Princess Chatter

"Italian prosecutors allege the captain, who is married, may have been distracted from his duties by trying to impress the dancer.

An Italian passenger claimed he witnessed the captain enjoying a dinner of prawn cocktail, shrimp pasta and grilled fish, accompanied with a decanter of red wine, in the ship's finest restaurant, the Concordia Club, on the night of the disaster.

Passenger Angelo Fabbri said: "Schettino, in a dark suit, was sitting in front of the woman. She seemed young. At first, we thought it was his daughter.

"A pretty woman, 35 or 40 years old, slim, with shoulder-length blonde hair, with a black dress with open arms.

"They were laughing. There was trust ... great happiness. There is no doubt they were drinking at least a whole decanter. The last drop was poured into the captain's glass.

Capt Schettino this week told a magistrate he was a non-drinker."

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/speculation-swirls-around-mystery-woman-reportedly-seen-with-captain-of-doomed-ship/story-e6frf7lf-1226249788351



“[Capt. Schettino] is one of the best captains in the company. He is very skillful and experienced when it comes to manoeuvring the ship in enclosed spaces, like harbours,” Ms. Cemortan told the Telegraph."

http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/01/20/costa-concordia-captain-cried-like-a-baby-after-the-crash-rescue-operations-suspended-amid-choppy-seas/

"An abrupt turn, though, could cause water in the compartments, which often transect the hull, to shift to one side, potentially causing a vessel of that size to roll, the naval engineer said, emphasizing it was too early to determine what caused the Concordia to list. The engineer said the 70-meter gash in the hull could have compromised three compartments, enough to have potentially sunk the ship.

Mr. Schettino has also said he lowered the ship's anchors as part of his efforts to get the ship closer to shore. Prosecutors have ordered police divers to inspect the anchors to determine their position and possibly corroborate this narrative, people familiar with the matter said.

As water rushed in, Mr. Schettino had at least three phone calls with Costa Crociere officials in the port city of Genoa, including Roberto Ferrarini, the company's head of marine operations, said people familiar with the investigation. It wasn't clear what was discussed or who placed the calls."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577172531834270956.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

"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

"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

"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

"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/

"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