The Concordia Cruise Mystery

  The Concordia Cruise Mystery  

✔ 13th January 2012, 7:15 pm The world’s largest Italian cruise ship set sail for its 7-day European tour, named the Costa Concordia. today we are explaining The Concordia Cruise Mystery

✔ It was so big that not only was it bigger than the Titanic but it could seat an additional 2,000 passengers, that’s why 4,252 people were on board.

✔ If we talk about entertainment, this ship had everything 4 big swimming pools, 5 restaurants, 13 different bars, a casino, a basketball court a huge fitness center that had a gym, a sauna, a Turkish bath, and even an F1 racing simulator was installed on this cruise ship.

✔ The first destination of this ship was Sanova, a city in Italy it was supposed to take about a day to reach, but only 2.5 hours after the ship departed everyone heard a sudden piercing noise.

✔ After that, all the lights on the ship went off and the ship started tilting to one side, the time was 9:45 PM, a time when some people were sleeping in their rooms and some were eating at the dinner tables, Some people were sleeping woke up and they came out of their cabins to see what was happening.

✔ Plates of the people sitting at the dinner table, passengers were told via intercom that there was an electrical failure on the ship but that the ship’s engine had failed.

✔ The captain of the ship was hiding this fact from the people, and after a while, the ship started tilting to the other side.

✔ The passengers somewhat realized that this was not an ordinary electrical failure, people were worried that this was another incident similar to Titanic’s.

✔ The Titanic accident happened exactly 100 years ago in 1912 and now when this ship had an electrical failure the famous Titanic theme song was playing in the dining hall of this ship “My Heart Will Go On”.

✔ The ship started tilting more slowly, it tilted to and the lower rooms were being filled with water, and people realized that the ship was going to sink. But Why weren’t the passengers being informed properly? Why was the ship’s captain too quiet?

✔ This ship was operated by an Italian company called Costa Crociere, initially, this company operated only cargo ships but in 1948, they launched their Costa Lines.

✔ It became one of the biggest cruise ship companies in Europe, it became one of the biggest cruise ship companies in Europe. Later in 2000, a company named Carnival Corporation bought it.

✔ Costa Croisiere became a subsidiary company of Carnival in June 2006 they launched their first ship of the Concordia class.

✔ The biggest Italian cruise ship of its time, the cost of making it was $570 Million that day, the captain of this ship was Francesco Schettino, an Italian man, who had been working for this company since 2002.

✔ At 7:18 PM, this ship left for its first destination, Savona. and only two hours had passed that this ship deviated from its normal route, it was not a mistake Captain Schettino wanted to take the ship by a particular island.

✔ The Giglio Island in Italy he wanted the people of the Island to see the glittering ship in the dark of night, whenever a ship passed near the land it was called a sail past or sail by.

✔ Normally such big ships sail at a distance of 7-8 km from the shore well into the sea because the water needs to be deep enough for such a big ship to sail but because of this sail, this ship was only 150 meters away from the shore.

✔ The water was not very deep, and there were big rocks of reefs under the ship at this close distance that could hit the ship, on top of that, it was nighttime and the ship was sailing quite fast.

✔ Later the report of the Italian Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport confirmed this, at night the ship was sailing at an unsafe distance, very close to the shore. One question that will arise here is why was the captain doing this. the thing is, Captain Schettino used to work under senior Captain Mario Palombo, and Mario was living on Giglio Island.

✔ The night this ship was passing by this island, that night, Captain Schettino called Mario and told him that since they would be passing by the island, they would sound a siren for him, as they wanted to give him a tribute, to Mario said that instead he was in another Italian city. During this conversation, the call line gets disconnected.

✔ This call was made at 9:40 PM, and a few minutes later came the scary sound that the thing everyone feared, happened.

✔ This ship collided with the rocks in the water, and this collision tore the hull of the Concordia ship.

✔ The ship’s sensitive part was injured by a 70-meter-long wound, the place where this impact happened was not even 100 meters away from the island. In the darkness of the night, this ship had reached so close to the island, water started flowing into the ship rapidly.

✔ 26 years Andrea Corollo, who was the third officer of the Concordia ship, was sleeping in his cabin when this incident happened when he woke up and came out of his cabin, he saw that the water had already reached the hallway.

✔ He immediately ran to the engine room when he reached there, he saw that the door could not be opened, through the closed door he could see that the generators and engines were completely submerged in water.

✔ At 9:52 Pm the chief engineer and the other officers of the engine room tried to start the emergency diesel generator, unfortunately, they failed in this attempt.

✔ The chief engineer went to inform Captain Chettino about how bad the situation was, but the captain of the ship announced to the passengers that there was nothing to worry about, that it was a simple blackout.

✔ Over the next few minutes, the ship was not standing still, rather it was moving forward away from the island at around 10:00 PM Captain Schettino felt that the ship should be turned around, and he reasoned that if they sank, it would be more dangerous to be in the middle of the sea. It would be better to stay near the Island.

✔ The Ship took a U-turn and thus, instead of being upright, it started tilting to the other side, it was tilting to the left, but now it started tilting to the right, the ship’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini called Captain Schettion twice, at 10:05 PM or 10:07 PM in the second call, Captain Schettion finally acknowledge that the ship had some problems. But had he admitted these problems sooner, it would have been better, turning away from the truth can be very dangerous.

✔ Captain Schettino did admit his mistake but followed it with another act of stupidity, he tried to cover up his mistake. He claims that the blackout caused the accident he reverses the timeline, but in reality, the accident caused the blackout.

✔ In the meanwhile, some distressed passengers tried to call the local police. At 10:12 PM, the Italian coast guard called the ship’s captain, asking him what was happening on the ship and informing him that passengers of the ship were contacting them.

✔ On the other hand the captain said that nothing devastating had happened, they had a blackout, he told them not to worry, and when this was said half an hour had already passed since the collision.

✔ The ten-more-minute passes and Captain Schettino finally changes his stance, after how long could he suppress the truth with lies? At 10:22 PM, Schettino told the radio operator to call and inform the Coast Guard that there had been a collision on the left side of the ship and that Concordia needed the help of tugboats. And that life jackets were handed out to the passengers and everyone was safe.

✔ Each minute was important because the ship was gradually tilting more and more, finally, at 10:33 PM, a general emergency alarm was raised and the passengers were told to gather in the emergency assembly areas and wait for further instructions.

✔ At 10:48 PM, the ship was tilted 30 degrees. At 10:54 PM, finally captain Schettion gave the order to abandon the ship. At that time more than 42,00 people were stuck in the ship and the ship was tilted by 30 degrees at that time.

✔ Many of the lower cabins were submerged in the water and things were strewn about in the upper decks nothing was in its place. In this situation, the captain had made only one reasonable decision. To take a U-Turn. At that time he was trying to be a hero and take credit for that situation.

✔ Undoubtedly, this decision was needed but the rest of his decisions were unreasonable and entirely wrong decisions. Ecaxtly at the same time he was fooling all the passengers on the sinking ship by telling lies.

✔ After he made some decisions on the ship he was criticised by the people. After he gave the order to abandon the ship there was a huge commotion in inside the ship. Some people started to go in lifeboats before getting this information. But some people were confident that they could swim in the water properly.

✔ Those people who were sure that they swim in the water jumped in the water and they swam to the island nearby. People started to push and pull each other to get inside the lifeboat.

✔ In the darkness of night the ship was slowly falling to the right. At that time the passengers who were on the right side had reached the surface level of the sea. Those people who were on the right side jumped into the water and went towards the island to save their lives.

✔ But the problem was for those people who were on the opposite side of the boat. It was very hard for them to find a way to get out of the boat. In the midst of all of this, there was an Indian Staff member named Karnaatha Rameshana. She was the only woman in the 11-member security staff of Concordia.

✔ As most of the passengers were Italian in the ship there was a language barrier in the sinking ship at that time. One of the main problems inside the ship at that time was that most of the crew members were not trained in emergencies. They were just service staff at that time.

✔ In this situation some members were truly heroes. At that time there was another Indian member inside this ship named Russel Rebello, who was working as a waiter inside that ship. It has been claimed that before getting the order of Captain Schettino he started helping people at that time. At that time died because he gave his life jacket to a person who was sinking in the water.

✔ We don’t know what happened to him exactly, but he drowned while helping the passengers, on the other hand, there were people like Captain Schettion who instead of helping the passengers, abandoned the ship at the earliest and went towards the island.

✔ The same captain who tried to cover it up with lies, wasted an hour before telling the truth to the passengers, and as soon as announced within some minutes, at 11:19 PM, he was among the first crew members, to abandon the ship.

✔ Gilgo Island is like a small village not many people live there, this island has a population of only 700 people, but that night when the incident happened, some people came out of their homes to see what was happening.

✔ As soon as the deputy mayor of this Island, Mario Pellegrini came to know that a ship was shrinking, despite being a civilian, he went to the ship to help the people, without thinking for a minute he jumped into the lifeboat and went into the sea to help the people.

✔ He said that when the ship had completely fallen to the right side, wells of water were being formed inside the ship, and people were trapped.

✔ He arranged for a rope and used the rope to rescue the people trapped in the well, in this early stage of evacuation around 2,500 to 3,000 people had safely reached the Island, At 11:38 PM around 400 people were still trapped in the ship.

✔ The Italian Coast Guard helicopters and fire and rescue services boats had also arrived to help people, they saved a few hundred people from underwater, but they don’t know how many more people were still trapped in the ship. At 12:42 AM, the Coast Guard commander, Captain Gregorio De Falco, called Captain Schettino, we have the actual recording of this call.

✔ He told Schettino directly that as the captain, he should go back on the ship, he ordered Schettinon to go back and find out about the passengers still on board.

✔ He told Schettino that he shouldn’t have left his passengers and run away, Schettino started making excuses and saying that he couldn’t go back. Despite all of this, captain Schettion did not go back.

✔ This is why people started calling him Captain Coward later, on one hand, some brave crew members and the Italian Coast Guard team, kept helping people all night.

✔ Schettino sat at a safe distance and watched it play out, when the sun rose the next morning and the ship could be seen properly, people realized the magnitude of the incident.

✔ Exactly where this collision happened you can see that part of the sheer size of the collision most of the people had been rescued by morning, and three people had been confirmed dead but some people were still trapped in the ship.

✔ The residents of Giglio had found out about this incident and many locals went to help 700 people living on this Island, but there were 4,000 people on the ship.

✔ The residents opened their homes to provide shelter to the passengers, Elizabeth Nani, who worked in Giglio Tourist information, reported that all the survivors were in shock. Some people were suffering from hypothermia because the water was very cold, but everyone was desperate and was trying to locate their family members and friends.

✔ Schools, Churches, and Canteens on this Island were opened, so that the the survivors could get a roof over their heads, they were also given blankets and dry clothes, but on the other hand, the rescue operation was still going on.

✔ It would last for the next 2-2.5 weeks, the Italian Navy, Coast Guard, Fire and Rescue Service, everyone had to get involved. Rescue divers were also needed because the people who were still trapped were not able to open the cabin doors.

✔ The water pressure on the other side was so high that they remained trapped inside the cabin. On 14th January, a South Korean couple was rescued who were trapped inside their cabin.

✔ Most of the people who were killed in this incident died because of this trapped inside their cabin they drowned, had they been informed on time their lives also have been saved.

✔ A total of 32 people died in this accident, the next problem was removing fuel from the sunken ship and rescuing the ship so that it would not remain lying there

✔ When the engineers analyzed the ship, it was declared a constructive total loss, this meant that there was no chance of saving it. This ship could not be used again, the only option was to disassemble it and sell its scrap metal.

✔ The ship contained around 1.9 million liters of fuel it was a fully loaded ship, and it had just started sailing which is why the fuel tank was full, to extract fuel, an oil barrier was built around the ship, on 12 February 2012, the oil removal process began since it was wintertime a lot of fuel was in a semi-solid state so, it was necessary to reheat it before extracting it.

✔ After heating it, another tanker ship was used and all the oil was transferred from one vessel to the other with a pump, this process lasted more than a month. This process continued till 24th March.

✔ The next thing was to set the ship upright and relocate it was an engineering project, a steel structure was built in the water so that the ship could be raised once again. Work on this started a year later, in April 2013. After these huge boxes were placed on the upper side of the ship, water was filled in these boxes to make them heavier ropes and cables were used to pull these boxes as weights.

✔ These watertight boxes are called caissons, 15 such caissons were installed in total. on 16th September 2013, the actual process of straightening the Concordia began it took 19 hours to do this.

✔ The next step was to make the ship float on water for this more boxes were used, and caissons were installed on the other side as well after that water was drained out from the caissons which caused the caissons to float. And as the caissons started floating the entire ship started floating with them.

✔ 500 divers, technicians, engineers, and biologists were involved in this process, 19 months had passed since the accident and the cost of rescuing this ship was $799 million.

✔ To take this ship to the port another ship was used to tow it, this was done in July 2014. Till then the total cost of this operation had reached $ 1.2 Billion. but the company still had more such expenses to bear.

✔ It took a lot of effort and money to scrap metal from this broken ship, more than 350 people worked on this and this process ended in July 2017 but after rescuing people, a steady stream of legal cases had begun.

✔ This company returned the price of each surviving passenger’s ticket and paid an additional Euro 11,000 as compensation, apart from this, the families of the deceased passengers were paid an undisclosed amount.

✔ The total cost of this disaster for this company was $2 Billion but you must be wondering, what happened to the captain of the ship? The guy who was the sole reason behind this incident lied to his passengers and didn’t give them timely information and when the ship started sinking he abandoned the ship first and ran away.

✔ Even after the incident Captain Schettino’s habit of lying didn’t go away when the case was being tried in court, he told the court that when the ship was at an angle of 60^o to 70^o his foot slipped and he fell into a lifeboat and he went.

✔ In 2017, Captain Schettino was charged with manslaughter and he was sentenced to 16 years in Jail.