of last person missing in wreckage
Minnesota couple among 5 identified from cruise ship disaster - MPR News
Minnesota couple among 5 identified from cruise ship disaster.
Posted: Tue, 17 Apr 2012 07:00:00 GMT [source]
“We are losing sight of the victims of this tragedy, but they could line the pockets of the shamed captain,” the member said. An angry member of an Italian consumer association told NBC News it would be raising a formal objection to Schettino’s presence in court. “We are not going to save lives if we don’t change the standards in the whole industry, not only of this particular captain,” he added. Reliving the disaster is "incredibly difficult", but Rebello is returning to Giglio for the anniversary.
Costa Concordia is gone, but horror lingers 10 years later
The hospitality of the tight-knit community of islanders kicked in, at first to give basic assistance to the 4,229 passengers and crew members who had to be evacuated from a listing vessel as high as a skyscraper. In no time, Giglio residents hosted thousands of journalists, law enforcement officers and rescue experts who descended on the port. In the months to come, salvage teams set up camp in the picturesque harbor to work on safely removing the ship, an operation that took more than two years to complete. In the final days of a trial, which began in July 2013 and included more than 69 hearings, attorneys for Schettino described him as a scapegoat who had been vilified but deserved to be treated like a hero.
Securing wreck site and protecting environment
“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. 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. 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.
In addition, he noted the steering error by the helmsman, but a maritime expert testified that regardless of the mistake, the collision was unavoidable. In February 2015 Schettino was convicted on all charges and sentenced to more than 16 years in prison. He appealed the verdict, but it was upheld in May 2017; Schettino began serving his sentence shortly thereafter. Costa Concordia disaster, the capsizing of an Italian cruise ship on January 13, 2012, after it struck rocks off the coast of Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Several of the ship’s crew, notably Capt. Francesco Schettino, were charged with various crimes. The 270-page report, compiled by maritime experts appointed by the court, reveals that the captain abandoned the Costa Concordia hours before the last of the passengers had reached safety and was slow in issuing the order to abandon ship and alerting port authorities.
“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. GIGLIO PORTO, Italy — The curvy granite rocks of the Tuscan island of Giglio lay bare in the winter sun, no longer hidden by the ominous, stricken cruise liner that ran aground in the turquoise waters of this marine sanctuary ten years ago. "We were on the same level as the water so some people started to swim because they weren't able to get on the lifeboats," said Mr Costa.
This captain made a horrible mistake, but we are not going to save lives if we don’t change the standards in the whole industry, not only of this particular captain,” Eaves said. "It was just said in court that musicians on board had more safety training than other crew members," Eaves told NBC. Dramatic openingSchettino himself has become a lightning rod for international disdain for having left the ship before everyone was evacuated. Monday’s hearing was the first and most important in a preliminary trial, aimed at establishing who should be indicted over the disaster. Images shot later by the coastguard would show divers in the sunken restaurant, battling through flotsam, searching for victims.
The former captain was convicted in 2015 of multiple counts of manslaughter, causing a maritime accident and abandoning ship before all passengers and crew had been evacuated. The anniversary comes as the cruise ship industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people to avoid cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the infection risk. Bells rang out earlier Thurday in the same Giglio church that opened its doors that freezing night and took in hundreds of passengers who abandoned ship and reached shore in lifeboats. Some had climbed off the lopsided liner on rope ladders after it flipped onto its side; others were plucked from the decks by rescue helicopters.
Eyewitnesses have described scenes of chaos on board the Italian cruise ship the Costa Concordia, which has run aground off Italy, killing at least five people. Dubbed Italy's "most hated man" by the Italian media after the disaster, he found himself in hot water again on Tuesday after photographs emerged of him partying on the island of Ischia while the final preparations were being made to tow away the wreck. Lazaro joined fellow survivors in throwing flowers into the sea at the shipwreck site in a solemn ceremony on Tuesday. But the experts -- two admirals and two engineers -- also note that evacuation drills had not been undertaken by all passengers on the ship and not all crew members understood Italian, the operating language of the liner. It is alleged Schettino was in command when he steered the gigantic ship too close to Giglio coastline, allegedly to perform a maritime salute to grant a favor to the ship’s head master, who was originally from the island. “The sooner we can resolve it, the sooner the victims can get on with their lives, they can put this behind them.
Following the conclusion of the righting operation, the ship was kept on the platform while further inspections were made and the starboard sponsons attached. He said children and women were given priority when it came to allocating places on lifeboats, but the system proved to be difficult to implement because many men "weren't accepting this" because they wanted to remain together as a family, prompting "huge confusion". Four other crew members and an executive from the ship's owner Costa Crociere, the biggest cruise operator in Europe and part of the US giant Carnival, have already plea-bargained and been convicted on lesser charges. A Dutch tug boat and a Vanuatu-flagged one will then tow the 290-metre (951-foot) vessel away around 1000 GMT, while 12 other boats will sail in a convoy alongside, carrying divers, engineers, a medical team and environmental experts.
Giglio’s vice mayor at the time, Mario Pellegrini, had climbed on board the listing ship that night to help coordinate the rescue, and found sheer chaos in the absence of orders from the captain or crew. He recalled he finally climbed down after the last passengers and crew had been evacuated, at around 6 a.m. After the ship hit the reef, the engine room flooded and generators failed, causing a power outage that sent the ship adrift until it eventually crashed offshore and capsized.
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