Costa Concordia Disaster - What happened?

Professional Mariner Forum
82

[QUOTE=c.captain;61075]Different nations have different professional cultures (Italy or Greece would no doubt be more lax than say the UK or Norway),
.[/QUOTE]

Sorry but I don’t believe here we have a case of culture. The Herald of Free Enterprise accident caused 193 death in the “not lax” culture of UK… An idiot is an idiot regardless his nationality and this is the case of the Concordia Captain. He did a mess and made even worst after the first event occurred, last one was that he left the ship well before the evacuation was completed.

Maybe if in the marine traffic would be everywhere into place a sistem like ATC for aircraft someone could realise well in time that a ship is on the wrong route or going too close to shore.

83

[QUOTE=c.captain;61061]I don’t know…if only the port side is damaged she should have settled back upright (or at least righted herself some) or kept going over if all stability was lost which I do not believe the case was. The photos show her settling with a starboard list but not severe. I also think there are photos showing underwater damage to starboard as well. My speculation is that while “threading the needle” the ship hit one one side and then in panic the helm was put over to get off that side of the passage and in the process struck the other side. If the ship went through that hole, the was zero margin for any maneuvering.
[/QUOTE]

IMHO - There’s another possibility. The captain didn’t try to be so stupid as to try and “Thread the Needle” but he was well inshore and he did hit the port side against rocks shown on the chart. This is consistent with the YouTube video showing the same vessel close inshore in August 2011 at the same location at roughly the same time of day.

In that case, the initial damage could be confined to the port side. Obviously the captain then attempted to ground the ship in shallow water. However, when grounding, it’s possible that only the port side was supported. The bottom is rocky, not flat sand there. Flooding continued, but with the port side supported, the vessel went down to starboard. That would explain why they didn’t try to man the boats at the time of the accident, but waited almost 45 minutes. The captain was trying to follow the principle of “The Ship as Lifeboat” and couldn’t stop to safely lower them. That’s also consistent with witness statements that described an initial port list, followed a steadily increasing starboard list. Damage now reported to the starboard hull could easily be explained as associated with the grounding and subsequent capsize.

BTW - Is this properly considered a “capsize?” She’s on her “beam ends,” not “capsized,” as I recall the term, implies “inverted” - like the USS Oklahoma at Pearl Harbor.

84

There is a system like ATC but, like ATC, this system doesn’t cover everywhere, just near major harbors. (ATC is only valid in air space near major airports…)

85

If the scales match (map vs ship), and that seems to be the case, then we can forget about the “thread the needle” theory. Even an idiot of a captain would not have gone there.
With the damage of the port side hull mostly in the after part of the vessel (the piece of rock still stuck in the hull) we can assume that the ship was in a right turn movement when it hit the rock.
Probably this happened at the off shore rocks to the east of the little islet Le Scole.
Obviously, in the darkness the captain mis-judged the vessel’s distance to the land.

No problem. I will try to answer some of your questions from a ship captain’s experience:

  1. “Is there an open and honest safety reporting culture…”
    There sure is. There are independent marine accident investigation boards in each major seafaring nation. Their findings are published freely.

  2. “Are all crew members (officers or not) encouraged to monitor and speak out when they see safety-related incidents arising? …”
    Yes they are. At least theoretically. Every company, every ship has a SMS (safety management system). Every crew member knows (or should know) whom to report to if he/she thinks to note safety-related shortcomings.
    However, I can’t speak for the “reporting culture” on board Costa Concordia, of course not.

  3. “Is there an initial and on-going training approach to teach and develop cognitive command skills…”
    Yes, there is. We call it “Bridge Team Management” and “Bridge Resource Management”. This is already part of the curriculae at nautical training institutes. In addition, compulsory refresher courses generally have to be completed, either by in-house training or in specialized, approved training institutes.

  4. “Do ships have active data monitoring systems in place, where parameters are monitored and alerts flagged up when pre-determined datums are exceeded …”
    Yes they have. A modern ship like the Costa Concordia is equipped with a “track pilot”. That means the vessel will automatically follow the pre-planned, master-approved track. The watch officer on the bride just has to make regular checks that the vessel is “on track”. Only in case of “giving way” to other vessels he will have to deviate from the track. There is also an “off-track alarm”, or XTE (cross track error) as we call it, when the vessel is leaving the track (at a pre-set margin, mostly set at about 0.5 nautical miles, depending on the circumstances).
    However, when you switch off the track pilot and go on manual steering (or let the autopilot do the steering), all the alarms will not sound.
    And, no, the crew will not get away with it when they hit a rock and try to keep silent. The VDR (voyage data recorder) will save all essential navigational and technical data, including the conversation on the bridge (recorded by microphones).
    But - and now it comes - the VDR overwrites all data after 24 hours. Therefore, an “event button” has to be pressed when a serious incident happens to save the data permanently. It’s not seldom that the bridge crew “forgot” to press the button - or didn’t press and hold long enough - after an accident.

So far my two cents.
HTH

86

[QUOTE=oldman;61099]
Obviously, in the darkness the captain mis-judged the vessel’s distance to the land.

But - and now it comes - the VDR overwrites all data after 24 hours. Therefore, an “event button” has to be pressed when a serious incident happens to save the data permanently. It’s not seldom that the bridge crew “forgot” to press the button - or didn’t press and hold long enough - after an accident.
[/QUOTE]

As for the Captain “mis-judging” the distance to shore because it was dark out, that’s when the radar comes in awfully handy.

And most of the newer VDR’s record for well longer than 24 hours. I don’t know what kind this ship had, but the ones I’ve worked with recorded for 3 weeks and 1 week before overwriting itself. With the size of harddrives increasing the VDR’s are able to record for longer periods now.

87

[QUOTE=oldman;61099]So far my two cents.
HTH[/QUOTE]
WOW !!
Sir Winston: "Some chicken, some neck"
Thank you, Sir, oldman
THAT folks, is an old pro, how do you like it?
My two cents: EXCELLENT post, oldman

88

Bottom line here is that these crew members especially the captain acted like amateurs and not prof. Last i heard the captain was released from jail and put on house arrest. I do not have to know of everything that really happened, what we do know is that this captain was on a life boat while his crew and passengers were still on that ship. Thats all I have to know. This guy should have not been let out of jail, should be treated as the criminal and coward that he is…

89

Really burns my ass to hear that …

90

[QUOTE=Capt.Felix;61111]Really burns my ass to hear that …[/QUOTE]

To hear what? That this guy’s an idiot?

91

The recording between the capt and the coast guard master.

92

Hi,

My first posting on gCaptain. Just like to add that I spent 49 days at anchor off Marseilles last year during the French Port Strike at Fos/Lavera. Our anchor position was about 6 cables off the north coast of Marseilles Bay, and the Costa Concordia was a regular caller at the port. She regularly, though not always, made her approach to the port entrance by passing between us (183m tanker) and the coast, when there was no justification for it. It seems to me that there was a culture of “rock dodging” on the bridge of this ship.

93

Ahh. Yea me too. What a douche. “It’s dark out I can’t see!” Jackass.

94

I’m cynical, but Captain Schettino will be exonerated and probably given another command. (Add outrage here!)

He’s a good ‘company man’ which is why he got his job in the first place.

Captain’s job is to ‘sell the ship’ at every opportunity, not sail from ‘point A’ to ‘point B’.

I looked and see that the port of Civitavecchia has a TSS or Transport Separation Scheme. Rules for a yacht and rules for a big ship like the Concordia are different. Concordia has to stay in her lane. I presume her specified course followed the TSS to the West, not to the NNW.

I seriously doubt the Captain would go out of the lane unless he had specific authorization from his boss. After all, it’s his license on the line, not Carnival’s.

Debt for the company is high. Carnival is a leverage buyout type operation, the owner Mickey Arison is your typical Wall Street cockroach. The company has expanded by buying up competitors like Costa. It’s also on the hook for new ships. This leap of faith taking place when filling the current ships is getting tougher, fuel costs are higher and customers are ‘broker’.

http://www.bloomberg.com/quote/CCL:LN/balance-sheet

That means the Captains are ordered to sell the ships if it means sailing them down drainage canals and under low bridges.

95

[QUOTE=steve from virginia;61119]That means the Captains are ordered to sell the ships if it means sailing them down drainage canals and under low bridges.[/QUOTE]

Oh my God !!

96

Seriously, does anyone know anything about training and certification requirements in Italy? The Costa Concordia was registered in Italy and operating in Italian waters; wouldn’t Costa Cruises have to follow Italian admiralty laws?

I have searched and searched and have found little information about Schettino’s background. Was his position as head of security 4 years prior to making captain a marine job or more of a cruise personnel job? Did he attend any post secondary maritime academy? The only information I’ve been able to find so far describes his schooling at the Intitute Technico Nautico Statale (www.ninobixio.com) located in Piano di Sorrento (Naples). Did he possibly serve in the Navy? Work on a fishing vessel? Where did his experience come from beyond riding a cruise ship for six or so years?

My complete lack of experience with the Italian language isn’t helping here. From the Google translation this appears to be a technical high school with a maritime program. Google’s translation services have led me astray before and I don’t know if this is correct. Anyone here speak Italian?

However, I do find the complete lack of information on Schettino’s employment history and education possibly as disturbing as whatever there is to find out. It is like the guy never existed prior to this incident; or information is somehow being suppressed. No leaks or no interest?

I’m surprised that no one in the press, in spite of the dearth of commentaries from the “cruise experts”, has not raised this question in depth. Was this guy qualified in any sense of the word to man the helm of a cruise ship? I hope someone here will shed some light on this matter because my curiosity is burning a hole in my head! :confused:

97

Well, this may shed a little light on my questions but the news pieces I’ve found seem to contradict one another…

http://http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/17/francesco-schettino-captain-costa-concordia?newsfeed=true

http://http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Italian+cruise+ship+captain+high+spirited+dare+devil/6008056/story.html

98

[QUOTE=Capt. Schmitt;61095](ATC is only valid in air space near major airports…)[/QUOTE]

That’s not valid as a generalization. High altitude airspace used by airliners is controlled everywhere–even over the oceans. Low altitude airspace may or may not be controlled at, near, or away from airports depending on country, geography, time of day and the type of aircraft flight.

ATC is a lot more pervasive than VTS. Large commercial aircraft in service can’t go anywhere without ATC knowing about who they are and what they’re doing.

99

Hello to All,

Long time, I wasnt posting here.
I am European cargo ship master, presently on leave, living in Croatia, speaking a bit of Italian, and following the recent developments including Italian press releases.
The last info about the question WHY this happened is coming from Italian News.

According to Italian media, the reason why the captain of “Costa Concordia” tried to pass so close to the rocks is following:
His chief steward lives in the village (or is from that villiage), on Island of Giglio.
As a favour to his chief steward, and without being asked by him to do so, the master tried to pass close to village of his (obviously) favourite crew member.

The chief steward made few short statements for media, and is very ashamed of what has happened.

In the “old days” when the ships were significantly smaller, in some Meditarenean places (Greece, Croatia, Italy, etc )there was a tradition of a master passing close to his place / town / village and blasting a horn to salute his place before taking a long cross ocean voyage.
That was romantic tradition, home town companies, hometown masters and close even family ties.

Now, ships are bigger, wider, deeper, faster… and not made for such stunts. There is no clasic owners, but various manegements and things are different.
Some, may seam to forget and cause the disaster on hand. Thats bad.
And thats why this happened.

Apart from disastrous decision from diverting from original course on whatever reasons there may be, my own proffesional opinion is that
evacuation operations on behalf of vsl (and master) have been done well.

First, the vessel is gounded to prevent sinking and buying the time for evacuation / abandoning.

Secondly, as the case is compared to Titanic, lets compare the numbers:
The “Titanic”, lost cca two thirds of all people on board, and had saved about one third. Numbers are public.

Here, almost all of over 4000 people / and crew are saved succesfully.
In the middle of:Pitch black darkness / unexpectedness of event / posibility of hypothermia / generally older and proffesioanlly untrained passangers / and possible or real panic.
The crew, the Safety systems, and procedures worked perfectly. On the photos of capsized vsls there is no un-lowered life boats on port side.

So, my conclusin is:
I agree with the girl blaming the press for incompetence.
Master made disastrous decision on worst reasons to divert course from voyage plan, but post accident actions were well decided and more importantly well handled, on behalh of crew, and possibly master. (the prapredness was top)

Master is, after all, to make sure that safety system and procedures are fully functional.
On the other hand, he should not cause it!

Hope, I managed to shed some light on the question why this happened.

Media wants to get senzational.
Just for example, here are some of the releases I caught on captains whereabouts:

  1. Master was in salon, and just had consumed a bottle of wine, when this happened. (by Croatian pax, a proffesional fisherman)
  2. Master was on the bridge, with bridge team and had summoned his chief steward on the bridge when passing the island. (Italian press)
  3. Master was in his cabin. (Italian press)
  4. Master was in his cabin oredering special dinner for himself. (Filipino waiter)

Press info I take with high level of reserve. Suggest the same.

100

IMHO - There’s another possibility. The captain didn’t try to be so stupid as to try and “Thread the Needle” but he was well inshore and he did hit the port side against rocks shown on the chart. This is consistent with the YouTube video showing the same vessel close inshore in August 2011 at the same location at roughly the same time of day.

In that case, the initial damage could be confined to the port side. Obviously the captain then attempted to ground the ship in shallow water. However, when grounding, it’s possible that only the port side was supported. The bottom is rocky, not flat sand there. Flooding continued, but with the port side supported, the vessel went down to starboard. That would explain why they didn’t try to man the boats at the time of the accident, but waited almost 45 minutes. The captain was trying to follow the principle of “The Ship as Lifeboat” and couldn’t stop to safely lower them. That’s also consistent with witness statements that described an initial port list, followed a steadily increasing starboard list. Damage now reported to the starboard hull could easily be explained as associated with the grounding and subsequent capsize.

I am somewhat coming around to a similar conclusion. Any of this supposed AIS data showing her going throught that hole is very likely a pure fabrication on somebody’s part which has been clouding my interpretation of the possible events which led to the ship ultimately rolling onto her side. If she is opened only to port then she must have taken in alot of water before the rudder was put over to port to bring the ship ashore which would have transferred to the starboard side and created a significant list to starboard. As long as all that water was not able to flow back to port then that starboard list wouldn’t go away but likely wouldn’t increase either as the ship settled as she flooded. Ultimately when she grounded on her starboard bilge it may have then acted as a pivot. With the superstructure only providing temporary reserve bouyancy as it flooded, the ship would have continued to lay further and further over. If there were unflooded compartments to port it would have helped this to happen. My earlier thoughts were along the lines of symetrical flooding fore and aft and asymetrical flooding more to starboard than to port because of greater hull damage to the flooded side.

The key is of course, how much water has the vessel shipped in the 45 minutes after the grounding and how fast was it going then the ship made its turn to port?

101

Hello all,

My first post here, I am too, like a previous poster an airline pilot and take great interest in this accident for the same reasons as the previous poster (glad I am not the only one), as I see strong parallels to aviation. I found this forum doing a google seach for nautical charts of Isola del Giglio. I hope you don’t mind my presence here either.

First of all I am astonished of this public lynching of the Captain. If an aviation accident takes place, the Captain is usually proclaimed to be a hero if most of the passengers survive - even thought if it later turns out that Captain may have taken questionable decisions leading up to the accident (and even though it may have been obvious for other professionals from the beginning). Apparently a captain of a ship is not given this luxury.

The way I see it the ship passed the reef south of the harbor with the reef at the port side, leading to the obvious damage with the rock embedded in the hull. There after they passed the harbor and (from what I read) turned the ship around with the aid of anchors. If so, that must have been a quite violent maneuver with such a big ship causing it to bank to starboard, with centrifugal forces causing the water running to the starboard side of the ship causing the subsequent list. Then beaching it and starting the evacuation.

If it happened like this, would it have been possible to foresee that the turn would cause the list? And all things considered, if they were immediately aware of the extent of the damage would the risk of list/capsize while beaching be preferable to sinking on deeper water (were lifeboats on both sides may have been used and a more organized evacuation may have been possible)?
As an outsider it seems like the strategy was good considering saving 99% of the passengers.

After the capsize it seems to me that the Captain would have been pretty stuck on the bridge, being of no big aid to the rescue. Is it fair to criticize him for leaving the bridge (however way he came down, some media reports that he fell in the water) and by lifeboat moving to the keel of the boat to oversee the evacuation? Seems like he would have a better overview of what was going on and be able to lead the evacuation and the other lifeboats from this position. I want to believe in the best in people till the opposite is proven, rather than thinking he was only concerned saving his own ass.
The cost guard leader then instructed him to climb the ladder. It seems from the infrared footage that it would have been a rather impossible task to get back up with the ladders full of people. Does this instruction make sense at all if the captain believed that he was at his best vantage point, or is this pure symbolic that “the captain should go down with his ship” (which seems a pretty lousy argument)?

Regarding the accident itself, it seems to me that the captain is the easy scapegoat. In aviation you can pinpoint almost everything on pilot error, even though the underlying cause may be lack of training provided by the company, pressure from the company to meet certain goals at the compromise of safety, bad company culture in general developing over several years etc.

In this regard the question from the previous airline poster is quite relevant and not answered. A bit simplistic told, in aviation we have alarms if we deviate from procedures. These alarms will the be sent as digital messages by radio to company headquarter. Even if all goes well it will usually mean at least a telephone call or in worse cases a meeting with the boss to explain what happened. If they previously sailed close past the Island (without company approval), would the company be made aware of it in a similar fashion that they could take disciplinary action or would such behavior go undetected over years?

If they were indeed aware of such practice usually taking place (and maybe being done dozens or hundreds of times) and quietly condoning it, it may have lead to the false impression of the safety of such maneuvers (bad culture developing over years).

I will be very curios if a thorough investigation is done or it will all end with the complete blame to be laid on the captain. I would be surprised if indeed if it comes down to a rouge, impulsive daredevil captain taking this risk to boost his own ego.

Thank you for letting me vent my thoughts on this board.

Edited for some spelling/grammar and clarity