Italy's giant cruise wreck begins final voyage as survivors look on

Table Of Content

• UK ponders using retired cruise ships to process asylum seekers offshore
• Captain of Ship That Capsized Off Italy in ’12 Is Convicted
• JAXPORT employees collect 720 pounds of trash to celebrate Earth Day
• ‘Nothing left’: After California Yacht Club fire, residents mourn loss of a beloved spot
• Key dates in Costa Concordia shipwreck, trial and cleanup
• More than 60 people drown after a migrant vessel capsizes off Libya, U.N. says

In July 2013 four crew members and Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator pled guilty to various charges, including manslaughter. During the 19-month trial, prosecutors claimed that he was an “idiot,” while Schettino countered that his actions had saved lives and that he was being scapegoated. 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.

UK ponders using retired cruise ships to process asylum seekers offshore

"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." "I think it’s the panic, the feeling of panic, is what’s carried through over 10 years," Ian Donoff, who was on the cruise with his wife Janice for their honeymoon, told Cobiella. On 22 November 2008, Costa Concordia suffered damage to her bow when high winds over the Sicilian city of Palermo pushed the ship against its dock. There were no injuries and repairs started soon after.[16][17][18]Initial repairs were completed by the December following the incident, but dents were still visible.

Captain of Ship That Capsized Off Italy in ’12 Is Convicted

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. Costa Concordia was declared a "constructive total loss" by the cruise line's insurer, and her salvage was "one of the biggest maritime salvage operations".

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JAXPORT employees collect 720 pounds of trash to celebrate Earth Day

The body of Indian waiter Russel Rebello is still missing and there will be a search for his remains when the ship is dismantled. Engineers last week used vast air tanks attached to the ship's sides to float the liner, which rose above the waves deck by deck to reveal gaping windows, a rust-tainted bow and the faded Costa Concordia emblem on its flanks. Objects floating free such as suitcases, clothes and furniture will be caught in a huge net while infrared sensors will be used to detect possible oil leaks at night.

A Questionable Evacuation

Schettino is one of nine people facing charges, although eyewitnesses, leaked audio and video recordings, a pre-trial report and even the liner’s owners, Costa Crociere (a subsidiary of Miami-based Carnival), appeared to put the blame squarely on him. As befitting a star attraction, the captain arrived Monday at the makeshift courthouse through the back door in a car with darkened windows. Dramatic openingSchettino himself has become a lightning rod for international disdain for having left the ship before everyone was evacuated. The crash tore a massive gash in its hull and the ship veered sharply as the water poured in, eventually keeling over and sparking a panicky evacuation. Precision sensors attached to the sides of the ship will monitor for possible cracks in the crippled hull, while underwater cameras will watch for debris washing out of the vessel amid fears toxic waste could spill into the sea. 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.

Italy on Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck off the Tuscan island of Giglio. Here are some key dates in the saga, including the trial of the captain and the remarkable engineering feat to right the liner from its side so it could be towed away for scrap. The MS Costa Concordia, the Italian cruise ship that killed 32 people when it sank off the coast off Isola del Giglio in 2012, has just been sitting off the Tuscan coast ever since. Environmentalists are relieved since the ship has been marring a marine sanctuary for more than two years, while local residents say they are looking forward to no longer having to see a giant wreck each time they look out to sea. The Costa Concordia was owned by Costa Crociere, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation & PLC. When launched in 2005, it was Italy’s largest cruise ship, measuring 951 feet (290 metres) long with a passenger capacity of 3,780; by comparison, the Titanic was 882.5 feet (269 metres) long and could accommodate up to 2,435 passengers.

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With an opulent passenger capacity of 3,780, it heralded a new era of maritime luxury. The night of this tragic event happened in real time for me as the news broke here in the United States. I was working and publishing news items to our forums and the home page of Cruise Addicts.

Italian cruise line Costa Cruises took to the seas on Saturday for the first time in more than four months, buoying an industry capsized by the COVID-19 pandemic. The crisis coordinator for Costa Crociere was involved in the aftermath of the shipwreck, coordinating response efforts and communication in the midst of the tragic events surrounding the Costa Concordia. The salvage workers successfully executed the most significant maritime salvage operation in history to refloat and remove the Costa Concordia from its resting place off the coast of Giglio Island.

As CNN writes, the ship's rotting hull could break off as it is jostled about, which would cause lengthy delays. "The worst case scenario is that the ship falls apart during the first six hours as it's raised off the platform -- or that it breaks up somewhere off the coast of Corsica, which is where the Mediterranean's currents are the strongest," CNN continues. Some environmental groups, like Greenpeace, are also concerned that the Costa Concordia will leave a trail of leaky toxic waste in its wake, CNN adds.

The case of Francesco Schettino, 51, was of such enormous interest that a theater had to be turned into a courtroom in the Tuscan city of Grosseto to accommodate all those who had a legitimate claim to be at the closed-door hearing over the disaster. 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. "When I was getting into the lifeboat amid all the chaos I thought this might be my last day alive," he said as he gazed out at the wreck from the port.

Thirty-two people lost their lives when the Costa Concordia cruise ship struck a reef and subsequently began to sink in the Tyrrhenian Sea. It’s easy to remember the salacious details of the disaster – the Concordia cruise disaster, if you will – but as a witness and chronicler of these events, my focus has always returned to the environmental impact. The work done by salvage teams was not just a technical achievement but a concerted effort to preserve a vulnerable ecosystem that had the misfortune of being the stage for this tragedy. My involvement in the Costa Concordia scrapping process allowed me to witness first-hand the sophistication and the scale of operations required to counteract the damage. Approximately 500 international salvage experts collaborated on what would become a historic mission, utilizing advanced underwater platforms and cranes to parry further environmental injury. The Costa Concordia shipwreck, challenging as it was, brought together numerous stakeholders, from environmentalists to engineers, all dedicated to mitigating its impact.

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. The captain, Francesco Schettino, 54, was convicted of multiple counts of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the vessel, the Costa Concordia, before all of its 4,229 passengers and crew members had been evacuated. The court also barred him from commanding a ship for five years and from ever holding public office. Almost immediately questions were raised concerning the conduct of Schettino and other crew officers.

The mammoth vessel is an eyesore and oppressive reminder of tragedy for local residents. A pre-trial report, leaked to Italian media weeks before the trial, places much of the blame on Schettino. Video taken by passengers at the time showed scenes of chaos and confusion as the Costa Concordia started to list heavily.

The Costa Concordia's planned final destination is Genoa, Italy, where it will be broken down into scrap metal. Experts estimate that that process could take as long as two-and-a-half years, CNN writes. The boat would stay off the coast of the island for another ten years until being removed in 2014. The passengers, whose infections were found through random testing, were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, according to the Port of San Francisco.

It points to an overarching and pressing need for stringent adherence to the tenets of maritime conduct and the weighty responsibility resting on ship commanders. The ramifications of Captain Schettino’s decisions on that doomed voyage endure, as poignant lessons in accountability ripple through communities and industries worldwide. It's in Europe's biggest marine sanctuary, with crystal-clear waters rich in flora and fauna. Now, the marooned hulk dominates the Giglio skyline and has become a sinister attraction of what some call disaster tourism — drawing hundreds of gawking tourists who snap away at the photo opportunity. An Indonesian helmsman, for instance, failed twice to understand orders, veering to the right instead of the left as he was told by Schettino, who joked he should pay closer attention or “we will go on the rocks,” only minutes before they dram aground. 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.