what happened to cruise ship costa concordia captain

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Costa Concordia Captain Now: What Happened to Francesco Schettino After Cruise Ship Disaster?

When the Costa Concordia disaster took place, the ship’s captain was an Italian shipmaster named Francesco Schettino. The Costa Concordia started its voyage on January 13, 2012, at 7:18 p.m. from Civitavecchia, Italy. It was supposed to reach Savona. Furthermore, the entire journey was going to take seven days. Unfortunately, it collided with a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Furthermore, it did not take long for water to enter the ship and put its crew and passengers in danger. The Costa Concordia disaster took the lives of 32 individuals. Its captain, Francesco Schettino, was sentenced to sixteen years in prison in 2015 for charges like manslaughter, abandoning his ship, and being responsible for a maritime accident.

According to Cruise Mummy , Schettino went to Rebibbia prison in Rome to serve his time. Details of this disaster were explored in the two-episode docuseries titled Costa Concordia: The Whole Story. This project was released in 2012.

According to Apple TV+ , the synopsis of Costa Concordia: The Whole Story reads, “The story of the worst cruise accident since the Titanic the harrowing moment-by-moment narrative of how it happened from those who were aboard and the islanders who saved their lives. The in-depth description of advanced search and rescue operations to recover survivors and victims from the Costa Concordia as well as the technology and engineering behind the epic historical salvage operation to refloat the massive ship intact and tow it away.”

What did the resident pianist of Costa Concordia say about the maritime disaster?

A ntimo Magnotta is an Italian pianist and composer who started his career in 1992. He was present at the Costa Concordia when it crashed against a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

In 2019, Paul González-Morgan interviewed Magnotta, in which the pianist spoke candidly about the tragedy that took the lives of 32 people .

He said, “On Friday, January 13, 2012, the Concordia had set out from Rome on the last leg of a seven-day Mediterranean cruise with 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew on board. I sat down at the Yamaha baby grand in the Vienna Bar on aft deck five at 9.30 pm to entertain a handful of well-dressed guests.”

He further said,

“I was fully immersed in my beautiful daily routine. It was a lovely starry night. The weather conditions were ideal for navigation, the sea was as smooth as a table. All of a sudden, at 9.42 pm, the ship took a sudden swerve and started listing. I fell off the bench and the piano was torn from its safety locks and started drifting on the stage. No sound of a collision was heard on deck five, although those on lower decks would later tell me of the terrible tearing sound as a submerged rock ripped a huge hole in the engine compartments, just off the coast of the Island of Giglio.”

Antimo Magnotta even revealed that he lost two close friends in the disaster. Both were musicians: a violinist and a drummer.

The post Costa Concordia Captain Now: What Happened to Francesco Schettino After Cruise Ship Disaster? appeared first on ComingSoon.net - Movie Trailers, TV & Streaming News, and More .

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The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse

By: Becky Little

Updated: August 10, 2023 | Original: June 23, 2021

Many famous naval disasters happen far out at sea, but on January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia wrecked just off the coast of an Italian island in relatively shallow water. The avoidable disaster killed 32 people and seriously injured many others, and left investigators wondering: Why was the luxury cruise ship sailing so close to the shore in the first place?

During the ensuing trial, prosecutors came up with a tabloid-ready explanation : The married ship captain had sailed it so close to the island to impress a much younger Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair.

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Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. (Schettino insisted the ship sailed close to shore to salute other mariners and give passengers a good view.) But whatever the reason for getting too close, the Italian courts found the captain, four crew members and one official from the ship’s company, Costa Crociere (part of Carnival Corporation), to be at fault for causing the disaster and preventing a safe evacuation. The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors.

“At any time when you have an incident similar to Concordia, there is never…a single causal factor,” says Brad Schoenwald, a senior marine inspector at the United States Coast Guard. “It is generally a sequence of events, things that line up in a bad way that ultimately create that incident.”

Wrecking Near the Shore

The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger.

Sailing close to shore to give passengers a nice view or salute other sailors is known as a “sail-by,” and it’s unclear how often cruise ships perform these maneuvers. Some consider them to be dangerous deviations from planned routes. In its investigative report on the 2012 disaster, Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports found that the Concordia “was sailing too close to the coastline, in a poorly lit shore area…at an unsafe distance at night time and at high speed (15.5 kts).”

In his trial, Captain Schettino blamed the shipwreck on Helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin, who he claimed reacted incorrectly to his order; and argued that if the helmsman had reacted correctly and quickly, the ship wouldn’t have wrecked. However, an Italian naval admiral testified in court that even though the helmsman was late in executing the captain’s orders, “the crash would’ve happened anyway.” (The helmsman was one of the four crew members convicted in court for contributing to the disaster.)

A Questionable Evacuation

Evidence introduced in Schettino’s trial suggests that the safety of his passengers and crew wasn’t his number one priority as he assessed the damage to the Concordia. The impact and water leakage caused an electrical blackout on the ship, and a recorded phone call with Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini, shows he tried to downplay and cover up his actions by saying the blackout was what actually caused the accident.

“I have made a mess and practically the whole ship is flooding,” Schettino told Ferrarini while the ship was sinking. “What should I say to the media?… To the port authorities I have said that we had…a blackout.” (Ferrarini was later convicted for contributing to the disaster by delaying rescue operations.)

Schettino also didn’t immediately alert the Italian Search and Rescue Authority about the accident. The impact on the Scole Rocks occurred at about 9:45 p.m. local time, and the first person to contact rescue officials about the ship was someone on the shore, according to the investigative report. Search and Rescue contacted the ship a few minutes after 10:00 p.m., but Schettino didn’t tell them what had happened for about 20 more minutes.

A little more than an hour after impact, the crew began to evacuate the ship. But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats. Evacuation was made even more chaotic by the ship listing so far to starboard, making walking inside very difficult and lowering the lifeboats on one side, near to impossible. Making things worse, the crew had dropped the anchor incorrectly, causing the ship to flop over even more dramatically.

Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it!” —a recorded sound bite that turned into a T-shirt slogan in Italy.

Schettino argued that he fell into a lifeboat because of how the ship was listing to one side, but this argument proved unconvincing. In 2015, a court found Schettino guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship before passengers and crew were evacuated and lying to authorities about the disaster. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In addition to Schettino, Ferrarini and Rusli Bin, the other people who received convictions for their role in the disaster were Cabin Service Director Manrico Giampedroni, First Officer Ciro Ambrosio and Third Officer Silvia Coronica.

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What Happened to The Captain of The Costa Concordia? – Conviction and Sentence

In January of 2012 the Costa Concordia, a cruise ship sailing for Costa Cruises capsized off the coast of Tuscany. The accident caused 32 deaths.

The Captain sailing the ship at the time was captain Francesco Schettino, who had worked for Costa Cruises for 11 years.

When the Costa Concordia crashed, she had over 3000 passengers and 1000 crew members on board.

The captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino was found guilty of manslaughter in 2016 and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Francesco Schettino was given 10 years for multiple manslaughters , 5 years for causing a shipwreck, and 1 year for abandoning the passengers at the time of the sinking.

What Role Did The Captain of The Costa Concordia Play in The Sinking of The Ship?

Schettino was the captain in charge of the cruise and was responsible for overseeing all safety aspects of the ship and cruise, including setting the course for the ship to follow.

In the case of the Costa Concordia, captain Schettino decided to sail closer to the coast than usual. It’s still unclear why he did this. Schettino said that Costa Cruises had asked him to perform a sail past but Costa Cruises have confirmed that Schettino didn’t take the approved route.

As the ship was sailing south of the entrance to Giglio Porto harbor in Tuscany, the side of the ship hit a reef. Schettino said that before approaching this area, he had turned off the alarm system for the navigational systems.

Schettino stated:

“I was navigating by sight, because I knew those seabeds well. I had done the move three, four times.” Schettino

When Schettino saw waves breaking on the reef, he turned abruptly and swung the side of the ship into the reef. It’s reported that this was approximately 300 metres from land.

When the ship first hit, Costa Cruises told passengers it was an electrical failure and would be soon fixed. Guests were told to go back to their cabins.

The ship began to list 20 degrees which made it difficult to launch lifeboats.

Why Did The Captain of The Costa Concordia Hit The Reef?

There are a number of theories as to why the Captain of the Costa Concordia hit the reef and sank the ship. The most likely reason is that Schettino was negligent and took too many risks.

Another theory is that Schettino was distracted by a lady he had brought onboard the ship. It’s reported that the two were in a romantic relationship, she did not pay to come onboard the cruise and was with Schettino at the time of the accident. Schettino did have a wife and daughter who were not on the cruise.

Some accounts have reported that Schettinos hair showed trace amounts of cocaine and that there was a considerable amount of cocaine on the ship as it capsized.

What Did Captain of The Costa Concordia do After Hitting The Reef?

The ship hit the reef at 22:12 and authorities were not alerted to the problem until 22:42 despite port officials asking the Costa Concordia if there was a problem on board. Schettino insisted the ship was just suffering from a blackout.

It’s a maritime tradition that the captain always goes down with his ship. Meaning that the captain should make sure that everybody else is off the ship before they disembark. Francesco didn’t do this and decided instead to save himself.

He disobeyed orders to go back to the ship.

Now you go to the bow, you climb up the emergency ladder and coordinate the evacuation. You must tell us how many people, children, women and passengers are there and the exact number of each category,” said officials to Francesco Schettino. “What are you doing? Are you abandoning the rescue? Captain, this is an order, I am the one in charge now. You have declared abandoning ship,” he said, adding: “There are already bodies.” “How many?” Schettino says, prompting the cutting reply: “That is for you to tell me, what are you doing? Do you want to go home?” –  source

The full conversation with Captain Schettino can be heard on the video below (english subtitles available).

By 01:00 there were 100 passengers still on the ship. A full 90 minutes after Schettino had abandoned the ship.

At 03:00 it’s estimated that 40-50 people were still onboard. 32 bodies were later recovered from the wreckage.

Recommended Watching: Terror At Sea – The Sinking Of The Concordia

To hear real life accounts of the events mentioned above I’d recommend watching the documentary Terror at Sea. It’s the best documentary I’ve seen about the accident. The documentary explores sinking in detail and has a number of interesting interviews with the people that were involved.

The show can be watched on Amazon Prime. If you don’t have Amazon Prime you can use this link to sign up for a 30 day free trial. You won’t need more than 30 days to watch the show, it’s only 47 minutes long.

What Was The Captain of The Costa Concordia Sentenced For?

The courts had to decide why Schettino followed a different route, why a mayday wasn’t immediately called and why he abandoned the ship.

Captain Schettino was detained on suspicion of manslaughter. He was charged with causing a shipwreck caused by ‘imprudence, negligence and incompetence ‘ . He was also charged for abandoning 300 people who were unable to disembark the ship.

Costa Concordia Crew Convicted Crimes and Prison Times

The following crew members were found guilty following the sinking of the Costa Concordia.

Is The Costa Concordia Captain Still in Prison?

The captain of the Costa Concordia Francesco Schettino is still in prison for his part in the sinking. He was sentenced to 16 years in 2016. He was 54 at the time and not expected to leave prison until he is at least 70 years old.

The captain should be in prison until 2032 and is serving his sentence in Rome.

The Costa Concordia Changed Cruising Forever

Following the sinking of the Costa Concordia, a number of safety measures were put in place.

At the time of the sinking, guests boarding a cruise had to have a safety drill within 24 hours of embarkation, this meant that guests who had embarked on the day of the accident hadn’t yet had their safety drill.

To learn more about how the accident changed the muster drill, check out this post: What is a Muster Drill on a Cruise? Everything You Need to Know

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Captain who commanded Costa Concordia in cruise disaster that killed 32 begins 16-year prison sentence

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Francesco Schettino, the former cruise ship captain sentenced to 16 years for steering the Costa Concordia into rocks, was finally jailed Friday after his lengthy appeals process ran out.

Dubbed “Captain Coward” for fleeing the capsizing cruise ship in 2012 as 32 passengers and crew drowned, Schettino handed himself over to police on Friday evening after Italy’s supreme court upheld his 2015 conviction.

“I trust in the justice system; the verdict must be respected. I’m handing myself in right now,” he told his lawyer, Saverio Senese, by telephone after the verdict, adding he was standing outside a jail in Rome.

Schettino, 56, was convicted for shipwreck, manslaughter and abandoning ship after he steered too close to rocks on the Italian island of Giglio on Jan. 13, 2012, while showing off to a Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair.

The collision tore a hole in the hull of the 114,000-ton ship, which limped on without power before going aground in shallow water close to the shore of Giglio.

Appearing bewildered and indecisive as the cruise ship slowly toppled onto its side, Schettino delayed lowering lifeboats then jumped into one himself, as 32 of the 4,229 passengers and crew on board died.

Some were sucked underwater by whirlpools caused by the keeling ship as they struggled to swim the short distance to shore, while others died trapped in the ship’s flooded elevator shaft.

Schettino was turned into both a laughingstock and a national embarrassment in Italy after a recording emerged of a coast guard official, Gregorio De Falco, urging him by radio to get back on board to look for passengers.

“You may have managed to save yourself from the sea, but it will really go badly. ... I will create a lot of trouble for you. Get on board, damn it!” De Falco shouted as Schettino meekly tried to justify being onshore.

Schettino later claimed he slipped and fell into the lifeboat. At his first trial, his then lawyer, Domenico Pepe, said, “No one but Spider-Man could have stayed on his feet on that deck, which was tilted at 40 degrees with a slippery floor.”

Schettino added, “I will fight forever to prove that I did not abandon the Costa Concordia,” a claim that prompted further jibes from the public as his name became synonymous with cowardice.

“May God have pity on him because we can’t,” one prosecutor said.

During Schettino’s two appeals, during which he was not held in custody, his lawyers tried to blame his Indonesian helmsman for the crash and claimed the breakdown of the ship’s emergency generator slowed evacuation.

The ship’s owner, Costa Crociere, paid a fine of 1 million euros for its role in the tragedy to avoid a trial, a payment that was criticized as being too low. Four crew members and a member of Costa Crociere’s onshore emergency unit received short sentences for manslaughter and negligence after plea bargaining.

On Friday, defense attorney Senese asked to show the court a video detailing alleged malfunctions in the ship’s watertight doors, which he said contributed to the ship’s filling rapidly with water after it was holed. His request was denied.

Proof of that malfunction was destroyed, he said, when the ship was raised, towed to Genoa in Italy and scrapped.

In their summing up before the supreme court, prosecutors accused Schettino of “unprecedented negligence” and bringing “dishonor” to his profession.

Schettino was absent during the supreme court hearings, following memorable appearances at his initial trial, where he broke down in tears while addressing judges.

After the final verdict Friday, Senese said, “I am extremely bitter that only Schettino has paid for this. As always happens in Italy, we need scapegoats.”

On Twitter, Italians angrily claimed that Schettino’s 16-year sentence would likely be reduced thanks to Italy’s generous cutting of jail time for good behavior.

But Michelina Suriano, a lawyer representing the victims, said she was grateful that the long appeals process had come to an end.

“Finally, Schettino begins to pay for his wrongdoing,” she said.

Kington is a special correspondent.

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Key dates in Costa Concordia shipwreck, trial and cleanup

FILE— Seagulls fly in front of the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia off the Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, Monday, Jan. 30, 2012. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

FILE— The grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia is seen through a window on the Isola del Giglio island, Italy, Friday, Feb. 3, 2012. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

FILE— Oil removal ships near the cruise ship Costa Concordia leaning on its side Monday, Jan. 16, 2012, after running aground near the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, last Friday night. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

FILE— The Costa Concordia ship lies on its side on the Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, Monday, Sept. 16, 2013. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

FILE— A sunbather gets her tan on a rock during the operations to refloat the luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia on the tiny Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, Saturday, July 19, 2014. Once the ship has refloated it will be towed to Genoa’s port, about 200 nautical miles (320 kilometers), where it will be dismantled. 30 months ago it struck a reef and capsized, killing 32 people. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

FILE— The wrecked hulk of the Costa Concordia cruise ship is towed along the Tyrrhenian Sea, 30 miles off the coast of Viareggio, Italy, Friday, July 25, 2014. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Fabio Muzzi)

FILE— A view of the previously submerged side of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, off the coast of the Tuscan Island of Giglio, Italy, Monday, Jan. 13, 2014. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

FILE— A woman hangs her laundry as the grounded cruise ship Costa Concordia is seen in the background, off the Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, Saturday, Jan. 21, 2012. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap.(AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

FILE— In this photo taken on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2012, Francesco Schettino, right, the captain of the luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the tiny Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, is taken into custody by Carabinieri in Porto Santo Stefano, Italy. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Giacomo Aprili)

Experts aboard a sea platform carry oil recovery equipment, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2012, as they return to the port of the Tuscan island of Giglio, Italy, where the cruise ship Costa Concordia, visible in background, ran aground on Ja. 13, 2012. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Pier Paolo Cito)

FILE — The luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia lays on its starboard side after it ran aground off the coast of the Isola del Giglio island, Italy on Jan. 13, 2012. Italy is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Giuseppe Modesti)

FILE— Italian firefighters conduct search operations on the luxury cruise ship Costa Concordia that ran aground the tiny Tuscan island of Isola del Giglio, Italy, Sunday, Jan. 15, 2012. Italy on Thursday, Jan. 13, 2022, is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration, honoring the 32 people who died but also the extraordinary response by the residents of Giglio who took in the 4,200 passengers and crew from the ship on that rainy Friday night and then lived with the Concordia carcass for another two years before it was hauled away for scrap. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

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By Associated Press (AP) — Italy on Thursday marks the 10th anniversary of the Costa Concordia cruise ship wreck off the Tuscan island of Giglio. Here are some key dates in the saga, including the trial of the captain and the remarkable engineering feat to right the liner from its side so it could be towed away for scrap.

Jan. 13, 2012: The Costa Concordia slams into a reef off Italy’s Giglio island after the captain, Francesco Schettino, ordered it taken off course and brought it close to shore in a stunt. It drifts without power until it comes to rest on its side offshore. After weeks of searches, rescue crews confirm 32 people died.

Jan. 15, 2012: Prosecutor Francesco Verusio confirms passenger allegations that Schettino abandoned the Concordia before all the passengers and crew had been evacuated.

Jan. 17, 2012: Schettino is placed under house arrest.

Jan. 17, 2012: Dramatic audio of the shipwreck is broadcast in which Coast Guard Cmdr. Gregorio De Falco uses colorful expletives to order Schettino to get back on board to coordinate the evacuation. “You’ve abandoned ship! I’m in charge now,” De Falco yells. “Go back and report to me how many passengers there are and what they need. ... Perhaps you saved yourself from the sea, but I’ll make you pay for this, damn it!”

Jan. 20, 2012: Costa’s CEO tells Italian state TV that Schettino relayed inaccurate information to the company and crew and downplayed the seriousness of the situation after the ship hit the rocks, delaying the mobilization of proper assistance.

July 9, 2013: Schettino goes on trial for manslaughter, abandoning ship and causing the shipwreck. The trial is held in a 1,000-seat theater on the mainland in Grosseto, a spacious venue so survivors and relatives of victims could attend.

July 20, 2013: Five Costa employees are convicted of manslaughter in a separate trial, receiving sentences of less than three years after entering plea bargains.

Sept. 17, 2013: Fog horns wail shortly after 4 a.m. to announce the Concordia had been wrenched from its side and reached vertical after 19-hour operation using chains and weighted tanks to right it from the seabed.

Oct. 8, 2013: The remains of one of the two people still missing is located by divers working on the wreck, later identified as Italian Maria Grazia Trecarichi.

Feb. 1, 2014: A Spanish diver working on the Concordia wreckage dies after apparently gashing his leg on an underwater metal sheet, news reports say.

July 23, 2014: As boat sirens wail and bells toll, the Concordia begins its final voyage as it is towed from Giglio to be turned into scrap. It arrives in Genoa’s shipyard on July 27.

Nov. 3, 2014: The body of Indian waiter Russel Rebello, the last missing victim, is found by crews dismantling the vessel for scrap in Genoa.

Feb. 11, 2015: The court in Grosseto convicts Schettino and sentences him to 16 years in prison for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the vessel before passengers and crew had been evacuated, as well as for giving false information about the gravity of the collision.

May 31, 2016: An appeals court in Florence upholds the conviction and sentence for Schettino after both the prosecution and defense appealed. The prosecution sought to toughen the sentence to 27 years while the defense argued that blame didn’t fall solely on Schettino.

May 12, 2017: Schettino loses his final appeal and heads to prison after Italy’s highest Court of Cassation upholds his previous conviction and 16-year sentence.

January 2018: Coast Guard Cmdr. De Falco, who won international fame for his rant against Schettino, nominates himself as a lawmaker for Italy’s 5-Star Movement political party. He is expelled from the party later that year.

December, 2021: A Genoa court orders Costa Crociere to pay 92,700 euros ($105,000) to Concordia passenger Ernesto Carusotti in one of the few civil lawsuits to reach a verdict against the company.

This version corrects the spelling of Grosseto.

'We all suffer from PTSD': 10 years after the Costa Concordia cruise disaster, memories remain

GIGLIO, Italy — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.

The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The blackout after the ship's engine room flooded and its generators failed. The final mad scramble to evacuate the listing liner and then the extraordinary generosity of Giglio islanders who offered shoes, sweatshirts and shelter until the sun rose and passengers were ferried to the mainland.

Italy on Thursday is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration that will end with a candlelit vigil near the moment the ship hit the reef: 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2012. The events will honor the 32 people who died that night, the 4,200 survivors, but also the residents of Giglio, who took in passengers and crew and then lived with the Concordia's wrecked carcass off their shore for another two years until it was righted and hauled away for scrap.

► CDC travel guidance: CDC warns 'avoid cruise travel' after more than 5,000 COVID cases in two weeks amid omicron

“For us islanders, when we remember some event, we always refer to whether it was before or after the Concordia,” said Matteo Coppa, who was 23 and fishing on the jetty when the darkened Concordia listed toward shore and then collapsed onto its side in the water.

“I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats.

The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month  warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection.

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'We all suffer from PTSD'

For Concordia survivor Georgia Ananias, the COVID-19 infections are just the latest evidence that passenger safety still isn’t a top priority for the cruise ship industry. Passengers aboard the Concordia were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat after the captain steered the ship close too shore in a stunt. He then delayed an evacuation order until it was too late, with lifeboats unable to lower because the ship was listing too heavily.

“I always said this will not define me, but you have no choice," Ananias said in an interview from her home in Los Angeles, Calif. “We all suffer from PTSD. We had a lot of guilt that we survived and 32 other people died.”

Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated.

Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of U.S.-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered. But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case.

“I think people need to be aware that when you go on a cruise, that if there is a problem, you will not have the justice that you may be used to in the country in which you are living,” said Ananias, who went onto become a top official in the International Cruise Victims association, an advocacy group that lobbies to improve safety aboard ships and increase transparency and accountability in the industry.

Costa didn’t respond to emails seeking comment on the anniversary.

► Royal Caribbean cancels sailings: Pushes back restart on several ships over COVID

'We did something incredible'

Cruise Lines International Association, the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, stressed in a statement to The Associated Press that passenger and crew safety was the industry's top priority, and that cruising remains one of the safest vacation experiences available.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victims of the Concordia tragedy and their families on this sad anniversary," CLIA said. It said it has worked over the past 10 years with the International Maritime Organization and the maritime industry to “drive a safety culture that is based on continuous improvement."

For Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli, the memories of that night run the gamut: the horror of seeing the capsized ship, the scramble to coordinate rescue services on shore, the recovery of the first bodies and then the pride that islanders rose to the occasion to tend to the survivors.

► Cruising during COVID-19: Cancellation, refund policies vary by cruise line

Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. But the night of the disaster, a Friday the 13th, remains seared in his memory.

“It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said.

It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. “But then we realized that on that night, in just a few hours, we did something incredible.”

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10 years later, Costa Concordia survivors share their stories from doomed cruise ship

Ten years after the deadly Costa Concordia cruise line disaster in Italy, survivors still vividly remember scenes of chaos they say were like something straight out of the movie "Titanic."

NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing.

"I think it’s the panic, the feeling of panic, is what’s carried through over 10 years," Ian Donoff, who was on the cruise with his wife Janice for their honeymoon, told Cobiella. "And it’s just as strong now."

More than 4,000 passengers and crew were on board when the ship crashed into rocks in the dark in the Mediterranean Sea, sending seawater rushing into the vessel as people scrambled for their lives.

The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner.

Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink.

"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them."

The lifeboats wouldn't drop down because the ship was tilted on its side, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on the side of the ship for hours in the cold. People were left to clamber down a rope ladder over a distance equivalent to 11 stories.

"Everybody was rushing for the lifeboats," Nate Lukes said. "I felt like (my daughters) were going to get trampled, and putting my arms around them and just holding them together and letting the sea of people go by us."

Schettino was convicted of multiple manslaughter as well as abandoning ship after leaving before all the passengers had reached safety. He is now serving a 16-year prison sentence .

It took nearly two years for the damaged ship to be raised from its side before it was towed away to be scrapped.

The calamity caused changes in the cruise industry like carrying more lifejackets and holding emergency drills before leaving port.

A decade after that harrowing night, the survivors are grateful to have made it out alive. None of the survivors who spoke with Cobiella have been on a cruise since that day.

"I said that if we survive this, then our marriage will have to survive forever," Ian Donoff said.

Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here! ) that brings the day's news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and a daily delight right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else. 

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Francesco Schettino Has Been Called the "Chicken of the Seas" Following Costa Concordia Disaster

Francesco Schettino is currently serving 16 years in Rebibbia prison in Rome.

Published Jul. 26 2024, 2:00 a.m. ET

Francesco Schettino , the captain of the Costa Concordia during its infamous 2012 disaster, has gone down in history as the "Chicken of the Seas." When the cruise ship struck rocks near Giglio Island in the Tyrrhenian Sea, 32 people were killed in the subsequent evacuation of the ship, despite the initial impact taking no lives.

Following the incident, accusations were thrown out between the captain and his shipmates, though Schettino faced severe charges for the incident. What happened to him? Here's what we know about the disgraced seaman.

What happened to the captain of the Costa Concordia?

Following the incident, an investigation was done into what happened aboard the ship that resulted in the loss of 32 lives. For starters, Schettino had admitted to "showboating" when the crash happened, sailing the cruise ship too close to the island, per CNN . He also placed blame on an Inonesian helmsman who wasn't fluent in English or Italian for being unable to understand his orders, as well as the ship's faulty generators for preventing some passengers' escape.

The captain also evacuated the ship before all passengers had been transported safely off the cruise ship, claiming the tilt of the boat caused him to fall into a lifeboat. Once on shore, he claims to have conducted a rescue mission from there to get the rest of the passengers safely off the ship. That said, transcripts from the incident reveal that another crew member told him to "get back on board for f--k's sake" when he admitted to abandoning the vessel.

Despite multiple appeals from Schettino and his lawyers, he was ultimately found guilty of manslaughter for his role in the disaster. Following the initial conviction, his lawyers filed multiple appeals, buying him two more years before it was ultimately decided by the Italian courts that he was guilty.

Where is Francesco Schettino now?

The trial took 19 months in total, and ultimately he was sentenced to 16 years in prison and five years of interdiction from navigating. This means that he won't be able to man a ship for five years after his release from prison.

In statements and interviews since the disaster, Schettino has publicly wept about the lives lost, admitting a degree of guilt and responsibility for those who weren't able to be saved.

“I died along with the 32 others,” he said of the day during his court proceedings, claiming that he has since become a victim of the “media meat grinder.”

His sentencing was finalized in 2015, and ultimately turned himself in to the Rebibbia prison in Rome following the verdict. Five of his other colleagues also faced prison for their own hands in the chaos that unfolded that night, each of them being sentenced for up to three years a piece.

Costa Crociere, the company that owned the cruise ship that sank, was given a $1.1 million fine to bypass potential criminal charges, per BBC .

At the time of writing, Schettino is currently still serving his 16-year sentence.

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How the Wreck of a Cruise Liner Changed an Italian Island

Ten years ago the Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio, killing 32 people and entwining the lives of others forever.

By Gaia Pianigiani

GIGLIO PORTO, Italy — The curvy granite rocks of the Tuscan island of Giglio lay bare in the winter sun, no longer hidden by the ominous, stricken cruise liner that ran aground in the turquoise waters of this marine sanctuary ten years ago.

Few of the 500-odd residents of the fishermen’s village will ever forget the freezing night of Jan. 13, 2012, when the Costa Concordia shipwrecked, killing 32 people and upending life on the island for years.

“Every one of us here has a tragic memory from then,” said Mario Pellegrini, 59, who was deputy mayor in 2012 and was the first civilian to climb onto the cruise ship after it struck the rocks near the lighthouses at the port entrance.

The hospitality of the tight-knit community of islanders kicked in, at first to give basic assistance to the 4,229 passengers and crew members who had to be evacuated from a listing vessel as high as a skyscraper. In no time, Giglio residents hosted thousands of journalists, law enforcement officers and rescue experts who descended on the port. In the months to come, salvage teams set up camp in the picturesque harbor to work on safely removing the ship, an operation that took more than two years to complete.

The people of Giglio felt like a family for those who spent long days at its port, waiting to receive word of their loved ones whose bodies remained trapped on the ship. On Thursday, 10 years to the day of the tragedy, the victims’ families, some passengers and Italian authorities attended a remembrance Mass and threw a crown of flowers onto the waters where the Costa Concordia had rested. At 9:45 p.m., the time when the ship ran aground, a candlelit procession illuminated the port’s quay while church bells rang and ship sirens blared.

What stands out now for many is how the wreck forever changed the lives of some of those whose paths crossed as a result. Friendships were made, business relations took shape and new families were even formed.

“It feels as if, since that tragic night, the lives of all the people involved were forever connected by an invisible thread,” Luana Gervasi, the niece of one of the shipwreck victims, said at the Mass on Thursday, her voice breaking.

Francesco Dietrich, 48, from the eastern city of Ancona, arrived on the island in February 2013 to work with the wreck divers, “a dream job,” he said, adding: “It was like offering someone who plays soccer for the parish team to join the Champions League with all the top teams in the business.”

For his work, Mr. Dietrich had to buy a lot of boat-repair supplies from the only hardware store in town. It was owned by a local family, and Mr. Dietrich now has a 6-year-old son, Pietro, with the family’s daughter.

“It was such a shock for us,” said Bruna Danei, 42, who until 2018 worked as a secretary for the consortium that salvaged the wreck. “The work on the Costa Concordia was a life-changing experience for me in many ways.”

A rendering of the Costa Concordia used by salvage teams to plan its recovery hung on the wall of the living room where her 22-month-old daughter, Arianna, played.

“She wouldn’t be here if Davide hadn’t come to work on the site,” Ms. Danei said, referring to Davide Cedioli, 52, an experienced diver from Turin who came to the island in May 2012 to help right the Costa Concordia — and who is also Arianna’s father.

From a barge, Mr. Cedioli monitored the unprecedented salvage operation that, in less than a day, was able to rotate the 951-foot vessel, partly smashed against the rocks, from the sea bottom to an upright position without further endangering the underwater ecosystem that it damaged when it ran aground.

“We jumped up and down in happiness when the parbuckling was completed,” Mr. Cedioli remembered. “We felt we were bringing some justice to this story. And I loved this small community and living on the island.”

The local council voted to make Jan. 13 a day of remembrance on Giglio, but after this year it will stop the public commemorations and “make it a more intimate moment, without the media,” Mr. Ortelli said during the mass.

“Being here ten years later brings back a lot of emotions,” said Kevin Rebello, 47, whose older brother, Russell, was a waiter on the Costa Concordia.

Russell Rebello’s remains were finally retrieved three years after the shipwreck, from under the furniture in a cabin, once the vessel was upright and being taken apart in Genoa.

“First, I feel close to my brother here,” Kevin Rebello said. “But it is also some sort of family reunion for me — I couldn’t wait to see the Giglio people.”

Mr. Rebello hugged and greeted residents on the streets of the port area, and recalled how the people there had shown affection for him at the time, buying him coffee and simply showing respect for his grief.

“Other victims’ families feel differently, but I am a Catholic and I have forgiven,” Mr. Rebello explained.

The Costa Concordia accident caused national shame when it became clear that the liner’s commander, Francesco Schettino, failed to immediately sound the general alarm and coordinate the evacuation, and instead abandoned the sinking vessel.

“Get back on board!” a Coast Guard officer shouted at Mr. Schettino when he understood that the captain was in a lifeboat watching people scramble to escape, audio recordings of their exchange later revealed. “Go up on the bow of the ship on a rope ladder, and tell me what you can do, how many people are there and what they need. Now!”

The officer has since pursued a successful career in politics, while Mr. Schettino is serving a 16-year sentence in a Roman prison for homicide and for abandoning the ship before the evacuation was completed. Other officials and crew members plea-bargained for lesser sentences.

During the trial, Mr. Schettino admitted that he had committed an “imprudence” when he decided to sail near the island of Giglio at high speed to greet the family of the ship’s headwaiter. The impact with the half-submerged rock near the island produced a gash in the hull more than 70 meters long, or about 76 yards, leading to blackouts on board and water pouring into the lower decks.

Mr. Schettino tried to steer the cruise ship toward the port to make evacuation easier, but the vessel was out of control and began to tip as it neared the harbor, making many lifeboats useless.

“I can’t forget the eyes of children, scared to death, and of their parents,” said Mr. Pellegrini, who had boarded the ship to speak with officials and organize the evacuation. “The metallic sound of the enormous ship tipping over and the gurgling of the sea up the endless corridors of the cruiser.”

Sergio Ortelli, who is still the mayor of Giglio ten years later, was similarly moved. “Nobody can go back and cancel those senseless deaths of innocent people, or the grief of their families,” he said. “The tragedy will always stay with us as a community. It was an apocalypse for us.”

Yet Mr. Ortelli said that the accident also told a different story, that of the skilled rescuers who managed to save thousands of lives, and of the engineers who righted the liner, refloated it and took it to the scrapyard.

While the global attention shifted away from Giglio, residents have stayed in touch with the outside world through the people who temporarily lived there.

For months, the Rev. Lorenzo Pasquotti, who was then a pastor in Giglio, kept receiving packages: dry-cleaned slippers, sweaters and tablecloths that were given to the cold, stranded passengers in his church that night, returned via courier.

One summer, Father Pasquotti ate German cookies with a German couple who were passengers on the ship. They still remembered the hot tea and leftovers from Christmas delicacies that they were given that night.

“So many nationalities — the world was at our door all of a sudden,” he said, remembering that night. “And we naturally opened it.”

Gaia Pianigiani is a reporter based in Italy for The New York Times.  More about Gaia Pianigiani

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Costa Concordia Captain Now: What Happened to Francesco Schettino After Cruise Ship Disaster?

By Debangshu Nath

When the Costa Concordia disaster took place, the ship’s captain was an Italian shipmaster named Francesco Schettino. The Costa Concordia started its voyage on January 13, 2012, at 7:18 p.m. from Civitavecchia, Italy. It was supposed to reach Savona. Furthermore, the entire journey was going to take seven days. Unfortunately, it collided with a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Furthermore, it did not take long for water to enter the ship and put its crew and passengers in danger. The Costa Concordia disaster took the lives of 32 individuals. Its captain, Francesco Schettino, was sentenced to sixteen years in prison in 2015 for charges like manslaughter, abandoning his ship, and being responsible for a maritime accident.

According to Cruise Mummy , Schettino went to Rebibbia prison in Rome to serve his time. Details of this disaster were explored in the two-episode docuseries titled Costa Concordia: The Whole Story. This project was released in 2012.

According to Apple TV+ , the synopsis of Costa Concordia: The Whole Story reads, “The story of the worst cruise accident since the Titanic the harrowing moment-by-moment narrative of how it happened from those who were aboard and the islanders who saved their lives. The in-depth description of advanced search and rescue operations to recover survivors and victims from the Costa Concordia as well as the technology and engineering behind the epic historical salvage operation to refloat the massive ship intact and tow it away.”

What did the resident pianist of Costa Concordia say about the maritime disaster?

A ntimo Magnotta is an Italian pianist and composer who started his career in 1992. He was present at the Costa Concordia when it crashed against a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

In 2019, Paul González-Morgan interviewed Magnotta, in which the pianist spoke candidly about the tragedy that took the lives of 32 people .

He said, “On Friday, January 13, 2012, the Concordia had set out from Rome on the last leg of a seven-day Mediterranean cruise with 3,229 passengers and 1,023 crew on board. I sat down at the Yamaha baby grand in the Vienna Bar on aft deck five at 9.30 pm to entertain a handful of well-dressed guests.”

He further said,

“I was fully immersed in my beautiful daily routine. It was a lovely starry night. The weather conditions were ideal for navigation, the sea was as smooth as a table. All of a sudden, at 9.42 pm, the ship took a sudden swerve and started listing. I fell off the bench and the piano was torn from its safety locks and started drifting on the stage. No sound of a collision was heard on deck five, although those on lower decks would later tell me of the terrible tearing sound as a submerged rock ripped a huge hole in the engine compartments, just off the coast of the Island of Giglio.”

Antimo Magnotta even revealed that he lost two close friends in the disaster. Both were musicians: a violinist and a drummer.

Debangshu watched a couple of Scorsese, Tarantino and Coppola films in seventh grade and developed an unhealthy obsession with criminals, psychopaths and serial killers. Fueled by his passion for Death, Thrash and Black Metal, he finds solace in writing about some of the most deranged people and incidents in human history.

Thank God for cats.

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Costa Concordia: Ten years on pianist recalls terrifying escape from the capsized cruise liner

Ten years on from the tragedy, Antimo Magnotta has revealed how he still has "terrible flashbacks" and can remember people's screams as the enormous vessel tipped over off the coast of Italy.

Thursday 13 January 2022 17:06, UK

On 13 January 2012, the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia capsized off the coast of Tuscany after hitting a rock in the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Francesco Schettino, the captain of the cruise liner, was jailed for 16 years for multiple manslaughter after the disaster that left 32 people dead.

On the tenth anniversary of the tragedy, the ship's Italian pianist Antimo Magnotta, who is now living and working in London, has relived his terrifying ordeal and told Sky News how he is still tormented by flashbacks from what he witnessed.

I was working in a very elegant bar at the back of the ship called Bar Vienna. I remember it was a beautiful night, a starry night, the sea was very calm and quiet.

Then all of a sudden the ship suddenly swerved and started tilting. It was really unexpected because the conditions at sea meant it made no sense for this to happen.

I thought to myself - "did we hit a whale or a giant monster or something?".

I fell over and the piano started drifting on stage. I left the bar and found myself stumbling along sloping corridors with passengers and crew members. I was heading to the centre of the ship where there would be more balance.

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When I got there I found myself with other crew members and passengers on this huge dancefloor. We were expecting some instructions, some kind of explanation, but the ship began to have multiple blackouts and power failures.

The ship was performing some very strange movements, it was tilting on one side and then slowly titling on the other side, I was thinking to myself - "what is this?".

Passengers and crew members were screaming and calling out names. We couldn't see each other in the darkness.

It was quite cinematic I must say, it looked like a David Lynch film actually.

Finally, after more than an hour, the emergency signal on board was sounded.

I was a pianist, but I was also a crew member, and I had been trained to carrying out certain duties in an emergency.

I reached my master station and was in charge of a roll call for 25 crew members to embark on a life raft. I remember four people on my list were missing.

I was expecting a crew member from the bridge (the room where the ship is commanded) to come downstairs and lead myself and my crew members to our designated life raft.

But no one came from the bridge, and of course the ship, in the meantime, was still performing this very macabre choreography of slowly capsizing.

While the ship was tipping over I was confronted with a portrait of an ongoing tragedy, a grotesque paradox.

It was like being inside a cabinet of horrors. I mainly remember the sounds - there was this cacophony from the bowels of the ship. People were screaming.

I describe the ship in this moment as being like a swan in agony. It was suffering.

I eventually saw a crew member dressed all in white carrying a box of walkie talkies. I asked him what was going on.

He whispered: "Don't you know? We hit a rock, and this caused a massive leak on the side of the ship."

He was very agitated, he was running on adrenaline, and said: "You know what, the best suggestion would be for you to run for your life, and if you can, abandon the ship."

I thought this must be some kind of joke, but then he just vanished.

Everyone was really panicking and end up scattering all around.

This was the very beginning of my personal nightmare, because I had to perform a gruelling evacuation of the ship.

I knew where the life raft I was supposed to get on was located, and I knew it would now be under water.

I was 41 at the time and said to myself I can't die, this must be a joke.

But I started thinking about my daughter and this triggered a reaction in me, so I started climbing on some metallic bars, some ladders, pipes, whatever I could find in my way.

It took some time, but I found myself on the flank of the ship outside, facing the dark sea, holding onto a winch, a crane, I was holding on to this rope like I was clinging on to life itself.

All I had to do was just wait to be rescued, It was difficult because it was pitch dark, the most difficult thing to do was to make myself visible.

This lasted pretty much four hours.

The ship was more or less on it side by this point, breaching at a very dramatic angle, maybe 80 to 85 degrees, if not more.

It was like the carcass of a stranded whale. I could feel and hear the death rattle of the ship.

When I was on the flank of the ship I felt something is deteriorating, disintegrating, my image, my story, was fading away, it was vanishing, "I can't die," I said to myself.

I was not alone of course, there was a bunch of between 35 to 40 people around me, passengers and crew members.

I could see rescue boats and there was very frantic activity in the water. Helicopters were hovering above but they didn't seem to see us.

Eventually a little rescue boat was sent for us, and I will always say, jumping in this little rescue boat was like jumping back to life.

It was 3am, more than five hours after the ship hit the rock, that the rescue boat dropped me off at Giglio Island.

It was like celebrating a second birthday, it was the beginning of my second life.

Unfortunately, later on, I learned that two fellow musicians had lost their lives. My friend, a Hungarian violinist, who lost his life, had just gone down to his cabin.

I just thought to myself what if it had been the other way round?

This has haunted me for a long time.

In the aftermath of the disaster I was devastated and suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder.

I had mental scars still lingering, survivor's guilt and chronic insomnia. I couldn't play the piano anymore. I had a stone in my chest and not a heart.

I took up a new form of self-therapy and started writing, and I would cry sometimes of course.

It was a way to express myself and my anger.

These days I feel much better and I play the piano in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Now I am feeling much better, but still I have terrible flashbacks and insomnia - my sleep is always interrupted.

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Costa Concordia captain jailed for disaster that killed 32 after court upholds sentence

Court of cassation, italy's highest criminal tribunal, upholds francesco schettino's lower court convictions and his 16-year prison sentence, article bookmarked.

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The Italian captain of the Costa Concordia cruise liner that crashed into a reef in 2012 and capsized, killing 32 people, lost his final appeals bid on Friday.

The Court of Cassation, Italy's highest criminal tribunal, upheld Francesco Schettino's lower court convictions and his 16-year prison sentence.

Schettino was convicted of manslaughter and causing the shipwreck while captaining the luxury liner sailing near Giglio Island off Tuscany. He was also convicted of abandoning the capsizing vessel with passengers and crew still aboard.

"Finally, Schettino begins to pay for his wrongdoing," Michelina Suriano, one of the lawyers representing passengers, said after the ruling.

Defense lawyer Saverio Senese called the ex-captain a scapegoat and expressed "great bitterness" over the final decision.

He said Schettino, when told by phone about the verdict, said he respected the decision and was standing outside Rome's Rebibbia Prison on Friday evening, ready to begin serving his sentence.

Senese said he would study the court's ruling to see if there were grounds to appeal to the European Court of Human Rights. Lawyers for passengers have also expressed disappointment that only Schettino ultimately was going to prison, since they contended that others working for the cruise ship company also shared some blame.

"For our clients, a chapter has been closed," said Massimiliano Gabrielli, a lawyer who represented some passengers. "We are sorry that the only one who will go jail tomorrow is Schettino."

Some 4,200 passengers and crew were aboard the Costa Concordia during a Mediterranean cruise when the ship collided on 13 January 2012 with the reef. The rocky reef speared the vessel's side, allowing tons of water to rapidly pour inside.

World news in pictures

Prosecutors argued that Schettino had steered the ship too close to the island's coastline. They also contended he downplayed the severity of the crash, wasting valuable rescue time.

Some of the dead drowned in the sea, others perished in the ship's lift shafts when the vessel capsized and sea water rushed into the space. Some survivors were plucked to safety by helicopters after the liner overturned, while others swam to safety to the island in the dark, cold winter's night.

The wreckage, raised in a dramatic engineering feat, was eventually towed to the Italian mainland to be broken up for scrap.

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Ten years on, Costa Concordia shipwreck still haunts survivors, islanders

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Philip Pullella reported from Rome; Additional reporting by Yara Nardi, writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise

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Tragic final moments of passengers revealed in new Costa Concordia file

September 6, 2013 / 2:28 PM EDT / CBS News

TUSCANY, Italy A five-year-old girl and her dad died after being turned away from a lifeboat while other passengers leapt into the sea and drowned on the night the Costa Concordia sunk off Tuscany, Italy, on January 13, 2012.

Fresh stories of the final moments of those on board the doomed cruise liner have been revealed in a file presented to an Italian court by prosecutors calling for the Concordia's skipper, Captain Francesco Schettino, to be sent to trial on charges of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

• Costa Concordia victims mark one-year anniversary
• Costa Concordia captain: I was painted worse than bin Laden

Thirty-two people died and hundreds were injured when the ship rammed into a reef off Tuscany and a massive rock tore a 230-foot gash into the hull of the 950-foot-long ocean liner.

The boulder remained embedded in the ship as the 112,000-ton vessel capsized off Giglio island along with its 4200 passengers and crew.

The court file detailed how one young victim, Dayana Arlotti, five, and her father William Arlotti, drowned ''having not found places in a lifeboat on deck,'' according to The Telegraph .

''They were directed by members of the crew to the starboard side and while negotiating the interior of the ship they fell into a flooded area,'' the file said.

The pair was on the Mediterranean cruise with William Arlotti's girlfriend, who survived. He was said by family to be traveling to celebrate a new lease on life -- he had received a kidney and pancreas transplant.

Other Costa Concordia passengers met similarly tragic fates. Erika Molinala, a 25-year-old barmaid from Peru, who was a member of the crew, died after plunging into the sea without a life jacket.

Giuseppe Girolamo, a musician on the cruise ship, gave up his spot in a life boat and also fell in the water and drowned.

Maria D'Introno, a passenger, got onboard a lifeboat but was then forced back onto the cruise ship because it could not be launched. She was forced to jump into the water but did not know how to swim and also drowned.

The file reveals hundreds of survivors are still suffering from insomnia and post-traumatic stress disorders.

An investigating judge is expected to announce within weeks whether Captain Schettino and several other ship's officers will be put on trial.

More from CBS News

Costa Concordia Disaster - What happened?

I’ve started this thread to gather thoughts and information about the Costa Concordia disaster. It’s still entirely to early to know exactly what happened but we know that the vessel capsized after hitting rocks on Friday night. We also know that the captain has been arrested and the incident has resulted in the loss of life. What we don’t know is why the vessel went off course. Was the captain or crew negligent in any way? Were SOLAS procedures followed and/or did they fail? Did the vessel lose electrical power?

Does anybody have any updates or possible scenarios to consider?

Mikey, from looking at the pictures in the national media, it wasn’t like the ship hit an uncharted reef or rock offshore. They hit a freaking island! The latest scuttlebutt is they had a power failure. If you lose power you drop anchor’s. The whole thing is a mess and salvage companies are thrilled.

We all don’t know more than what is reported in the news media. But one question strikes at first glance: When you look at the AIS track published in the 2nd posting (with the Video and AIS track) on gCaptain you don’t have to be an expert to ask: Why on earth was the ship travelling so dangerously close to the island? Obviously, the track was laid down like that with intent. From a navigational point of view, there seems to be no reason why the ship had to come that close to the island - being on a trip from Civitavecchia (near Rome) to Savona (near Genova, in the north). When you look at the extract from the chart (the 2nd image with the red line) it seems the track was running between the island’s coastline and a tiny little islet just off shore, perhaps only 150 yards or something away. If that really was the intended track - actually I just can’t believe it! - then the navigators were acting more than careless.

Reports have said that the captain had stated that they were 300 meter from the rocks and that they hit a rock that was not marked on nautical charts. This hasn’t been confirmed.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, has been arrested for manslaughter and abandoning ship. Officials are trying to determine why the ship did not issue a mayday and why she was navigating so close to the coast. Officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno said “At the moment we can’t exclude that the ship had some kind of technical problem and for this reason moved towards the coast in order to save the passengers, the crew and the ship. But they didn’t send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing.”

//youtu.be/hvSrOaoMlco

[QUOTE=Mikey;60920]Reports have said that the captain had stated that they were 300 meter from the rocks and that they hit a rock that was not marked on nautical charts. This hasn’t been confirmed.[/QUOTE]

WOW !! Mama Mia

[QUOTE=Mikey;60920]The captain, Francesco Schettino, has been arrested for manslaughter and abandoning ship. Officials are trying to determine why the ship did not issue a mayday and why she was navigating so close to the coast. Officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno said “At the moment we can’t exclude that the ship had some kind of technical problem and for this reason moved towards the coast in order to save the passengers, the crew and the ship. But they didn’t send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing.”[/QUOTE]

I have to ask Mike is that screenshot the actual track as recorded by AIS transmissions?

We don’t have soundings of that passage but there is prima facia evidence that the ship must have actually breached both sides of the underwater hull as it passed between the islets. The port is to the north of the islets and the wreck is north of the port so the ship had to turn around in order to be pointed bow to the south which is how she lies. Added to the fact that the high portside is so badly damaged clearly indicates that the submerged starboard side must be much more damaged.

WHAT THE EFF WHERE THOSE CLOWNS THINKING?!?

One of the most surprising things is this kind of idiocy is not unheard of:

Ferry System Fires Elwha Captain By Dee Norton Seattle Times Staff Reporter

Saturday, August 10, 1996

The skipper who took the state ferry Elwha 15 miles off its designated route in the San Juan Islands, nearly running it aground, was fired yesterday by the Washington State Ferries.

An investigation by the ferry system following the July 25 incident found that Capt. Charles Petersen violated four sections of the system’s Code of Conduct.

Those sections deal with alcohol or drug use, neglect of duties, failure to follow applicable regulations, and testing positive for alcohol or drugs while at work although not under their influence.

Evidence of marijuana use by Petersen was found during a urine test after the July 25 incident, according to the Coast Guard. Petersen has been on paid administrative leave since the incident.

Under the Code of Conduct, a positive test for illegal drugs is grounds for immediate firing, a system spokeswoman said.

Petersen “used extremely poor judgment, putting his vessel, passengers and crew in jeopardy” when he took the Elwha “into an area where he did not possess pilotage or experience (local knowledge)” for operating a vessel of that size, said Princess Jackson-Smith, the ferry system’s public-affairs director.

oh well, Costa is owned by Carnivore Cruises so it couldn’t have happened to a nicer company but we do need to pray for those who died and people need to go to prison if gross negligence was the cause!

Not much doubt about what happened:

http://gcaptain.com/cruise-ship-cost...a-sinks/?37456

[QUOTE=c.captain;60922]I have to ask Mike is that screenshot the actual track as recorded by AIS transmissions?

Im not positive but it appears it could be. Marinetraffic map shows something similar. Cruise Ship Costa Concordia Sinks off Italian Coast [VIDEO, AIS Track]

[QUOTE=c.captain;60923]One of the most surprising things is this kind of idiocy is not unheard of …

Costa is owned by Carnivore Cruises so it couldn’t have happened to a nicer company but we do need to pray for those who died and people need to go to prison if gross negligence was the cause![/QUOTE]

It is kind of refreshing to see that Italy at least has a Coast Guard with some balls and apparently hasn’t been bought by the cruise industry. Here is an article I wrote 15 years ago.

This is an article I wrote 15 years ago.

"Just after sunrise on February 10, 1994, the Bahamian flagged Starward with 680 passengers onboard called the Coast Guard Marine Safety Office in St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, to report a spill of hydraulic oil into the sea. A mate reported by cellular-phone that the the ship, some five miles offshore, also suffered damage to her propellers.

The Starward’s captain told Coast Guard officers that his ship had struck a submerged object while drifting offshore awaiting a daylight arrival in St. Thomas. After several interviews by Coast Guard accident investigators, and even then only after passengers and shoreside witnesses came forward, did the captain admit to running his ship aground several hours before calling to report the oil spill.

While the attempt to conceal the grounding demonstrates, at the very least, a complete lack of professionalism on the part of the ship’s officers, the circumstances leading to the event, and its subsequent handling by United States Coast Guard authorities speak to a much larger issue.

Coast Guard accident investigators found the ship’s bridge to be very well equipped. Like most modern cruise ships, no expense was spared in fitting the latest electronic navigation and radar equipment including multiple digital radars, satellite global positioning systems (GPS), and fathometers. The only component missing on the Starward’s bridge that morning was discipline and professionalism.

The Starward ran aground at the base of a 150 foot cliff at the end of a half-mile long peninsula. That feat was somewhat akin to accidentally driving a car into the side of a barn in the middle of a wheat field. Vertical rock walls usually provide a distinct radar picture but, evidently, no one was watching. The last position plotted on the Starward’s chart was made some 30 minutes before the grounding. No calculations were made to determine where the ship was going or how fast it was moving. No one looked at the radar or, apparently, even spared a glance out the bridge windows.

The Starward’s bridge crew relied entirely on GPS for positioning. They ignored all other information available to them. A Coast Guard investigator said of the Starward grounding in Professional Mariner magazine, " Looks like pure human error; there were no equipment malfunctions or exceptional circumstances. They (cruise ships) all navigate with just GPS these days."

The Starward is not an isolated case, last year the Panamanian registered Royal Majesty ran aground 10 miles off Nantucket Island because the bridge watch relied entirely on an autopilot guided by a GPS receiver that failed some hours earlier."

What makes it all the more interesting, since this grounding occurred on a reef on a National Park in US waters, the USCG had oversight.

Even though the ship operated routinely from American ports, and carried, almost exclusively, American passengers and grounded on American coral, the United States Coast Guard reported they would do nothing more than forward results of their investigation to Nassau."

The CG eventually fined the ship’s operator $7000 for the oil spill.

As much as I detest the “criminalization of seafarers” I am glad to see one of the truly deserving clowns finally nailed and I hope this puts Carnival into bankruptcy court.

WHAT THE EFF WHERE THOSE CLOWNS THINKING?!?[/QUOTE] [I]Mistakes were made[/I] from [I]Son of Morning Star[/I]

[QUOTE=Mikey;60925]Im not positive but it appears it could be. Marinetraffic map shows something similar.[/QUOTE]

Something doesn’t match the story here. The track shows the ship nearing the island from the east then turning north and finally back to the northeast. The Gemitrafik charts show the ship turning northeast after passing through a narrow cut south of Giglio. Marine Traffic puts it nowhere near Giglio at any time much less near the area where other reports place the wreck.

Look at the satellite pictures on Google Earth and try to make sense of what those two sources are saying. They simply don’t match and neither of them match what media says the captain claims.

Looking more closely at Google Maps satellite, it looks like maybe they tried to “thread the needle” south of the port of Giglio, struck, then ran to Giglio and turned back toward the shore just north of the harbor entrance. ?? I think there is a great deal of information yet to be released and so far it looks like nobody with that information is sharing it.

When I was at Kings Point all Deck Cadets were required to read this book, Engine Cadets were encouraged. I, an Engine Cadet, read it. [I]Collision course: the Andrea Doria and the Stockholm[/I]

[QUOTE=Steamer;60929Looking more closely at Google Maps satellite, it looks like maybe they tried to “thread the needle” south of the port of Giglio, struck, then ran to Giglio and turned back toward the shore just north of the harbor entrance. ?? I think there is a great deal of information yet to be released and so far it looks like nobody with that information is sharing it.[/QUOTE]

It will come out, Steamer, It always does. Without a doubt “something” happened and “they” tried to save their ass.

Apparently no may-day - wrong thing to do. Apparently no abandon ship drill - wrong thing to do Apparently general alarm was not sounded and people not sent to muster stations - wrong thing to do. Eventually people were told to go back to their cabins - wrong thing to do. Apparently officers lied over the intercom about the nature of the problem and lost credibility - wrong thing to do. Apparently they loaded lifeboats women and children first - wrong thing to do.

Isola del Giglio is Giglio island.

Gemitrafik and MT’s tracks are broadly consistent with each other. They’re not consistent with what the media is saying the captain is claiming, but that’s another matter.

Something interesting on the MT track is that the Concordia was still heading directly towards Giglio at 15 knots even at 1.5nm/~10 ship lengths. Would they have had enough maneuverability to miss the island completely–rather than attempting to thread the needle as a desperation move–at that range and speed?

Additional personal photos from somebody in the area:

https://plus.google.com/photos/115893768571611039178/albums/5697479271862536705

Quick update of todays events from what is available in the media.

Costa Concordia Update: Italian Captain Detained as Probe Into Crash Goes On

[QUOTE=Observer;60938]Isola del Giglio is Giglio island. [/QUOTE]

The port of Giglio is where the wreck is located, just outside the breakwater. It is the spot on that map at the island end of the Isla del Giglio - Porto Santo Stefano ferry track.

The track shown on that picture is nowhere near the location of the wreck, or the rocks south of the port of Giglio. Nor does it show a course reversal that would explain why the wreck is lying on a southeasterly heading.

I stand by what I posted.

What are you referring to on google earth/maps satellite? Does this service now offer images from given times, whereby you can actually view images of the ship as it transited the area?

Related Topics

The Interesting Way Cruise Ships Float Even Though They're So Heavy

T raveling the ocean aboard a cruise ship is a great time for contemplation, but something few may consider is how they stay afloat, which is an important question when they are getting bigger all of the time. The Royal Caribbean's Icon of the Seas, for example, is the biggest cruise ship in the world and is due to set sail in January 2024. It is 365 meters long, with 20 decks, and weighs 250,800 gross tonnes. On top of all that, it houses the largest waterpark in the sea.

It is hard to believe that these floating cities stay upright, but it's actually just simple science that answers the question of how cruise ships float. The volume of liquid that they displace is the same as their mass so as they move through the ocean, the water tries to fill the space. This energy keeps it in motion. It is clearly a design that works, as it is uncommon for a cruise ship to sink.

Read more: Haunting Shipwrecks Around The World

How Cruise Ships Avoid Sinking

In the 32 years between 1980 and 2012, only 16 cruise ships have sunk. It is more common for them to run aground, which has happened to 98 leisure liners from 1972 to 2011, an average of 2-3 per year. Cruise ships can also get stranded due to issues like engine problems, which is when passengers need to be rescued. These are some reasons why some people may never take a cruise . However, there are numerous safety protocols in place to prevent it.

As sea conditions are one of the biggest worries for cruise captains, they use dedicated weather-routing technologies to track them. This data updates regularly, so if there are big waves, a liner may dock or avoid a certain port to keep everyone aboard safe. Another essential design feature that keeps the ship upright is storing all the heavy machinery and water supplies in the bottom section of the boat. The top of the ship is built as openly as possible to let wind pass through without tipping it over. Nonetheless, despite all these safety features, cruise ships do sometimes sink.

How Cruise Ships Do Sink

Most people know of the famous Titanic sinking in 1912 when it famously hit an iceberg. Since then, vessels may have become safer, but certain things can still sink them. A recent cruise ship to sink was the Costa Concordia in 2012 after hitting rocks that pierced its hull. It killed 32 people, and the captain was found guilty of manslaughter. Before that, the MS Sea Diamond hit a reef in Santorini in 2007 and later sank. Despite a rescue mission, two people went missing, presumed to have drowned.

One of the worst cruise ship disasters of the 20th century was when the Estonia sank in the Baltic Sea. A technical problem with the bow visor lock meant that it let in water, and 852 people died when it went down. That said, it takes a lot to bring down a cruise ship, but when it lets in water, it can have horrendous consequences. Thankfully, most cruise liners depart and return daily without a hitch, so these accidents will hopefully become rarer as safety technology and procedures improve.

Read the original article on Explore .

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Cruise company books kosher trip for 140 Jewish vacationers, then abruptly refuses to serve kosher food

Aug 8, 2024 3:00 pm By Robert Spencer 14 Comments

We have witnessed a normalization of Jew-hatred unlike anything since the National Socialist era.

“Cruise Company To Kosher Travelers: Stay Off,” by Jeff Helmreich, Queens Jewish Link , July 31, 2024:

Since the days of the fictional Love Boat, Jews who keep kosher have taken to the seas. The kosher cruise has become a mainstay of Jewish vacationers, a seafaring symbol of a wandering Diaspora with a special passion for the perfect resort experience. Even with the recent spike in global anti-Semitism, the kosher cruise seemed a safe respite, a reliable escape. That, at least, is what some 140 vacationers believed as they booked tickets on the Costa Toscana for a weeklong tour. They were wrong. Days before the voyage was to begin, tour operator Yossi Zablocki received a curt message: The ship’s crew refuses to cooperate with the provision of kosher food for the Jewish passengers at any point in the trip. Nothing a frantic Zablocki could suggest would alter their stance. “We simply will not do this,” he was told. By this point, Zablocki had already purchased $22,000 of kosher product, ready to be loaded on the ship in Marseille, where it was docked for a day before it arrived in Barcelona. He also had the kosher certifiers, or mashgichim, cleared, medically checked and ticketed to accompany the trip and perform the ritual supervision that kosher cooking requires. And the kitchen was confirmed to have the necessary ovens, utensils and equipment. None of these steps were new for Zablocki. A 15-year veteran of the hospitality industry who has run over 40 high-end kosher cruises, he knew the routine cold. Indeed, there wasn’t much to know, especially on the ship’s end: A standard cruise kitchen is already well-equipped to follow the simple steps that make it kosher, even if only for a portion of its clientele. That is, perhaps, why he never faced any resistance from any crew before. The ship and its crew are operated by Costa Cruises, which is owned by Carnival Cruise Line. Zablocki had for years dealt with its US representative, who arranged the deals without a hitch. In the past year, however, Costa USA is apparently operating in large part from the company’s Brazil office, not a place especially known for kosher travel. That is the office that delivered the message on behalf of the ship’s staff, just days before the voyage, in terms so extreme that Zablocki and his customers were left speechless. Not only would the crew refuse to dedicate any kosher sections of the kitchen, it said, but they also insisted that no kosher utensils or food with a kosher certification will be available on the ship. “The use of kosher china, pots, frying pans, etc. will not be allowed.” Anything kosher was in effect to be treated as forbidden on the ship. And no rabbi shall enter. It was in part the extremity of such demands that suggested to Zablocki and a few of his customers that something more than an administrative dispute may lie behind the refusal. “Nothing like this has ever happened,” he said, “and there was no credible reason that could even serve as a pretense for the crew’s outright – and sudden – refusal to accommodate us.”…

Aug 8, 2024 at 3:18 pm

Wait a minute. The crew of the ship were dictating rules for the ship on an already completed contractual arrangement? Was the crew hired from Gaza ? No company would allow such an absurd thing to happen. Fire the crew and leave them on shore with zero pay. Then hire a new crew at obviously a very inflated salary and schedule the cruise with either a half refund or full refund to all of the Jewish passengers depending on the inconvenience to them. And that crew should be made known by each name to every cruise line operating except of course the “Palestinian Cruise Line For Jihad Against the Zionist Oppressors.”

By the way isn’t this the cruise line that had the Costa Concordia disaster on 13 January 2012, the seven-year-old Costa Cruises vessel Costa Concordia was on the first leg of a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea when she deviated from her planned route at Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, sailed closer to the island, and struck a rock formation on the sea floor. This caused the ship to list and then to partially sink, landing unevenly on an underwater ledge. Although a six-hour rescue effort brought most of the passengers ashore, 33 people died: 27 passengers, five crew, and, later, a member of the salvage team.

࿗Infidel࿘ says

Aug 8, 2024 at 11:22 pm

This struck me as well. It reminds me of some occasions on 2017 when employees of certain stores would refuse to sell merchandise to well known conservatives b’cos they didn’t like their politics. What was a wonder was that such people apparently kept their jobs

HR of all companies need to be automated and reined in. Once upon a time, the only time employees would meet HR would be during on-boarding, any training sessions regarding benefits such as insurance coverage, and any special corporate training about things like branding and so on. Then when companies started outsourcing and offshoring many of their operations, HRs invented a novel way of keeping themselves “relevant” by introducing DEI and other woke stuff into the corporate workplace. That is what has given such entitled employees the idea that they have a say in final decisions, particularly w/ respect to outward facing activities, such as customers

If Costa Cruises management has not been hijacked, they need to have special re-orientation sessions w/ their Brazilian office, and terminate all crew members, who regardless of what they think about policy, had the temerity to say no to customers

DavidW says

Aug 8, 2024 at 3:27 pm

I wonder what the reaction would have been if the food had been okay for Muslims to eat?

commonsense says

Aug 9, 2024 at 2:32 pm

DavidW: Muslims are in fact permitted to eat kosher food. When the Muslim population in the U.S. was small and there were no foods available certified as halal, Muslims would buy kosher meat and poultry. Jewish dietary laws, however, are far more restrictive, and Jews cannot eat halal-certfied meat, chicken, etc.

Bull Herman says

Aug 8, 2024 at 4:04 pm

Read Genesis 12. One of these giant top heavy floating paradises will become an artificial reef. Hopefully innocents who disagree with this Kamala-Esque policy will make to life boats. The rest? I’ll miss them about as much as I miss Ismail “now part of the wall” Hamiyah. Carnival cruises are real fun let me tell you. An adventure on the seas. If you consider your chances of being robbed, raped, lost at sea, and then have Carnival play cover its ass with the law as an ideal vacation. Carnival can keep its warped attitudes and Norco virus all to itself.

Peacelover says

Aug 8, 2024 at 4:45 pm

somehistory says

Aug 8, 2024 at 4:58 pm

This reminds me of some old movies/tv programs where the hero is in a small town, needs his car repaired, can’t get that done for weeks; tries to rent a car, but none available; can’t make a phone call or get anything to eat. He can’t figure out why….until a kid or a waitress gets him aside and tells him the reason.

The reason for this cruise thing: everyone is choosing a side and many are choosing the side of evil.

KoshsShadow says

Aug 8, 2024 at 6:31 pm

Major breach of contract lawsuit. The kosher cruise operator should get 3x all his losses, PLUS all the passengers 3x all their expenses, including replacing vacation time. And I believe Costa only operates out of Europe, not the US, but their parent Carnival needs to be put on notice this is illegal in the US, and if this happens here, they lose rights to cruise to/from the US. I note Jordan and Kuwait airlines cannot fly to/from the US because they refuse to carry Israelis. (I note there seems to be no such problem with Emirates or even Qatar)

David Grisez says

Aug 8, 2024 at 7:16 pm

What we are seeing here is plain outright antisemitism and outright hatred of the Jewish people. This serious problem is getting worse. The way things are going in this world it might not be long before genocide activity is started against the Jewish like happened in Nazi Germany during World War II under Adolph Hitler.

Aug 9, 2024 at 7:07 am

It’s not hard to fathom. October 7th was a genocidal act against Jews and Israelis, and similar jihadist groups are currently waging genocide against Christians, Hindus and others in various places.

James Wasvary says

Aug 9, 2024 at 2:29 am

Holland America, another Carnival subsidiary, recruits most of its crew from Indonesia. They throw in a few Philippinos to work the bars as Muslims can’t touch alcohol. If the Costa crew is recruited from Indonesia this would explain their attitude, and there is nothing that can be done about it unless they change the crew for Christians, possibly Philippine.

Aug 9, 2024 at 4:13 am

Time for a lawsuit and then for a boycott.

James Lincoln says

Aug 9, 2024 at 9:20 am

Triple damages!

Aug 9, 2024 at 1:43 pm

the owner of carnival is an iaraeli,. she also own one of the largest banks there. her son owns the miami heat sp i doubt they are anti semites i believe he is also the president of carnival…..

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