Escape: The Wreck of the Costa Concordia

Table Of Content

• Wrecked Costa Concordia liner makes its final journey
• years later, Costa Concordia disaster vivid for survivors
• Captain Schettino and the sinking of the Costa Concordia - video report
• More From the Los Angeles Times
• Italian cruise ship sets sail for first time in months after pandemic nearly sunk the industry

"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. The vessel’s captain, Francesco Schettino, was arrested on Saturday. He is accused of manslaughter and abandoning his ship before all those on board were evacuated.

Wrecked Costa Concordia liner makes its final journey

Schettino argued that he fell into a lifeboat because of how the ship was listing to one side, but this argument proved unconvincing. In 2015, a court found Schettino guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship before passengers and crew were evacuated and lying to authorities about the disaster. In addition to Schettino, Ferrarini and Rusli Bin, the other people who received convictions for their role in the disaster were Cabin Service Director Manrico Giampedroni, First Officer Ciro Ambrosio and Third Officer Silvia Coronica. 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. More than 4,200 people were rescued, though 32 people died in the disaster.

years later, Costa Concordia disaster vivid for survivors

Mr Metcalf, from Dorset, told the BBC his daughter had phoned to say she was safe but that she had feared she would have to jump into the sea. She said blankets and clothes were provided for those who arrived on the island, while churches and schools were opened to ensure that people had a roof over their head. Cruise ship shop worker Fabio Costa said when people realised there was a serious problem, there were scenes of desperation. Then the ship rolled again, now listing to the right, and the captain ordered the ship to be abandoned.

Captain Schettino and the sinking of the Costa Concordia - video report

It will also honour the 4,200 survivors and the residents of Giglio who took in passengers and crew, offering clothes and shelter until passengers could return to the mainland. Italy will mark the 10th anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster on Thursday with a daylong commemoration. Thirty-two people died when the ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. "Everybody was rushing for the lifeboats," Nate Lukes said. "I felt like (my daughters) were going to get trampled, and putting my arms around them and just holding them together and letting the sea of people go by us."

‘Floating death trap’: Haunting cruise pics - news.com.au

‘Floating death trap’: Haunting cruise pics.

Posted: Thu, 08 Feb 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]

Savastano returned to the ship, and had just begun winching the second crew member aloft when, to his surprise, a porthole suddenly opened and a ghostly face appeared. Rival MSC has carried some 60,000 passengers since it resumed some routes last August, breaking off over the Christmas period owing to Italian restrictions. "The crew has so been looking forward to this moment. Everyone was so enthusiastic at the thought of setting off once again. The ship is like a family to us," said skipper Pietro Sinisi from his position on the bridge. The Costa Smeralda is as long as three football pitches and has 11 restaurants, 19 bars, a spa, a theatre and several swimming pools. The vessel also boasts a vast staircase covering three decks atop which is a glass platform offering a birdseye view of the vessel and the ocean below.

But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats. Evacuation was made even more chaotic by the ship listing so far to starboard, making walking inside very difficult and lowering the lifeboats on one side, near to impossible. Making things worse, the crew had dropped the anchor incorrectly, causing the ship to flop over even more dramatically. 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. "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.

Costa Cruises and its parent companies

Ultimately, the massive ship’s final journey to Genoa took four days. De Falco became such a hero that, when it emerged more than a year later that he had been transferred out of operational service into a desk job, his apparent mistreatment created a new spate of soul-searching in Italy. Some suggested the country did not know how to reward people who showed good character. The married commander, now 54, was accompanied by his lover, Domnica Cemortan, a classically trained dancer from Moldova. Galli was startled to find himself talking to Captain Schettino and another officer, Dimitrios Christidis.

Costa Concordia workers find body of last person missing in wreckage

A French couple, Francis and Nicole Servel, jumped as well, after Francis, who was 71, gave Nicole his life jacket because she couldn’t swim. As she struggled toward the rocks, she yelled, “Francis! Then he threw on a coat and raced down the hill toward the port. A few moments later, Pellegrini rounded the mountainside.

Escape: The Wreck of the Costa Concordia, Part 9

NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing. “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 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. 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 Costa Concordia was owned by Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & PLC.

Two years ago, one such ship crashed into a tourist boat, injuring several people. 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.

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. 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. Some reassured passengers stayed in their cabins and later lost their lives. The same erroneous information was given to the harbour master at Civitavecchia.

I larione Dell’Anna, the dapper admiral in charge of Coast Guard rescue operations in Livorno, meets me on a freezing evening outside a columned seaside mansion in the coastal city of La Spezia. Inside, waiters in white waistcoats are busy laying out long tables lined with antipasti and flutes of champagne for a naval officers’ reception. Dell’Anna, wearing a blue dress uniform with a star on each lapel, takes a seat on a corner sofa. Its momentum had carried it north along the island’s coastline, past the harbor, then past a rocky peninsula called Point Gabbianara.

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. The flagship Costa Smeralda set off from the northwestern port of Savona at 6pm after being landbound since December 20, when the Italian government banned cruises during the holiday season due to the coronavirus crisis.

Dozens of boats had gathered, about 60 feet below—the Coast Guard later counted 44 different craft in use by dawn—but there was no easy route to them. The wreck of the Costa Concordia is many things to many people. To Italians, who dominated the ship’s officer ranks and made up a third of its passengers, it is a national embarrassment; once the pinnacle of Mediterranean hedonism, the Concordia was now sprawled dead on the rocks in a cold winter sea.

Mario Pellegrini thought they might be the panicked father and daughter he saw late that night, running back and forth on Deck 4, asking for help. The line of people on Benji Smith’s rope remained there for two solid hours, bathed in spotlights from the boats below. When the helicopters hovered overhead, everyone shouted and waved their arms. A half-hour or so after his last call from the Coast Guard, a rescue boat plucked Schettino from his rock and ferried him to the harbor.