13 thoughts on “Cruise Ship Sinks with Fatalities”

  2. Reports from the passengers about how the crew acted/reacted are pretty atrocious. Possible exception for the skipper, if he did as some have speculated and ran her in to the shallow water before she went down.

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    • I wouldn’t be quick to congratulate the Captain, as he may have instigated the entire event by ordering the ship to deviate off its regular track.

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  3. Saw photos of the hull rupture on the port side, Any reports of damage to the starboard????
    The ship was buit in 2005. Is there inheraint stability problems with this design? With these things getting bigger, can you foresee the SAR case, if in DEEEEEP water? Where the pumps keeping up with the flooding, until power loos? Maaybe with the recent problems, the West Coast loss of power and 3 day tow back to US waters, maybe it’s time for the CG and ABS to require bacjup generators in a seperate compartment from the main engine room..

    Bravo Zulu to the first responders, and to the villagrtd, who took the people in.

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    • we’ll have to wait for the investigation, but I’m betting on human error across the board over design failure.

      When most of your crew are nothing but hotel staff, I suspect that real damage control expertise is nowhere to be found on these vessels.

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  5. a tape was released today of the italian coast guard argueing with the ships captain. was not very flattering for that skipper. he was trying everything he could think of to not go back over to his vessel and supervise the evacuation of the ship he shouldn’t have left, until it was evacuated. he also would not return to the ship with italian coast guard after the evacuation was over. although i’m sure it will take a long and tedious investigation, in the end i think this guys goose is cooked. even if he doesn’t go to jail, no one will let him so much as rent a rowboat in a duck pond.

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  6. The mass rescue, command and control, and persistent presence required in this case all support mission requirements for the USCG NSC (WMSL) and OPC (WMSM) program of record. A cruise ship casualty of this magnitude off the Baja coast or in the Gulf of Alaska would require all the traits designed into the NSC. Look to our history. In 1980, USCGC Boutwell conducted the [then] largest at-sea rescue ever completed when she rescued more than 500 people from the burning cruise ship Prisendam in the Gulf of Alaska. More recently, in Nov 2010 USCGC Morgenthau responded to the fire onboard Carnival Splendor, a ship carrying 4,400 passenger and crew, left without power, propulsion and minimal lighting 100 nautical miles from San Diego. Finally, I’ll refer to the Alaskan Ranger sinking in Mar 2008. Only the capabilities now being recapitalized with NSC and OPC can meet the challenges observed in this real world test of what is required at sea. The ability to conduct flight operations in bad weather, coordinate multiple search and rescue units including civilian or other agency response efforts, persistent presence, habitability to enable crew member response in adverse conditions over extended periods, speed to responded over a vast distance all become paramount to successful mission performance. Regardless of the lessons learned for the international community after this most recent maritime casualty, they can only support renewed national efforts to recaptitalize the USCG fleet.

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  8. gCaptain has an excellent animated presentation, with commentary, showing the Costa Concordia’s track as it approached the island, collided with the submerged rock, and then maneuvered to its final resting place.

    http://gcaptain.com/gcaptains-john-konrad-narrates-the-final-maneuvers-of-the-costa-concordia-video/?37941

    This presentation is based on Automatic Identification System (AIS) data from Quality Positioning Services BV Zeist, The Netherlands

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