Carnival owned cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground off Italy

[Host Mike]

"Schettino has claimed he had to abandon the capsizing boat while people were still aboard before it became impossible to launch any more lifeboats and he planned to direct the rest of the evacuation from shore. He also has claimed that in the darkness he didn’t see a ladder he could have used to climb back aboard."

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/2013/07/09/captain-wrecked-cruise-ship-trial-italy/8Zzv0sj55j5TUOK3oCMncO/story.html

Editor:  Previous reports said that Schettino had forgotten to bring his glasses with him to the bridge and had difficulty seeing at the time of the ship wreck.

[Host Mike]

On Giglio, where residents depend on tourism and fishing for their livelihoods, the wreckage still mars the panorama from the island’s port. Salvage experts had originally predicted the ship could be tipped upright in an ambitious operation so towing could begin in spring of this year. But that timetable has slipped away.

"The removal project involves some 400 workers representing 18 nationalities, including engineers and divers. On Monday, crews were busy securing some of the caissons being attached to one side of the crippled ship, which, the planners hope, will help the wreckage stay afloat when eventually righted so it can be towed to the mainland.

Islanders are impatient for the removal of the eyesore.

“We want our island back as it was,” Giglio’s mayor, Sergio Ortelli, told The Associated Press as he looked at the blue cove where he used to swim. Now, towering cranes and platforms of the removal team loom over the shipwreck.

Ortelli said authorities told the islanders the operation will begin in September to bring the wrecked ship upright again.

The island is still awaiting compensation for damages caused by the shipwreck, he said. “Our image was internationally damaged, and tourism figures have dropped off noticeably,” the mayor said."

http://www.firstpost.com/world/captain-of-wrecked-cruise-ship-on-trial-in-italy-941451.html

[Host Mike]

"On Saturday five employees from an Italian cruise company were convicted of manslaughter for the Costa Concordia shipwreck that killed 32 people.

With the employees receiving sentences of less than three years, lawyers for victims and survivors are criticizing the ruling as too lenient."

"On Saturday, lawyers representing the 32 victims of the shipwreck said the sentences of the plea bargain - a fraction of what is usually handed down for manslaughter - were inadequate given the gravity of the disaster.

"It seems like a sentence for illegal construction," said lawyer Massimiliano Gabrielli. "It's an embarrassment."

Another lawyer for victims, Daniele Bocciolini, called the sentences "insufficient" and questioned the prosecutors' hypothesis placing the lion's share of the blame on Capt. Francesco Schettino."

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2013/07/21/five-employees-italian-cruise-company-convicted-for-costa-concordia-shipwreck/

[Host Mike]

"The next hearing in Schettino's case is scheduled for September 23. Schettino faces three criminal charges: involuntary manslaughter for the 32 deaths, causing a maritime disaster and causing personal injury to 150 people who were badly hurt in the accident."

http://en.mercopress.com/2013/07/22/first-convictions-from-the-costa-concordia-shipwreck-that-killed-32-people

[Host Mike]

"The boat's helmsman, cabin service director, two ship officers and the head of the Italian company's crisis team were sentenced to up to two years and 10 months in prison for multiple manslaughter, negligence and shipwreck.

Reports say they may avoid prison-time."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23390302

[Host Mike]

"The reading of the list of the victims began with the death of a Frenchman, Francis Servel, who `'not having found a place on the lifeboat, threw himself into the sea without a life vest." He was `'sucked toward the bottom of the whirlpool produced by the final flipping over on the right side of the ship, and then died due to asphyxiation."

Shortly after the tragedy, survivors recounted how Servel had given his wife his life vest because she didn't know how to swim.

The bodies of victims No. 31 and 32 were never found, but after a long, futile search of the ship's interior and the nearby waters, they were declared dead.

One of them was a middle-aged Italian passenger, Maria Grazia Trecarichi, who, with no place on a lifeboat, and `'while waiting to be rescued" while wearing a life vest, `'slid off into the sea because of the progressive tilt of the boat" and presumably drowned, the court official said, reading from the indictment.

Victim No. 32 was a Filipino waiter, Russel Terence Rebello. The court heard how the crewman `'remained on the ship to carry out the lowering of the last lifeboats" and either fell or dove into the sea because of the Concordia's dramatic tilt and was presumed to have drowned.

Other victims drowned aboard, as violently swirling water rose up inside the ship.

The court heard how some passengers were "sucked into a vortex" of water rushing into the ship when the Concordia capsized. This happened after the crew told them to go to the other side of the ship where lifeboats were being launched, and the passengers ended up trying to walk down a tilting corridor."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/francesco-schettino-trial-plea-deal_n_3610351.html?utm_hp_ref=world

[Host Mike]

`'Frankly, I'm not angry with Schettino," said Gianluca Gabrielli, a 33-year-old Roman who is a surviving passenger. `'I'm angry with the whole crew. They were smiling at the beginning, but when they realized that there was danger, they escaped, abandoning us," Gabrielli said outside the Grosseto theater, which is serving as a makeshift courtroom to allow more space for the public.

Many survivors who jumped into the sea and swam to shore have recalled their shock and amazement that Schettino was already there while others were still on the boat."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/17/francesco-schettino-trial-plea-deal_n_3610351.html?utm_hp_ref=world

[Host Mike]

"The captain of the capsized Costa Concordia has asked the judge at his manslaughter trial to order tests on the cruise liner's wreckage to determine why electrical and other systems failed after the vessel struck a reef off an Italian island in 2012, killing 32 people."

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/07/19/12/31/captain-wants-tests-on-costa-concordia

[Host Mike]

"GROSSETO, Italy - Lawyers for Francesco Schettino, captain of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise liner, made a second unsuccessful attempt Wednesday to reach a plea deal in a trial over the disaster in which 32 people died."

"On the first day of the trial, defense lawyers said Schettino would plead guilty in exchange for a sentence of three years and five months, but prosecutors rejected the offer.

It was Schettino’s second attempt at a plea deal. A previous offer to serve three years and four months was rejected in May."

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/17/19523230-costa-concordia-cruise-wreck-captain-has-second-plea-bid-rejected

Host Mike Question:  3 years and 5 months on probation? 

[Host Mike]

"In the very near future, engineers will attempt to pull the battered ship upright and float it away. The hulk is snagged on jagged outcroppings of rock in 60 feet of water, groaning and swaying precariously with each incoming wave on the edge of a steep slope that drops 200 feet to the bottom of the sea. If the operation goes well, it will be the greatest success in the history of maritime salvage. But if a single thing goes wrong, the boat will tear apart or sink whole, seriously polluting the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals—the largest park of its kind in Europe—which surrounds Giglio. The waters are a haven for dolphins, porpoises, whale calves and scores of other sea creatures. Exquisite coral reefs line the seafloor immediately below the stranded, rusting ship."

http://www.oceanleadership.org/refloating-the-wrecked-costa-concordia-cruise-ship-could-ruin-marine-sanctuary/

[Host Mike]

"Aside from the blister tanks, which provide 6,000 tons of buoyancy, 11 other tanks or "sponsons" have been attached to the port side of the ship. When the ship is rotated, if all goes according to plan, it will come to rest on six steel platforms that have been placed on the sea bed, on the offshore side. Because the ship is lying on two underwater reefs with a valley in between, salvage workers and divers had to pump 18,000 tons of cement into grout bags that were used to fill the gap to support the ship's hull."

"Once the parbuckling is complete, the next phase -- removing the ship from its present location and towing it to a mainland port for dismantling -- will have to wait another eight to 10 months for winter to pass."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57599101/grounded-costa-concordia-cruise-ship-is-ready-to-roll-literally/

[Host Mike]

"The man in charge of salvaging the wreck of the Costa Concordia which crashed off the coast of Tuscany last year has warned the massive luxury cruise ship could fracture when it is rotated in early September."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10238561/Salvage-chief-warns-Costa-Concordia-could-fracture.html

[Host Mike]

"Gabrielli and his department want assurances that when the operation does take place the ship, already in danger of breaking up under its own weight, will not break apart. That could see much of its contents spilled into the protected waters of the Tuscan Bay.

But Cirillo believes a delay past the fall would create an even more dangerous situation. He fears winter storms could tear the boat apart where it sits. It has survived one winter there, 300 meters from the island of Giglio and with 65 percent of the ship lying underwater."

http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/355861

[Host Mike]

"THE INSURANCE industry is facing a $1.1bn (£715m) bill for the recovery of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, Munich Re said yesterday.

The world’s biggest reinsurer said the entire $500m cost of the ship had already been covered but the rescue process continued to swallow funds. Munich Re said its final share of the bill for the ship, which sunk off the Italian coast in January 2012, had risen to €100m (£87m)."

http://www.cityam.com/article/costa-concordia-recovery-set-leave-insurers-700m-bill

[Host Mike]

"ROME (Reuters) - The wrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship could be upright again next week, nearly two years after the liner capsized and killed at least 30 people off the Italian coast."

"Divers have pumped 18,000 metric tons of cement into bags below the ship to support it and prevent it from breaking up in an operation which is expected to last 8-10 hours and is part of a salvage operation estimated to cost at least $300 million.

A buoyancy device acting "like a neck brace for an injured patient" will hold together the ship's bow, and fishing nets will catch debris as it rises from beneath the ship, said Nicholas Sloane, senior salvage master at Titan Salvage.

The salvage team will go through the ship cabin by cabin and had over items found on board to the Italian state prosecutor, and the vessel will be towed away to be dismantled."

http://news.yahoo.com/italys-wrecked-costa-concordia-cruise-ship-raised-164410269--finance.html