The Costa Concordia cruise ship captain under fire for abandoning his vessel while thousands of passengers scrambled for rescue has reportedly come up with an explanation for his flight - he accidentally tripped and fell into a lifeboat.
Jailed since the accident, Capt. Francesco Schettino appeared Tuesday before a judge in Grosseto, where he was questioned for three hours.
Several English-language newspapers have reported that, according to La Repubblica, Schettino testified that "the passengers were pouring on to the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault."
The passengers were pouring on to the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault," the newspaper quoted him as telling a judge during a hearing to determine whether he should be held in custody on charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.
"I didn't even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the passengers. I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60-70° angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That's how I found myself in the lifeboat," said Schettino.
"Suspended there, I was unable to lower the boat into the sea, because the space was blocked by other boats in the water."
The captain did however admit responsibility for crashing the ship into rocks which tore a hole in the Costa Concordia, forcing him to ground the vessel.
"I made a mistake on the approach," he said.
"I was navigating by sight because I knew the depths well and I had done this manoeuvre three or four times. But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow. I don't know why it happened. I was a victim of my instincts."
Schettino confirmed he sailed close to the island of Giglio to salute a retired captain, Mario Palombo, and was on the phone to Palombo at the time.
Schettino said he was not afraid of a drugs test: "I don't do drugs and I had not drunk." By grounding the vessel close to the shore after it struck rock he believes he saved the lives of many passengers.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Costa Concordia, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia, Divers blast holes
He faces possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship, charges he denies.
The 52-year-old's life has been dominated by the sea.
Born in the coastal town of Castellammare di Stabia, near the southern city of Naples, he attended a nautical institute in the nearby town of Piano di Sorrento.
Few personal details are known about Mr Schettino, and his family - based in the Naples town of Meta - have said they are no longer giving interviews to the press.
Captain Francesco Schettino was arrested a day after the disaster accused of manslaughter and abandoning the ship before all of the people were evacuated. Prosecutors say he also refused to go back on board when requested by the coastguard.
The captain has been branded a reckless show-off who refused to listen to orders and operated the ship as it if was a speed boat.
Schettino, 52, was being questioned by prosecutors Tuesday following his arrest in the wake of Friday’s disaster that has left at least 11 people dead.
Mario Palombo, a former captain of the doomed Costa Concordia with whom Schettino served as first mate for four years, told investigators that he was “too high-spirited and a dare devil,” local media reported.
Tags: Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia, Divers blast holes
SAFETY concerns about cruise ships are increasing as the industry booms, according to one of Australia's leading experts in maritime law.
Professor Donald Rothwell, of the Australian National University, has also warned of a major legal battle over the rights to the wreckage of Costa Concordia.
He says salvors were often granted entitlements to salvage property, including passengers' abandoned possessions, but this could be legally contested in the case of the Costa Concordia.
Captain Francesco Schettino has been allowed to leave jail but is under house arrest, blamed by his employer for risking the lives of more than 4,200 passengers and crew and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.
Rescuers used explosives to blast through the maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive inside the Costa Concordia, which lies semi-submerged on its side after being ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.
Dutch maritime services company SMIT said it was ready to start pumping fuel from the stricken liner as early as Wednesday once search operations for missing people have ended and they get the go-ahead from local authorities.
SMIT has been asked by the ship's owner and insurer to salvage up to 2,300 tonnes of fuel from the 114,500-tonne ship and clean up if fuel on the vessel starts to leak.
The giant cruiseship, a floating pleasure palace of bars, spas, state rooms and tennis courts, slid a little on Monday, threatening to plunge below the Mediterranean waters of the surrounding marine nature reserve.
This forced a brief suspension of rescue efforts, which were also halted overnight on Monday though searches were continuing through Tuesday night. A coastguard said they would go on until the entire ship had been checked.
The list of people still unaccounted for on Tuesday evening included 13 German, four French, five Italian and two American passengers, together with four crew members from Italy, India, Hungary and Peru.
Captain Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before all his passengers and crew scrambled off.
He has denied the charges and told magistrates on Tuesday he believed he should be credited with saving "hundreds, if not thousands" of lives because he brought the ship close to shore after it hit a rock, lawyer Bruno Leporatti said.
A judge ruled he could be allowed out of jail on Tuesday and will be placed under house arrest at his home near Sorrento in southern Italy.
The skipper, who underwent toxicology tests, claims he did not abandon the ship while passengers were still aboard.
But newspaper Corriere della Sera released what it said was a recording of ship-to-shore radio communications in which the enraged coastguards repeatedly order him back on board.
GIGLIO, Italy, - Italian coastguards pleaded angrily with the captain of a stricken super-liner to return to his ship, according to recordings released on Tuesday as divers found five more bodies in the half-submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia.
The discoveries took the known death toll to 11. One German who was listed as missing has been accounted for, Italy's civil protection department said, leaving 23 people still missing four days after the giant cruiser carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew was ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.
Captain Francesco Schettino has been allowed to leave jail but is under house arrest, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship in a reckless display of bravado.
On Tuesday, rescuers used explosives to blast through the maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive. Inside the ship, which lies on its side, heavy floating furniture and pitch-black conditions made conditions dangerous.
A tearful firefighter told Reuters: "Virtually all the dry part has been searched. It would need a miracle to find anyone alive in the wet part." No survivors have been found since Sunday.
Meanwhile, rescuers found six more bodies in the wreck of the ship on Tuesday, bringing the confirmed death toll to 11.
"The five victims are a woman and four men, who could be passengers, but we are not sure," said coastguard spokesman Filippo Marini.
He added that the dead people were between 50 and 60 years old, and were wearing life-jackets.
The bodies were found near one of the assembly points where people were told to gather in an emergency.
The authorities are also battling to avoid an environmental disaster, amid fears that the cruise ship's fuel tanks could break apart and shed thousands of tonnes of diesel into the sea.
Specialist salvage teams have been drafted in, and are due to start pumping the fuel out in the coming days.
The BBC's Peter Biles: "Footage shows the passengers dwarfed by the vastness of the ship"
The ship, carrying 4,200 passengers and crew, had its hull ripped open when it hit rocks late on Friday, just hours after leaving the port of Civitavecchia for a week-long Mediterranean cruise.
Some people were forced to swim for shore as the angle of the ship made launching lifeboats impossible.
Infrared footage taken from a helicopter showed lines of people climbing ropes down the exposed hull of the vessel to reach rescue boats on the water.
On Monday, the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List said it had been able to trace the course of the Costa Concordia through information from satellites.
The paper issued a graphic comparing Friday's sailing with an earlier sailing by the vessel, suggesting that Friday's route had deviated far from its usual course.
ROME – Five more bodies were found on the capsized cruise ship Costa Concordia on Tuesday as officials released a recording of the captain making excuses to a Coast Guard official who repeatedly orders him to get back to his crippled ship.
Divers located the latest victims, all of them adults wearing life jackets, in the rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point, said Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro.
In the recording made after the ship hit rocks Friday night the official berates Capt. Francesco Schettino, who is on a lifeboat and repeatedly says he doesn't want to return to the ship even as passengers are still being evacuated.
Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco that emerged Tuesday indicates he fled before all passengers were off — and then resisted De Falco's repeated orders to return.
"You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?" De Falco shouted in the audio tape.
Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.
De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"
"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge," De Falco shouted.
Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.
The 52-year-old Schettino, described by the Italian media as a genial, tanned ship's officer, has worked for 11 years for the ship's owner and was made captain in 2006.
Schettino hails from Meta di Sorrento, in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy's ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.
A judge is to decide Tuesday if Schettino should stay jailed, as requested by prosecutors. He could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Costa Concordia, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia, Divers blast holes
The chairman of Costa Crociere on Monday blamed the captain’s decision to take an unauthorized route for causing the cruise ship to hit rocks off Italy’s coast, an accident that has claimed at least six lives and will cost the Miami-based Carnival Corp. as much as $95 million in lost revenue this year.
Costa Chairman Pier Luigi Foschi said at a news conference in Genoa that it was Captain Francesco Schettino’s “human error” that brought the ship carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew too close to the shores of Giglio island where it ran aground, gashing its hull. The Costa Concordia’s route was set electronically before it left Civatavecchia near Rome.
“We can’t deny that there was a human error,” Foschi said. “The route had been properly programmed in Civitavecchia. The fact that the ship strayed from that course can only be due to a maneuver that was not approved, not authorized nor communicated to Costa Crociere by the captain of the ship.”
While the captain has the final decision to adjust the ship’s course, that move is typically done only because of bad weather or an emergency. Foschi said. Schettino apparently rerouted the ship to “pay a salute” to the island of Giglio and struck rocks that were above the water line, Foschi said. As far as he knew, the captain had not been drinking alcohol.
The ship is expected to be out of service "for the remainder of the current fiscal year if not longer," the company said.
Schettino joined Costa Cruises as a safety officer in 2002 before being appointed captain four years later, the company said.
Even with its admission that mistakes were made, the Genoa-based cruise company defended the ship's crew in the face of criticism on the part of some passengers, who said the crew appeared helpless and overwhelmed as passengers rushed for lifeboats.
"It is becoming clear that the crew of the Costa Concordia acted bravely and swiftly to help evacuate more than 4,000 individuals during a very challenging situation," the company said, adding all crew members are trained and the passengers earlier took part in an evacuation drill.
Survivors have described the scene -- after the ship hit rocks near Giglio, off the coast of Tuscany, and turned over on its side -- as chaos.
"There was no one taking command," passenger Lauren Moore told HLN's Mike Galanos. She said she was having dinner with a group of friends when she heard the crunch of the ship hitting the rock and the crash of plates and glasses falling to the floor.
"It was a terrifying sound and we knew it wasn't normal," she said.
Moore ran to her cabin and then to board a lifeboat. "It was so chaotic ... Everyone was basically fighting for his or her own life," she said.
Some passengers braved the chilly water, with a temperature of about 57 degrees, and swam to safety. Others had no choice and fell in. Nighttime temperatures on Giglio have recently dipped below freezing.
Authorities have said at least 20 people were injured, in addition to those killed and missing.
There were fears the death toll could rise as rescuers searched the ship, which was nearly 50% submerged and had a gash in its hull, authorities said.
Questions and criticism continue about what caused the shipwreck and the adequacy of the response.
Speaking on Italian television, the ship's captain insisted the rocks that the Concordia hit were not marked on his map.
"On the nautical chart, it was marked just as water," Schettino said, adding that the ship was about 328 yards (300 meters) from shore.
But Coast Guard spokesman Cosimo Nicastro insisted that the waters where the ship ran aground were well-mapped. Local fishermen say the island coast of Giglio is known for its rocky sea floor.
Nicastro said the Coast Guard was investigating why the ship took the course it did.
"We know where the ship was," he said. "We know it was too close to the island. ... We don't know why."
Built in 2006, the Concordia had been on a Mediterranean cruise from Rome with stops in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Costa Crociere, S.p.A. and Director
Carnival PLC
Miami , FL
Sector: SERVICES / General Entertainment
Officer since October 1997
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Costa Crociere, S.p.A. and Director , Carnival Corporation
Pier Luigi Foschi, age 63, has been a director of Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc since April 2003. He has been Chief Executive Officer of Costa Crociere S.p.A. (?Costa?), a subsidiary of Carnival plc, and chairman of its board since January 2000.
In addition to his duties at Costa, Mr. Foschi is vice-chairman of Confitarma, the federation of Italian ship owners, and chairman of the European Cruise Council, an organization consisting of Europe’s main cruise companies.
Mr. Foschi joined Costa following a long and prestigious career at OTIS Elevator Company, the world leader in the elevators and people moving equipment. At OTIS Mr. Foschi covered increasingly important roles since 1974. In 1990, after working in Italy and France, he moved to Hong Kong and then to Singapore as executive vice president of the OTIS Asia-Pacific operations, with operational responsibility for 14 countries, from Mongolia to Australia, from India to Japan.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
As thousands of screaming men, women and children ran for their lives amid the sinking Costa Concordia, Karen Camacho feared she and her husband wouldn’t make it out alive.
So, the Miami-Dade mother of two young sons waiting at home in South Florida began to sob.
I was terrified,’’ Camacho, 34, of Homestead, told The Miami Herald in a telephone interview Sunday from the Rome Hilton. “I cried. I screamed. I couldn’t stop thinking about my kids.
Camacho and her husband, Luis Manny Hernandez, were among the more than 4,200 people on board the cruise ship that struck a line of rocks Friday night near the island of Giglio, Italy. The massive ship turned almost completely on its left side and lay half submerged in the cold, dark Mediterranean Sea as panicked passengers crawled and ran in the darkness amid broken glass and objects strewn from the wreck.
Six people were killed and 16 are still missing after the Costa Concordia's hull was torn open on Friday.
Rescue crews restarted the search for survivors on Monday afternoon, three hours after work had been suspended over safety fears.
At an emotional news conference in Genoa, Mr Foschi fought back tears as he apologised for the accident.
"The company will be close to the captain and will provide him with all the necessary assistance, but we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," he said.
"This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a manoeuvre by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorised and unknown to Costa.
"He wanted to show the ship, to go nearby this island of Giglio, so he decided to change the course of the ship to go closer to the island."
He said Costa's ships have their routes programmed and alarms sound when they go off course.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
The disaster that wrecked a luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia and killed at least six passengers has left officials and experts on maritime navigation searching for answers -- fast.
But two days after the massive ship hit rocks and rolled spectacularly on its side, answers were in short supply.
Why was the ship -- with 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members -- so close in to shore in an area where local sailors say the sea bed is pockmarked with rocks? What happened in the minutes after the ship ran aground? Why was no "mayday" distress signal sent?
Costa Cruises issued a statement saying "preliminary indications are that there may have been significant human error on the part of the ship's Master, Captain Francesco Schettino."
"The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and the captain's judgment in handling the emergency appears to have not followed standard Costa procedures.
Schettino insisted he didn’t leave the liner early, telling Mediaset television that he had done everything he could to save lives. “We were the last ones to leave the ship,” he said.
Questions also swirled about why the ship had navigated so close to the dangerous reefs and rocks that jut off Giglio’s eastern coast, amid suspicions the captain may have ventured too close while carrying out a maneuver to entertain tourists on the island.
Residents of Giglio said they had never seen the Costa come so close to the dangerous “Le Scole” reef area.
“This was too close, too close,” said Italo Arienti, a 54-year-old sailor who has worked on the Maregiglio ferry between Giglio and the mainland for more than a decade. Pointing to a nautical map, he drew his finger along the path the ship usually takes and the jarring one close to shore that it followed Friday.
Costa captains have occasionally steered the ship near port and sounded the siren in a special salute, Arienti said. Such a nautical “fly-by” was staged last August, prompting the town’s mayor to send a note of thanks to the commander for the treat it provided tourists who flock to the island, local news portal GiglioNews.it reported.
But Arienti and other residents said even on those occasions, the cruise ship always stayed far offshore, well beyond the reach of the “Le Scole” reefs.
Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini said divers had recovered the so-called “black box,” with the recording of the navigational details, from a compartment now under water, though no details were released.
Survivors described a terrifying escape that was straight out of a scene from “Titanic.” Many complained the crew didn’t give them good directions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for all to be released.
“We were left to ourselves,” pregnant French passenger Isabelle Mougin, who injured her ankle in the scramble, told the ANSA news agency.
Another French passenger, Jeanne Marie de Champs, said that faced with the chaotic scene at the lifeboats, she decided to take her chances swimming to shore.
“I was afraid I wouldn’t make the shore, but then I saw we were close enough, I felt calmer,” she told Sky News 24.
Tags: Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
Carnival Corporation & PLC (NYSE: CCL, LSE: CCL, and NYSE: CUK), is an American-British company, and the world's largest cruise ship operator. Comprising Carnival plc, which has its origins in the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company of the early 19th Century, the company has a claim to be the world's oldest established cruise ship operator, with P&O having introduced the world's first passenger ships in 1844.
Carnival Corporation & PLC is a dual listed company, with headquarters at Carnival Place in the Miami suburb of Doral, Florida, USA, and at Carnival House in Southampton, England, UK. The constituent corporation and plc are separate listed companies and have different shareholder bodies, but they jointly own all the operating companies in the group. Carnival Corporation owns the majority stake, however as a condition of the merger between Carnival Corporation and P&O Princess Cruises PLC in 2002, it was agreed that P&O Princess would be relisted as Carnival plc in London, remaining as a separate company with a predominantly British shareholder body and largely retaining the P&O Princess executive team.[5][6] Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc stocks are currently traded on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: CCL) and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: CUK and NYSE: CCL)
Executive control of each brand is by geographical location, with Carnival Corporation controlling operations in North America, Carnival UK controlling operations in the United Kingdom and Costa Cruises Group controlling operations in the rest of Europe. P&O Cruises Australia is operated by Carnival UK as a sister company of P&O Cruises.
AIDA Cruises, Germany
Carnival Cruise Lines, United States
Costa Cruises, Italy
Cunard Line, United Kingdom
Holland America Line, United States
Ibero Cruises, Spain
P&O Cruises, United Kingdom
P&O Cruises Australia, Australia
Princess Cruises, United States
Seabourn Cruise Line, United States
Carnival Cruise Lines – Carnival Breeze, Carnival Conquest, Carnival Destiny, Carnival Dream, Carnival Ecstasy, Carnival Elation, Carnival Fantasy, Carnival Fascination, Carnival Freedom, Carnival Glory, Carnival Imagination, Carnival Inspiration, Carnival Legend, Carnival Liberty, Carnival Magic, Carnival Miracle, Carnival Paradise, Carnival Pride, Carnival Sensation, Carnival Spirit, Carnival Splendor, Carnival Triumph, Carnival Valor, Carnival Victory
Holland America Line – Amsterdam, Eurodam, Maasdam, Nieuw Amsterdam, Noordam, Oosterdam, Prinsendam, Rotterdam, Ryndam, Statendam, Veendam, Volendam, Westerdam, Zaandam, Zuiderdam
Princess Cruises – Caribbean Princess, Coral Princess, Crown Princess, Dawn Princess, Diamond Princess, Emerald Princess, Golden Princess, Grand Princess, Island Princess, Ocean Princess, Pacific Princess, Royal Princess, Ruby Princess, Sapphire Princess, Sea Princess, Star Princess, Sun Princess
Seabourn Cruise Line – Seabourn Legend, Seabourn Pride, Seabourn Spirit, Seabourn Odyssey, Seabourn Sojourn, Seabourn Quest
Prior to its acquisition by Carnival Corporation, Costa Cruises was one of the largest cruise ship operators in Europe. As part of the Carnival Corporation and plc, it is now one of the primary operating companies in the group, and is responsible for the group's operations in Europe. It has executive control of Costa Cruises in Italy, AIDA Cruises in Germany and Ibero Cruises in Spain. Control of AIDA Cruises was transferred to Costa following the merger of Carnival and P&O Princess Cruises, the company having previously been part of the P&O Princess portfolio. Ibero Cruises is a new cruise brand created by Carnival Corporation in 2007.
Costa Cruises – Costa Allegra, Costa Atlantica, Costa Classica, Costa Concordia, Costa Deliziosa, Costa Fascinosa, Costa Favolosa, Costa Fortuna, Costa Luminosa, Costa Magica, Costa Marina, Costa Mediterranea, Costa Pacifica, Costa Romantica, Costa Serena, Costa Victoria, Costa Voyager
AIDA Cruises – AIDAaura, AIDAbella, AIDAblu, AIDAcara, AIDAdiva, AIDAluna, AIDAsol, AIDAvita
Ibero Cruises – Grand Mistral, Grand Celebration, Grand Holiday
P&O Cruises – Adonia, Arcadia, Aurora, Azura, Oceana, Oriana, Ventura
P&O Cruises Australia – Pacific Dawn, Pacific Jewel, Pacific Sun, Pacific Pearl
Cunard Line – Queen Mary 2, Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth
Ocean Village – Brand ceased trading October 2010
In 2007, Carnival sold Windstar to Ambassadors International Cruise Group and Swan Hellenic to Lord Sterling in 2007.
In 2009, Carnival UK announced that the Ocean Village brand will cease trading in 2010, with its two ships transferring to P&O Cruises Australia.
In 17 February 2010, Carnival and Fincantieri reached an agreement for the construction of a pair of cruise ships for its Princess Cruises brand. The contract was then finalized on 4 May 2010. These ships are expected to have a tonnage of 141,000-GT with a capacity for 3,600 passengers. These ships will be the largest ever built for Princess Cruises and the second largest build for Carnival; RMS Queen Mary 2 being the largest. These ships are expected to enter service in Spring 2013 and 2014 respectively.
October 2010, Ocean Village cruise line discontinued.
Carnival Corporation & plc have various notable ships as follows:
Queen Mary 2, the latest in a line of 'Cunard Queens', the prestigious transatlantic ocean liners (Cunard Line)
Carnival Destiny, the first cruise ship to be built over 100,000-GT (Carnival Cruise Lines)
Star Princess, received media attention when a large fire ripped through berths in March 2006 (Princess Cruises)
Caribbean Princess, the first cruise ship to have an outdoor movie theater (Princess Cruises)
Ventura, the largest cruise ship ever built for the British market (P&O Cruises)
Costa Concordia, received media attention when the ship ran aground off the coast of Isola del Giglio, Italy and capsized in January 2012 (Costa Cruises
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain
The captain of a cruise liner that ran aground with 4,000 passengers on board has been detained along with his first mate on allegations of manslaughter and abandoning his ship.
Francesco Schettino was at least four miles off course when the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the island of Giglio, Tuscany, despite Italy's well-mapped sea lanes.
One passenger has accused the captain of drinking in one of the ship's bars on the night the vessel ran aground, before taking control after the crash.
Monique Maurek, 41, from the Netherlands, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'What scandalised me most was when I saw the captain spending much of the evening before we hit the rocks drinking in the bar with a beautiful woman on his arm.
'Most people didn't even have any idea of what the evacuation warning sound would be.
'It was only because some of us had already been on a cruise that we recognised that seven blasts of the horn was a signal to abandon ship.'
Phil Metcalf, whose daughter Rose was one of the last people off the ship, said she had revealed the captain allegedly abandoned ship in the early stages of the evacuation, leaving his staff onboard.
But witnesses claim that Schettino was allegedly inept in steering the boat through the rocky sandbar. Then, after the error occurred, Schettino is accused of failing to tell passengers of the deadly crash. At 8 pm during dinner time, passengers were informed merely that an electrical problem had erupted. But after a large thump, passengers looked outside and observed that the boat had a large void and was collecting water.
The captain is accused of failing to inform not just passengers but also local authorities about the trouble. “They didn’t send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing” said Officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno.
The trouble didn’t end there. Francesco Schettino is accused of abandoning ship and failing to take hours to evacuate passengers. Life boats were not ready. The death toll is being blamed, not just on the accident, but also the failure to take hours to evacuate the passengers properly.
“At the time of collision with a rock, the commander of the Costa Concordia was on the bridge,” said the director general of Costa Crociere President Gianni Onorato in a news briefing today. “It is incorrect to say that the ship was off course” said another official.
“Fear and panic are comprehensible in a ship long over 300 meters with over 4,000 passengers,” Del Santo said. “We can confirm that the ship has a breach on the hull of about 90 meters, and that the right side of it is completely under water.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Owner of concordia
A crew member of a luxury liner that hit a reef off the Italian coast and toppled over was hoisted to safety by helicopter this morning, and a honeymooning couple was rescued from their cabin overnight, as officials scrambled to locate other missing people and threatened to charge the ship's captain with manslaughter.
Three people died when the Costa Concordia struck a reef and sank onto its side off of the small island of Giglio, Italy, early Saturday. The U.S. embassy in Rome said none of the 126 Americans on board the ship are among those who were seriously injured.
The latest rescue this morning was of an Italian who worked for the ship's cabin service and was hoisted off the ship with a broken leg approximately 36 hours after the accident, according to The Associated Press. It followed the rescue of South Korean newlyweds late Saturday after screams were heard coming from their cabin.
Authorities reduced to 17 from 40 the number of people still unaccounted for, with an Italian who worked in cabin service pulled from the wreckage of the Costa Concordia off the tiny island of Giglio. A South Korean couple on their honeymoon were rescued late Saturday in the unsubmerged part of the liner when firefighters heard their screams.
There are now six crew members and 11 passengers who haven't been located, Tuscany's regional president Enrico Rossi said. Two French tourists and a crew member from Peru died.
As confusion swirled over the cause of the dramatic accident, questions about ship safety, crew preparedness and evacuation procedures are roiling the waters of a booming industry that drew an estimated 16 million passengers last year. Italy's Costa, a mass-market line that caters to an international clientele, is owned by Miami-based Carnival Corporation, the world's largest cruise company.
The U.S. State Department says 125 Americans were on board, but there were no reports of injuries after the ship, in calm seas and good weather, struck an object and took on water from a 160-foot-long gash, causing the vessel to list and keel over.
We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing," her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61, said. "We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls."
She choked up as she recounted the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship lurched to the side and the family found themselves standing on a wall. "He said 'take my baby,'" Mrs. Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand as she teared up. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her.
"I thought that was the end and I thought they should be with their baby," she said.
"I wonder where they are," daughter Valerie whispered.
The family said they were some of the last off the ship, forced to shimmy along a rope down the exposed side of the ship to a waiting rescue vessel below.
Some 30 people were reported injured, most of them suffering only bruises, but at least two people were reported in grave condition. Some passengers, apparently in panic, had jumped off the boat into the sea, witnesses said.
The evacuees were taking refuge in schools, hotels, and a church on Giglio.
Officials say the captain appears to have taken the vessel close to shore in a dangerous manner, Reuters said.
"There was a dangerous close approach which very probably caused the accident, although it will be for the investigation to establish that fully," coast guard spokesman Luciano Nicastro told SkyTG24. He said the captain then attempted a safety maneuver, setting anchor and bringing the ship closer to the shore to facilitate a rescue.
A top official from an international maritime union representing 23,000 workers says the disaster signals a need for a review of all cruise ships because their enormous size raises concerns about their safety.
"In this, the centenary of the loss of the Titanic, major nostalgia industry is already in full flow, but it is essential that everyone recognizes that the Titanic offers lessons for today and that there are contemporary resonances that should not be lost," says Mark Dickinson, general secretary of Nautilus International based in Britain.
In particular, he cited concerns about the size of modern cruise ships and the need for better evacuation plans.
"Many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and the sheer number of people on board raises serious questions about evacuation," Dickinson said. "The growth in the size of such ships has also raised questions about their water-tight integrity and fire-fighting protection."
Costa defended the actions of the crew and says it is cooperating with the investigation.
The Concordia had a previous accident in Italian waters. In 2008, when strong winds buffeted Palermo, the cruise ship banged against the Sicilian port's dock, and suffered damage but no one was injured, ANSA said. In February 2010, another Costa ship, the Europa, hit a pier in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, killing three crew members.
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Fincantieri - Cantieri Navali Italiani S.p.A., is a shipbuilding company based in Trieste, Italy. It was formed in 1959 and is the largest shipbuilder in the Mediterranean, and one of the largest in Europe. The company has built both commercial and military vessels during its history.
It designs and builds merchant vessels, passenger ships, offshore, and naval vessels, and is also active in the conversion and ship repair sectors. The company also owned Grandi Motori Trieste, which constructed marine diesel engines, but this was sold to Wärtsilä in 1999.
Originally founded in 1959 as Società Finanziaria Cantieri Navali – Fincantieri S.p.A. as a State financial holding company, part of IRI, the company became a separate entity in 1984.
Today Fincantieri is one of Europe's largest shipbuilding groups and the largest in the Mediterranean.
In Italy, Fincantieri employs a staff of nearly 9,400 (rising to approximately 20,000 if the supply chain is included) working at eight shipyards, two design centres, one research centre and two production sites for mechanical components.
The shipyards of Monfalcone (Gorizia), Marghera (Venice), Sestri Ponente (Genoa), Ancona, Castellammare di Stabia (Naples) and Palermo report to the Merchant Ships Business Unit while the shipyards of Riva Trigoso (Genoa) and Muggiano (La Spezia) report to the Naval Vessel Business Unit.
Fincantieri successfully completed the acquisition of Manitowoc Marine Group from its parent company The Manitowoc Company, Inc. on Jan 1, 2009, which consisted of two shipyards in Wisconsin, including Marinette Marine, which built the first Freedom class littoral combat ship. Fincantieri also purchased from Manitowoc Marine Group a topside repair yard in Ohio and one production plant in Wisconsin making it one of the leading mid-sized shipbuilders in the United States for commercial and government customers, including the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Costa Concordia Cruise ship, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
Rome - At this time, 3 people are confirmed dead in an accident involving the cruising ship Costa Concordia . The ship left Civitavecchia for Savona yesterday at 7:30 PM and ran aground near the Isola del Giglio. According to Coast Guard sources, the situation is still confused. The ship has been boarded by Coast Guard rescue personnel, firefighters and a Costa officer and checked top to bottom to confirm that everybody has been evacuated. A portion of the passengers was taken on other vessels to Porto Santo Stefano while other went to Livorno by helicopter. The cause of the accident has not yet been ascertained. The grounded ship suffered a blackout just before running aground.
The South Korean man was brought ashore on a rescue boat, after being found with his wife
The president of Costa Cruises, Gianni Onorato, said the main task for the company was now to assist survivors and help repatriate them.
He said it was difficult to determine what had happened, but that the ship had experienced a blackout after hitting "a big rock".
Mr Onorato added: "We will be working in full transparency with Italian authorities" to understand the causes of the disaster.
He said normal lifeboat evacuation had become "almost impossible" because the ship had listed so quickly.
Francesco Schettino, the 52-year-old captain, had worked for Costa Cruises for 11 years.
The chief prosecutor in the city of Grosseto told reporters that Capt Schettino "very ineptly got close to Giglio", according to Italy's Ansa news agency.
Italian, German, French and British nationals were among the 3,200 passengers on board. There were also 1,000 crew.
On Sunday morning, UK Foreign Secretary William Hague told Sky News all the Britons - 23 passengers and 12 crew - were now safe and accounted for.
Coast guard captain Cosimo Nicastro told Italian TV that divers had carried out an extensive search of the waters near the vessel and found no further bodies.
On Saturday, survivors were taken to Porta San Stefano, about 25km (15 miles) away on the mainland.
The BBC's Alan Johnson at the scene says many arrived there still wrapped in blankets, and some were clearly very shaken by what they had endured.
Passenger Luciano Castro told Ansa news agency: "We heard a loud noise while we were at dinner as if the keel of the ship hit something."
"The ship started taking in water through the hole and began tilting.
Tags: Ship aground off Italy, Italy cruise ship, Giglio Italy, Eight deaths reported, Italy cruise ship Costa, Three dead, 40 missing, Costa Concordia, Costa Concordia disaster, Divers Search Costa Concordia, Third survivor heard, Cruise ship off Italy, Rescuers try to reach, Builders of the Costa Concordia, Captain left ship early, Francesco Schettino Costa Concordia Captain, Owner of concordia
