Costa Concordia- Showboating Gone Wrong?

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On Friday, January 13 the cruise ship Costa Concordia was sailing past the coast of an Italian island on its way to Savona, Italy. The captain, Francesco Schettino, decided to guide the ship closer to the coast to apparently wave to a friend and appeared to be “showboating” to the people on shore. Soon after it hit a rock formation about 450 feet from the coast of Giglio, tearing into the ships hull and it began to take on water. By Sunday morning it had capsized completely. At least 13 people died in the sinking and over 60 people were injured. The captain allegedly abandoned ship very early into the evacuation, which was full of flying glass and panicked passengers. With so much confusion, many people simply leaped off the boat into the freezing water to swim to shore. It’s being called one of the worst cruise ship disaster’s in modern times.
I personally, hold the captain responsible. One of the most important laws of being a captain is that you do not abandon your ship when passengers are still on board. Evidence shows that he even caused the disaster by putting the boat dangerously close to the coast just to “showboat” to the people on shore. When questioned he said that he “tripped” into the lifeboat that he sailed to shore in, only emphasizing the point that he abandoned ship, since he almost definitely didn’t “trip” into the life boat and if he did he could have easily just climbed back on board. There’s also a conversation that he apparently had with a coast guard soon after he abandoned ship where the coast guard ordered the captain back onto the ship and yet he still didn’t go back on. The captain also caused over 500,000 gallons of fuel to empty out into the ocean, hurting the environment in that area enormously. By all accounts the captain is responsible for this shipwreck, but the crazy thing is that this whole disaster was caused by saying hi to a friend on shore, really making it showboating gone wrong.
~Jeremy Bennett

Coasta Concordia Runs Aground

 

Still 15 recorded passengers are missing from the Costa Concordia, the cruise ship that ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan coast of Giglio island on January 13, 2012. The evacuation of the ship took several hours, after hundreds of passengers that had boarded the ship that morning had not yet been told what to do in case of an emergency. Although there were enough lifeboats aboard ship, some people were forced to stay back. The ones that are still said to be missing were probably thrusted to the hull, or part of the ship submerged underwater. There have been numerous claims of the ship’s captain,  Francesco Schettino, pre-maturely abandoning the ship to run and catch a lifeboat. Coast guard crews ordered Schettino to go back aboard ship to help with the evacuation of passengers. He never went back aboard and claimed he fell into the lifeboat.
Captain Schettino, who was jailed after leaving the ship, is under house arrest near Naples. He is currently facing charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship before all passengers had left. Each passenger of the Costa Concordia Cruise trip will be payed $14,500 by Genoa – based Costa Crociere and a full reimburse expense including the coat of the cruise. It may take up to 10 months for the whole ship to be removed from the reef, while 500,000 gallons of fuel are being pumped out of the cruise ship. Dive teams and removal forces have been delayed because of the weird weather this winter. Over time, the ship has shifted over 24 inches and is dangerously close to a 290 ft. sea floor. Passengers and crew members that survived the accident have been called to testify at a hearing on March 3, in Grosseto. I personally am not really scared about traveling by cruise. I just believe that if the captain knew more of what he was doing, the whole situation could have been avoided.

~Gabriella Amodei

Titanic 2.0

Last Friday an Italian cruise ship struck rocks and began to take on water.  At first the almost 3,200 people on board didn’t think there was anything to be concerned with.  They were told it was an electrical problem that was being fixed.  But then there was an menacing scraping noise and the ship shuddered and tilted on it’s side.  Passengers made their way to the lifeboats only to find that families had to be separate because women and children were being given the first right to get off the boat.  Other passengers made ladders out of sheets and blankets and hung on until rescue boats could carry them away to safety.  Many passengers said that the mandatory lifeboat drills were not done by the crew.  When the passengers had to use the lifeboats there was chaos and difficulty in getting them to work correctly.

According to news reports the Captain of the ship changed course and that’s what caused the ship to hit the rocks.   Most of the people on the cruise ship survived but there were casualties and some passengers are still missing.  This accident could have been avoided if the captain did not change course.  The Captain of the ship now faces criminal charges for the deaths of the passengers.  The Italian government is holding the captain responsible for his error in changing the ship’s course into waters he had not before traveled. This accident will also cause people to think twice before they go on a cruise for their vacation. I have always wanted to go on a cruise but now I think I’ll stick to land for a while.  Titanic 2.0 is not something I would want for my vacation.

~Sean Fitzgerald