The evacuation procedure was pretty bad on the Tuscan ship, from what I can gather here. Passengers are reporting their life vests were stored in their compartments, so they had to go back below deck to get them. Passengers got into lifeboats but were then told to get out of them by the crew, as the emergency was only an electrical problem. Lifeboats only started being launched about 45 minutes after the collision. There had been no lifeboat drill on the day of the sinking, despite them taking on new passengers. Finally, the alarm was actually raised by an old woman in Tuscany who had received a panicked call from her daughter on the ship. The daughter’s battery went dead, making the woman think the ship had completely sunk, at which point she started phoning around the police and coastguard who were baffled until they actually radioed the ship asking what was going on, etc. etc.
I’ve traveled overnight on a couple of cruise ships in Scandinavia, but this one gives me pause.
What scares me is the whole command and control breakdown. Do the ship’s crew had never undergone training to help them work together under high-stress situations? Indeed, if the allegations are true that the Captain abandoned ship, does the second-in-command automatically take over? Or did he assume the captain was still in charge (unbeknownst to the 2nd-in-cmd)? This is just as much a management Charlie Foxtrot as it is a maritime disaster.
One hopes the SOLAS convention will be updated to incorporate these lessons.
BTW, the captain deserves his own catchphrase: “Checking out like a Schettino.”
Schettino is just the opposite of Sully.
Another strike against the vaunted uprightness and competence of Italian institutions, I guess?
Since the wreck of the Bismarck has now been found, and explored with underwater drones, they have seen that the two Dorsetshire torpedos that hit the ship (others missed) did not actually penetrate the armor layer of the Bismarck. So it didn’t actually put a hole into the interior of the ship. And there were no explosions of trapped air within the ship, meaning that the water came up fro the bottom – consistent with scuttling, as the survivors said.
I suppose, but these things don’t operate off the Horn of Africa or the Straits of Hormuz, you know. The Mediterranean is pretty damn safe, as are both coasts of the USA, and large-scale piracy is surprisingly rare in the Caribbean nowadays given how nasty it was in its heyday. Basically, if you’re operating in a first-world nation’s sphere of influence, it’s going to be difficult to do. Besides, you know that the cruise companies actually own many of the islands that the ships visit, right? Hard to mount a terrorist operation from a company island!
EDIT: I suppose the other option would be to buy a ticket, then attack from on board. I have no idea what kind of security these folks go through, but I do seem to recall that some cruise lines take away your liquor, so it might be pretty efficient.
I’m amazed by the depth of your knowledge of the situation.
Well, there already was the Achille Lauro. That was out of the same port as this ship, Naples.
Had my honeymoon on a cruise ship, Nothing to complain about, actually hard to imagine a better place to have a good time as long as the other passengers are fun enough, I think if we went again I’d like to go on one with no kids. Loved not worrying about driving around and having the 24 hour buffet was a beauty-ful ting.
For how shnazzy and nice it was the cost was extraordinarily low as well, if it hadnt have given my wife vertigo on account of her weak inner ear issues we’d go one one every couple of years I’m sure.
(Also if you want to look into how dangerous they are you’re going to want to look at a full accounting of incidents, deaths and injuries related to them, my guess is that you’re safer on the boat than off since you’re not driving on freeways)
This is a little off topic, but this Italian ship wrecking reminded me of a wreck off the wester coast of Africa. I can’t remember if it was a cruise ship or a yacht, but I vividly recall video of the scene, which showed extremely rough seas. It was mentioned that these dangerous waters are common along this part of the coast.
Does anyone know what ship I’m talking about, or the coastline that would have typically dangerous waters? It really was dramatic video and I can’t recall enough specifics for a search to yield any results (if indeed my memory is correct).
Is is possible you’re thinking of the M/V Oceanus which sank in 1991 off the coast of South Africa?
A rather dramatic video of the incident.
At any rate the waters at the southern latitudes near the Cape of Good Hope are notorious for powerful storms; thing are much the same near Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan, too. Regardless of the miles cut from journeys by the use of the Suez and Panama canals, avoiding the waters at the southern extremes of African and South America is another reason to make routes through those man-made waterways the preferred way to ship goods.
The latest accounts describe an Italian Coast Guard captain trying to order Schettino to grow a spine and get back abord his ship to supervise the evacuation. My favorite bit of the conversation:
Pathetic.
Your luggage gets X-rayed at the time of boarding (you don’t bring it on board, you leave it and it is delivered to your cabin) and you go through a metal detector each time you board at a port. I suppose a terrorist can raid the kitchen and grab some knives, but the ships are well aware of the threat of terrorism.
I haven’t had a chance to check, but when we were planning a Mediterranean cruise three years ago I looked at comments on cruisecritic.com about Costa ships. They were pretty negative, and the whole thing seemed a bit cheap and sketchy, and we went with NCL. Lack of training doesn’t surprise me that much. Costa is mostly used by Europeans, not Americans, as you can tell from the articles about who was on this one.
Life vests are typically stored in your cabin, because you spend a good deal of time there. Nothing odd about that, except that there should be additional life vests stored at the congregation point, where you assembly for the drill when you embark.
The really scary thing is the incompetence of the captain and the lack of training of the crew. Reportedly he neared the island once before, and you’d think that the home office would know exactly where the ship is at all times. It will be interesting when his record comes out. As for the lack of training, is that him or is that Costa saving money?
What lack of training of the crew are you talking about? Seriously, you people’s ability to have extraordinary and confident knowledge about this whole thing impresses me.
Where are you getting the lack of training of the crew from? I mean, unless you think that most of the thousands of passengers got off safely by themselves? I suppose they might have lowered the lifeboats on their own, and then lowered ladders when the angles didn’t work out, with no training. Yeah. The blame is with the bridge crew who got the ship in that position in the first place.
Recording of a Coast Guard Captain tearing the Captain a new one.
This guy never should have been in charge. He didn’t have a clue. Bad decisions were made from the vey top to the company to the deck of the ship. Captain’s gonna suck up a lot of the energy but serious questions have to be asked about the company’s safety, training and hiring policies.
Sounds to me from the full transcriptthat de Falco may well be a presumptive, demagogic asshole who wouldn’t listen. The master (who any measured professional would know would probably have been in shock by this time and require careful handling) was trying to organise things from a lifeboat, including dealing with one that had no power. This de Falco idiot was ranting and threatening and insulting him and obsessed with one particular aspect of the matter. The master was saying he was going nowhere ie he was in a lifeboat working on the situation, and de Falco like some sort of childish bully in a playground was strawmanning him about wanting to go home, which the master never said or appeared to be doing.
And now de Falco is making good on his threat to make the master look bad. Like all bullies, de Falco is doing this from a position of strength, while the master is unable to speak for himself, in jail. ’
Upthread someone says that an exchange involving the master stating the obvious and probably correct fact that he can’t see in the dark is “pathetic”. Damn right. Being insulting to someone supplying you with factual information is pathetic, particularly from a supposed emergency professional who is instead carrying on like a dickhead macho bullyboy. Do you know who I think sounds calm and like he is trying to explain something, and who sounds panicky and out of his depth?
And another thing: the master says he hit an uncharted rock. The “black box” is to hand. The Italian government knows to within a GPS accuracy (ie a few metres) what course the ship took. They also have a copy of relevant charts handy. Anyone seen any indications that the Italians are reluctant to release news stories that would make the master look bad? No, me neither. Anyone seen any story pointing out that actually the rock the vessel hit was charted? No? Me neither.
Sounds like the ship hit an uncharted rock. Who’s going to look bad about that, eh?
Princhester, it is all very well to want to be fair to all parties and presume innocence until guilt is proven, but attacking de Falco is silly. Schettino abandoned his ship ahead of the passengers. If he needed an officer in life boats to coordinate things, then he should have sent the first officer or another subordinate. As to it being dark, [duh], that is what flashlights are for and there should have been a lot more of them, (and more powerful ones), aboard a liner than in the lifeboats.
de Falco shows up to attempt to rescue 4,000 people and finds the ship’s captain paddling around in the water and not on the ship. He has a right to be angry and if his words are less than temperate, I think he is pretty well justified in that.
As to Schettino being “in shock,” if he was so susceptible to being in shock, he had no business being the captain of a ship carrying 4,000 people. It is not as though the ship was captured by aliens from space. It had a ruptured hull. He should have been training for that eventuality from his first day as a cadet, years ago.
I am less persuaded that the crew, (in total), was untrained. They did get most of the lifeboats away before the ship capsized and I suspect that the act of sending the passengers away from the life rafts/life boats was the result of orders from the bridge, not a private decision by the crew. Unlike the Oceanus, the crew did not all jump into lifeboats first, and I am not persuaded that the typical passenger on holiday can tell the difference between a crewman who is doing something that the passenger does not understand and a crewman failing to do something because the crewman is confused.