Tom's Cruise Blog

There’s probably not much more to say about this any more – the picture above is graphic enough. We know the broad answers:

• It seems likely that the death toll will be a bit above 40 i.e. about 1% of those on board;
• It seems most likely that it will turn out to have have been the fault of the captain, if (as expected) his navigation is found to be faulty. (That said, the difference between an uneventful cruise-past of Giglio harbour and the disaster that actually occurred may be as little as 10 or 20 feet in lateral distance.)
• It also seems clear that the evacuation was confused, even chaotic; but it was successful.

We must wait for the results of the enquiry for the details.

Overnight and today there have been more pieces of information emerging.

• First, the official death toll has been raised to 5, in that a total of 5 bodies have been found. There are still 17 people missing, however, and I don’t think there’s much doubt that most if not all of these will be found to have died. But it is still possible that some of the 17 could be people who are OK but have simply evaded all attempts to contact them, so let’s hope;
• Secondly, the finger is more and more being pointed at the captain. Even Costa Crociere, his employer and the operator of the ship, have said that the captain made “an unapproved, unauthorised” deviation in course. It’s beginning to be clear that this deviation – which looks like it was to go close to Isla del Giglio – went horribly wrong. The image above (which comes from the BBC website) allegedly shows the expected course (which was followed on the previous cruise) and the course the ship actually took.
• There have been a number of comments that the evacuation was badly-organised and that there was panic. Some crew members have reacted strongly to this, pointing out that getting over 4000 people safely off a listing ship, at night, was a considerable achievement. I have quite a lot of sympathy with this view: I think that there would inevitably be a lot of confusion, shouting and fear in an evacuation like this, and that it’s the overall result by which it should be judged. This may in fact be the largest number of people evacuated from a ship in a single incident, ever.

The information keeps coming in, in bits and pieces. Heres the latest that I’ve gleaned from around the net:

• three survivors have been found onboard the ship – in their cabins, I believe. Two of them, South Korean honeymooners, have been brought ashore but the third person (unknown) is still on board the ship – getting them out of the cabin is difficult. Sadly, the number of missing persons is still 40 or so;
• there are numerous reports that the caption of the vessel has been arrested. Some reports also say that he’s been charged with manslaughter, but I’m not sure about that: it might be that arresting someone puts them into a certain legal position when they are questioned. For example, in England & Wales, once someone has been arrested anything they say can be used in court because they will have been cautioned  at the time of their arrest. But I’m sure we’ll find out more about this in future;
• there is still some speculation about a possible power failure prior to the first grounding. I don’t think that’s what happened: there have been quite a few reports from relevant witnesses saying that the collision came first, and none of the passengers are suggesting that they were sat in darkness (or just emergency lights) prior to the grounding & initial list to port. Also, see the next point.
• Carnival Corporation have issued a statement. There’s no mention of an initial power failure.
• ‘Buzzing’ Isla Giglio may have been common practice, or at least not unprecedented. Have a look at the first of these videos from August. It’s taken from the island, looking eastwards across the harbour and out to sea, and that’s a Costa ship (possibly Costa Concordia) drifting past the harbour, with her horn sounding.

I think that video is very interesting. If I was a passenger I can imagine that would be a fun thing to do, on the first night of the cruise: tuck in as close to the harbour entrance as possible, drift past with your horn blaring, with everyone on board cheering at the harbour and everyone in the harbour cheering back. The question is, what course did the captain take to ‘tuck in as close to the harbour entrance as possible’? There’s deep water close to the harbour, but elsewhere the shallow water extends further out. But this is all speculation, of course. However, I will try to find an online chart of Isla Giglio.

Some more information has emerged during the evening:

First, the number of missing has been reduced to about 40, from 70. There’s no increase in the number of official fatalities, so presumably the reduction is due to locating survivors on the island.

Secondly, the president of Costa has made a couple of comments. He’s clarified the Initial sequence of events: the ship “experienced a blackout after hitting a big rock”. There had been some speculation that the power failure came first and she had hit the rocks as a result of having no propulsion or manoeuvring capability, but apparently not – it would seem that the ship was under command and power when the first collision occurred. The Costa president also said that normal evacuation had become “almost impossible” because the list developed so quickly.

The third development is that it has become clear that the routine muster station drill had not been held: it was apparently scheduled for Saturday afternoon. There again, Saturday’s port of call was Savona, which might be the official starting location of the cruise. (I know from personal experience that the Italian lines run ‘bus route’ cruises with people getting on and off at all of the ports, and a full muster drill is only held at one of them.) There seem to be accounts from some survivors that they didn’t know what to do or where to go.

I think the investigation into this disaster will need to cover a wide range of topics.

That’s an extraordinary image! This is the port side we’re looking at, with the bow to the left. It looks as if the ship scraped along the rocks, breaching the hull, then one of them jammed in the hull and stayed there.

Also the figure of three deaths is appearing as confirmed on various news sites.

Update: Sadly, it is now being suggested that there be as many as 70 people missing from Costa Concordia.

The Costa Cruises ship ‘Costa Concordia’ has sunk off the island of Isla Giglio, after sailing from Civitavecchia earlier yesterday afternoon. it’s reported that some people have died, although the number and whether they were passengers or crew isn’t confirmed.

Details are still very unclear – there are reports about a power failure – and the sequence of events is also very uncertain. But it seems clear that at least some of the crew, and possibly passengers as well, had to jump into the sea to save themselves – the continuing list of the ship eventually made the lifeboats unusable. The BBC New website has an audio clip of an interview with a crew member, a steward. I’ve listened to it, and this is a transcript of the main things he says:

He says that there was “a roaring sound”, and then “the ship tilt to the left”. Then he says that they received messages that “all is OK, it’s under control”. Then I think he says they were attending to the guests. He says that this lasted for a while: he says “Then maybe around one hour or something like that they announce general emergency”, and he says the crew took the passengers to the muster stations, and the crew stayed there as well. Then he says: “and then the ship tilt to the right, the opposite side…”. After that they received the order to abandon ship, but couldn’t use the boats on their proper side; he says “happily [?] …the officer came and they told us to go to other side, the right side, the tilt side; so the passenger(s) and the crew went there.” You can hear his voice becoming hard to understand with emotion, but I think he says after that that they had some problems getting to the boats because of the tilt, but they managed it, and some passengers and crew were able to get off in boats. But he wasn’t able to: “.. because suddenly the ships start to sink on that side. So for we .. crew … we had lifebelts; we jump on (into) the sea. We just swim; and luckily there’s an island near us .. maybe 300 or 400 metres … we just swim there and luckily we survived there”.

It must have been a terrifying experience, but he sounds as if he was trying to do his job and look after the passengers as well as save himself and his fellow crew members.

Costa Concordia was launched in 2006 and was the lead ship in a four-ship class for Costa Cruises. She was a big ship – ships in this class have a standard capacity of 3000 passengers and a maximum capacity of 3,700 passengers, plus a crew complement of 1,100; their gross tonnage figure is 112,000 and they’re ‘post-panamax’.