Carnival owned cruise ship Costa Concordia runs aground off Italy

[Host Mike]

[Host Mike]

"After hitting a rock off the coast of Giglio last Friday night, the Costa Concordia continued past the port as Schettino turned it around and brought it to rest on a headland known as Punta Gabbianara. According to the transcripts, there, at 21.49, he was radioed by the harbourmaster's office in Livorno, which is a regional headquarters of the coastguard.

"Everything OK?" he was asked.

"Affirmative," came the reply. The coastguard was told the liner had suffered a "small technical failure".

Five minutes later, the coastguard radioed the bridge again. The second newspaper, Il Fatto Quotidiano, which did not provide a source for its information, said that in the meantime the harbourmaster's office had been told by the semi-militarised Carabinieri police of a call from a passenger aboard the Costa Concordia talking about a shipwreck.

This time, the coastguard asked not only if the vessel was in trouble, but also what was its position.

"We've only got a technical problem and we're not able to [give the position]," came the reply. "But as soon as it's resolved, we'll communicate [it] to you."

Thereafter, all radio calls to the stricken liner went unanswered. But at 00.32 the coastguard managed to contact Schettino by telephone.

By then, the evacuation had been under way for only about 40 minutes. The captain was asked how many people were still aboard.

"Two, three hundred," he replied.

Ten minutes later, the coastguard rang him again. By then, said Il Fatto quoting a local fire brigade commander, Schettino had left his ship and was on the rocks at Punta Gabbianara.

He was again asked how many people were still aboard.

"I've called the ship owners, and they tell me that about 40 people are missing," he replied.

"So few? How is that possible?" asked the coastguard, before adding: "But you're on board?"

"No. I'm not on board because the bows of the ship are coming up. We've abandoned her."

"What do you mean? You've abandoned ship?"

"No. No way have I abandoned ship. I'm here," Schettino replied.

The final, and most dramatic call, took place at 1.46am when, after confirming that he was speaking to the captain, a coastguard officer told him: "Right. You are now going back on board. You are going to go back up the rope ladder, return to the bridge and co-ordinate operations."

There followed a long silence, Il Fatto reported.

"You must tell me how many people there are," the coastguard officer continued. "How many passengers, women and children – and co-ordinate the rescue."

Schettino protested that he was on hand.

"Captain," said the coastguard officer, cutting across him. "This is an order. Now I am in command. You have declared the abandoning of a ship and are going to co-ordinate the rescue from the bridge. There are already dead bodies."

"How many?" asked Schettino.

"You're the one who should be telling me that," came the reply. "What do you want to do? Go home? Now, go back up and tell me what can be done: how many people there are and what they need."

"Alright," said Schettino. "I'm going."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/17/costa-concordia-coastguard-captain-return

[Host Mike]

"Carnival Corp. (CCL)’s Italian unit is rushing to prevent its crippled cruise liner from spewing 2,400 tons of fuel into Europe’s biggest marine park, as the search continues for 29 missing passengers and crew members.

Smit Salvage, a unit of Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, contracted by Costa Crociere SpA, owner of the stricken Costa Concordia, is ready to begin inspecting the ship as soon as tomorrow. The company will need two to four weeks to take the fuel off the ship, executives said on a conference call today.

“The vessel is stable and we feel confident that removal can be done in a fairly rapid way,” Kees van Essen, Smit’s manager of operations, said during the call. There have been no leaks so far and salvage operations don’t increase the chance of leaks, he said.

Time is critical to removing the more than 500,000 gallons of fuel as deteriorating weather and shifts in the boat’s position increase the risk of a spill. Search and rescue operations had to be suspended for four hours yesterday after the Costa Concordia moved position in rising seas off the Italian island of Giglio."

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-16/carnival-races-to-prevent-fuel-spill-from-stricken-liner-into-marine-park.html

[Host Mike]

"To Jack Hickey, a maritime lawyer in Miami who is working with an Italian lawyer to represent Costa Concordia passengers, the cruise line’s responsibility is obvious. Referring to the captain, Mr. Hickey said that the company had “nobody with more authority or responsibility than him” on the ship, and that it was not as if a janitor had somehow steered the ship onto a rock formation. Besides, he noted, in an age when ships are in constant communication with their owners, the company should not be able to argue that it had no idea what was going on. “You mean you can’t track it?” he asked. “You mean if it gets that far off track, you don’t know?”

The issues in the case could be shaped by the highly restrictive terms of the contract that every passenger gets with his or her ticket, said Gerald McGill, an admiralty lawyer in Pensacola, Fla.

Cruise contracts are notoriously restrictive regarding the rights of passengers, and Costa’s 6,400-word contract is no exception. The Costa contract sharply limits the kinds of lawsuits that can be brought, where those suits can be brought and how much the company can be made to pay. All such provisions have been upheld in the courts of the United States, he said.

Costa’s contract states that the line will pay no more in cases of death, personal injury and property loss than about $71,000 per passenger. It allows no recovery for mental anguish or psychological damages. It bars class-action suits.

“If you read this cruise line ticket, and it doesn’t make your stomach turn, it should,” Mr. McGill said.

For cruises that do not involve a United States port, the contract states, any litigation must be brought in Genoa, Italy, and be governed by Italian law. But when it comes to liability, the contract says the company can take advantage of any limits set by international treaties or the laws of the United States, which are very generous to owners of vessels. If there is a conflict among the patchwork of laws and treaties regarding liability, it says, “the Carrier shall be entitled to invoke whichever provisions provide the greatest limitations and immunities to the Carrier.”

“That’s called the ‘the terms are whatever we want them to be’ clause,” Mr. Hickey said. “It’s a contract created by lawyers under this fantasy that the everyday passenger will understand what that means.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/19/world/europe/cruise-lines-use-law-and-contracts-to-limit-liability.html?_r=1

[Host Mike]

"I give my personal assurance that we will take care of each and every one of our guests, crew and their families affected by this tragic event," Carnival Chief Executive Micky Arison said in a statement late on Wednesday - five days after the incident that left 11 people dead and 22 missing."
"On a scale of one to 10, with 10 being "outstanding," Carnival's public relations strategy in the immediate wake of the disaster gets a four, said Allyson Stewart-Allen, director of International Marketing Partners, a consulting firm.

"It wasn't quick, it wasn't specific, it wasn't reassuring," Stewart-Allen said, noting that Carnival's first statement, released on Saturday nearly 24 hours after the Costa Concordia liner struck rock causing it to capsize, did not quote a specific person."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/19/us-carnival-idUSTRE80I02P20120119

[Host Mike]

"1. Go to Italy, now!  Carnival CEO Micky Arison needs to get on the overnight plane to Italy right now.  He’s left the response to Costa spokespeople but clearly it hasn’t been enough.  Worse, some business publications are commenting that Arison is issuing press statements from Miami.  This makes him looked detached.  Last I checked Miami is 5,000 miles away the scene of the wreck.  Get on site now.

2. Demonstrate empathy–a lot of it.  On his plane ride to Italy Arison should memorize the name of every one of the people who died.  His staff should find out something about these people and Arison should meet with the families as soon as possible.  Whenever Arison holds a news conference—and there should be many—he should talk about the families he met and outline the exact the policies that Carnival will put in place to avoid another catastrophe.  Show that you care.

3. Be visible.  Arison should be holding daily, if not twice -a-day, news conferences.   Any information is better than no information.  Keep the public updated constantly."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2012/01/18/3-things-carnival-must-do-now-to-manage-the-costa-crisis/

[Host Mike]

Carnival Corp.'s Micky Arison, who built the cruise company to almost $16 billion in annual revenue, is overseeing the response to its worst accident from Miami, more than 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers) from the site.
He had a net worth of $4.2 billion last year, according to Forbes magazine, making him the 75th wealthiest person in the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans.

"Our priority is the safety of our passengers and crew," Arison said in a statement. "We are deeply saddened by this tragic event and our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially to the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives."

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/01/17/bloomberg_articlesLXWYK41A1I4H01-LXY5Y.DTL

[Host Mike]

"A cruise ship passenger has come forward to back up claims that cowardly captain Francesco Schettino was drinking with a blonde woman when the liner ran aground off an Italian island on Friday night.

Angelo Fabri told the Genoa based il Secolo XIX newspaper how he and his wife Eleonora Rossi had spotted Schettino 'drinking' at dinner in the company of a young blonde woman about 8.35pm on Friday evening.

Today, it emerged the woman is 25-year-old Moldovan Domnica Cemortan, who witnesses spotted on the bridge of the ship alongside Schettino as the doomed vessel began to list.

Reports today speculated that the captain had been trying to impress her."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2089052/Costa-Concordia-Domnica-Cemortan-captain-Francesco-Schettino-cruise-ship-hit.html

"The 25-year-old blonde, identified as Domnica Cemortan, was invited onto the bridge as the cruise liner sailed perilously close to Giglio, in what was apparently a ‘salute’ to an old friend of the captain’s and a favour to the ship’s head waiter, whose family were from the island.

She was reportedly the guest of one of the ship’s officers and may be the woman that passengers saw drinking and chatting with Capt Francesco Schettino on Friday evening, a few hours before the Costa Concordia ran aground.

Italian judicial authorities, who are investigating the accident and the captain’s conduct, want to interview Ms Cemortan, who according to her Facebook page was born in Chisinau, Moldova, and lives in Bucharest, Romania."

"It is believed that Miss Cemortan, from Chisnau, Moldova, was working as a passenger rep for Costa Cruises and gave a brief interview to the media defending Schettino, adding that his actions had helped save the lives of holidaymakers and crew.

She has also said in an interview on Moldovan TV that she did have dinner with the captain, but that she went to the bridge after the impact to give instructions to Russian speaking passengers."

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2088821/Costa-Concordia-Domnica-Cemortan-captain-Francesco-Schettino-cruise-ship-hit.html#ixzz1jvpD62SM

"Martino Pellegrino, one of the officers on board the Costa Concordia, joined the growing condemnation of Mr Schettino. “If I had to make a comparison, we got the impression that he would drive a bus like a Ferrari,” he said.

Mario Palombo, a former Costa commander and colleague of the captain, said: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino. It’s true, he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant; a daredevil. More than once I had to put him in his place.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/9024768/Costa-Concordia-investigators-probe-role-of-young-Moldovan-woman-on-cruise-ship.html





"Cemortan does not appear on any official passenger or crew lists"

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/01/19/captain-in-cruise-ship-disaster-says-fell-out-ship-during-evacuation/

"The cruise ship captain who steered his 114,000-tonne vessel into rocks off the Italian coast last Friday was drinking wine at dinner with a "beautiful" woman minutes earlier, a witness has claimed."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/19/costa-concordia-woman-seen-captain

[Host Mike]

"Italian media have broadcast what they say is the first phone conversation between port officials and crew of the Costa Concordia as the cruise ship was starting to sink on Friday.

In the exchange, said to have taken place 30 minutes after the ship hit rocks, a crew member is heard saying it is experiencing only a blackout."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16641592

[Host Mike]

"The Costa Concordia cruise ship that ran aground on Italy’s Giglio island is at “high risk” of sinking, threatening Europe’s biggest marine park as a storm heads toward the area.

“It very much depends on the change in weather conditions,” Environment Minister Corrado Clini said in Parliament in Rome. The government plans to declare a state of emergency for the area at a Cabinet meeting tomorrow, as well as approve a measure that would restrict cruise ships from access to sensitive coastal regions."

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-01-19/concordia-at-high-risk-of-sinking-italian-minister-says.html

[Host Mike]

"Speaking at the quayside on Giglio, he said companies likely to bid include Smit Salvage, an arm of Dutch group Boskalis-Westminster, Titan Salvage, owned by U.S. group Crowley Maritime Corp and Denmark's Svitzer, owned by Maersk."

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/19/us-italy-ship-salvage-idUSTRE80I20N20120119

[Host Mike]

"Domnica Cemortan told Moldovan TV: “I was with (Capt. Francesco) Schettino. I saw that the captain lost his temper. There were two hours of hell.”

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1117928--concordia-captain-with-dancer-on-bridge-as-cruise-ship-hit-rocks

[Host Mike]

Six days after the 114,500 tonne Costa Concordia capsized off the Tuscan coast, hopes of finding anyone alive on the partially submerged hulk have all but disappeared and the cold waters around the ship have become noticeably rougher."

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/19/time-running-out-to-search-for-costa-concordia-victims/

[Host Mike]

[Host Mike]

"The search for people still missing from the Jan. 13 wreck of a luxury cruise ship was temporarily suspended Friday because of a shift in the position of the 114,500-ton vessel resting on the rocky coast of the island of Giglio."

"Officially, the search was for survivors continued, although there was little hope of finding any of the 21 missing people alive."

"Electronic recordings and accounts from passengers, crew and port authorities show that Schettino waited about an hour before calling for an evacuation of the ship."

"Investigators are awaiting the results of toxicology tests to see if Schettino was under the influence of drugs or other substances at the time of the accident."

"Environmental Minister Corrado Clini said he would propose laws Friday that would require liners to keep about two miles away from shore. That would  prohibit cruise ships from plying the waters of the Grand Canal of  Venice, as well."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/shipwrecked-costa-concordia-shifts-halting-rescue-work.html