Apparently some people have been located still on board and rescuers are trying to get to them. I wonder why there is almost no coverage of this rescue attempt on US television?

My thoughts are with the people involved. I cruise often and was recently nearby. Captains sometimes try to bring ships closer to interesting sites - volcanos come to mind. That's likely over.

I would guess that it was already dark, and to do the drill in the dark would not be very effective, and there was dinner and all the rest. I would expect they may revisit the regulations after this


It's not a US liner. If it was, it would be live coverage, but with Miss America, football, etc it's just not news. The US has an incredibly sad view of what news is.

No kidding. Even on these boards, the Carnival Splendor, or Royal Caribbean calling on Haiti after the earthquake were OMNI topics, not buried in this forum.

CNN is showing reruns. Reportedly there were 140 Americans on that ship. There were no Americans in the Chile mine and the Today show was there. Sorry, just frustrated at the lack of coverage. A honeymooning couple was reportedly just rescued from the ship.

It depends on how the internal bulkheads held up and where the water accumulated.

Cruiselines sailing to/from US waters are pretty strict & we've been on at least 2 with Coast Guard personnel onboard running special inspections, as the ship's officers & crews take them seriously. But let's face it, like frequent airline pax familiar with the pre-flight safety demo/videos, many of us ignore or mentally skipped it. Even US cruises had been allowed to skip a few steps, we've done cruises in the last year & we did not have to grab our life vests & report to muster stations (some of them being in the dining room, theater & not necessary near where the lifeboats are) and the crew did it quickly as EVERYONE wanted a quick dismissal to get back to their cabin, unpack & get ready for the casino, bar, dinner or what not.

What seemed problematic too is that the ship did not issue a distress or Mayday call early on as it began to take in water - additional help from nearby maritime interest could've been dispatched quicker than what we now know. (hindsight being mostly 20:20 with us as backseat driver/navigator of the sea) If the general alarm was sounded but the pax (at least some of them) aren't familiar with what to do in the confusion on what to do - return to the statement or go directly to their assigned muster stations - not knowing where & how to best evacuate - with the ship began to go sideway & power going out, etc.

Some of the reports said the passengers're told to go to one ship of the ship and subsequently shifted again to the opposite end as more sea water came in, it could've adversely affected the overall stabliity of the ship even in those shallow depth near the shorelines.

Modern cruise ships are designed with more than enough lifeboats & crafts unlike the Titanic days. The pictures shown on TV/news showed that only motorized lifeboats from one side of the liner made it to the waterline but 2 inflated rubber boats did not on the same side (everything on the opposite side remained high up & apparently never launched.)

Our thoughts & prayers are with the pax & crews as the search, rescue & recovery continue in the search for the missing or unaccounted ones.

This pic shows that most of the starboard lifeboats were launched before the ship capsized on that side.

As to muster drills, Princess generally does theirs in lounges and theaters along deck 7. The reason they do this instead of crowding people out on deck, is they can more orderly load the lifeboats by having people in the lounges and taking them out to the boats as needed. The boats are all on deck 7 (hanging in front of the cabins on deck 8 actually) and get lowered to the deck 7 rail for boarding. The lounges all have emergency exits (that we don't normally see) going directly out on to the promenade deck where the boats will be ready for boarding.

As was mentioned already, there was enormous worldwide coverage of the Chilean mine collapse and rescue. The captain is accused of abandoning his ship leaving people to die. Disgusting. :td:

Then there is the crew who were said by the survivors to appear to be untrained.

The LA Times also reports that an Italian crewman was recently rescued in a "complicated" effort to bring him to safety. There are 17 people still not accounted for.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/worl...-continue.html

21 pictures: http://framework.latimes.com/2012/01...-off-italy/#/0

Two more elderly victims were found dead at the ship's meeting point. :(
It is unfortunately possible some of the remaining 17 missing passengers+crew are held captive in airlocks in the partially submerged ship.

The most probable cause of this accident is a navigational error. The size of the ship is not a determining factor in its ability to sink, as we know already from the times of the Titanic. An impact on a side (instead of from the front) means that watertight compartments may not be that effective. I'm curious to know how they worked anyway.

Several further questions remain unanswered:

• why did the ship choose an unusual route
• where exactly did the first impact happen
• how well was the crew trained in handling such emergencies
• why did the ship not send the distress signal
• who was really in charge of navigating the ship when the accident
  happened?

Unlike what the shipping company wants us to believe, the conditions in this accident were rather good: the sea was calm and warm (at least compared to Baltic Sea standards), the waters were shallow, there was an inhabited island close-by, help was easily obtained etc.

Having a drill is a very good thing to do and it show that the U.S. takes sea safety seriously. It is not commonplace where I live (by the Baltic Sea) where cruises typically take a little more than 24 hours and people often go on these cruises several times per year. On the other hand having your life west in the cabin is something I just can't understand. On all the Baltic ferries, the life wests are easily obtained by the rescue points. This eliminates having to struggle your way to your cabin and back in an emergency situation. I've understood that the most modern cruise liners in the Caribbean, like the Oasis of the Seas, have a similar setup, though.

Judging by the rock still embedded in the hull, the question of "where" should be pretty straightforward.

My thoughts as well, but the captain claims he was able to steer the ship from deep water to shallow waters, indicating that the first impact happened somewhere further off-shore. Currently I don't find this explanation very probable either.

Chaos on board
 

Spanish media (www.elmundo.es) reporting stories from the 188 Spaniards on board (one still missing):

At dinner: In spite of the almighty crash with plates, chairs and passengers thrown onto the floor, the Captain announced an “electrical problem” that “was being fixed”; all the lights went out in the dining room and when the emergency lighting came on, all the waiters had disappeared.

Timing: Two hours went by between the crash and the order to evacuate. Passengers were then told to head to deck 9, although the lifeboats were on deck 4.

Disorder and Chaos: When the order came to abandon ship, passengers were trampled by crew members who commandeered lifeboats for themselves and set off from the ship.

Captain and First Officer: abandoned the ship two hours before the last (known) passenger was taken off. Both have been arrested.

Lawsuits: Spanish passengers are already preparing lawsuits against the cruise line.

Sounds to me like Costa Cruises has some explaining to do, and then some training for ships’ personnel.

That does give some credibility to the claim that the ship was steered closer to the shore first. At the same time it makes it incredible that they did not send the distress signal.

Boastful showboating???
 

From the AFP:

http://www.emirates247.com/news/worl...01-15-1.437735

I suspect muster drills are about to get much more serious, a good thing IMHO. They are a hassle, but it could have made this evacuation much smoother.

I'm trying to decide whether to buy 100 shares of CCL on Tuesday after it tanks. Costa itself may very well disappear after this, but CCL should remain essentially strong.