The Sinking of the Concordia

Did anyone else watch the documentary last night?

It's hard to believe people actually died, they had so much time to warn everyone and get people off. It showed the transcript between the coastguard and captain Shintetto (?) which was basically the rescue operation leader giving him a bollocking for leaving the ship when people were still on board.

No wonder he went to jail.

Edit, just found this

Yeah I watched most of it, it was truly shocking tbh, the lifeboats took an age to get people off when it was so close to the shore they could've done multiple trips and got people off a lot quicker.

The conversation they played out between the rescue commander and the captain was blunt to say the least, his anger was obvious.

[yorkie_chris]

So if that was the rescue commander, and he already had winchman paramedic types on board, why was he wasting time talking to the captain, who was not equipped for farting about on a sinking ship, trying to get him to drive a lifeboat (presumably with other survivors aboard) under a foundering ship.

F***ing publicity stunt if you ask me.


Spare a thought for the lads going into some seriously dark and dangerous places inside the wreck.

[timwilky]

I watched some documentaries a couple of weeks ago so apologise if my memory is wrong.

The rescue co ordinator was a coast guard type 100 miles away. He had not been initially contacted by the ships crew but by passengers on mobile phones.

I presume he wanted the most senior officer of the ship back on board as he should be the one to know where things are. The routes between decks, which water tight doors are locked and how to get past them etc. He should also be the one co coordinating the launch and use of all the ships rescue equipment.

What I will say from personal experience.

30 + years ago I sailed on then big ships the QE2, Canberra and Oriana. On the first day at sea all passengers had to attend a drill. To take with them their life jackets shown how to wear them and this was checked by the ships crew. We were shown where our life boat was.

I contrast this against when I sailed on the Ventura (Massive ship) last year. Yes we had a drill. But it was in the ships cinema. Obviously we were shown how to wear the life jackets but nobody checked you had got it right. To me the important piece that was missed was the muster station was now the cinema. Not the decks with the life boats. In my case it would have meant going down 5 levels of deck past the lifeboats to get to my muster station which was 2 levels below the deck with the lifeboats.

I could understand some of the logic, ideally they would like to launch the lifeboats which would manoeuvre to sea level doors to embark passengers. But if those doors were not available, passengers having to climb back up several flights of stairs for a deck launch would be a nightmare and panic.

Back on topic. Perhaps with the anniversary of titanic this week, the parallel is obvious. A ships master in denial of the damage to his ship. The corresponding failure to order a timely evacuation meaning the full compliment of lifeboats being under utilised or unavailable.

Ships crew not being familiar with how to launch them and what to do when things go wrong.

The 24 hour window given to give basic safety instructions to passengers is for me ludicrous.It should be given within the first hour to any new passengers on board.

[timwilky]

Originally Posted by Pedrosa

The 24 hour window given to give basic safety instructions to passengers is for me ludicrous.It should be given within the first hour to any new passengers on board.

It is an issue. Obviously all the ones I have attended are after the ship has sailed. But my last cruise, We were 6 hours late landing in the states and only got on board the ship at midnight. No way would we have been in a position to attend a safety briefing for at least 12 hours as most had been close to 30 hours since arriving at the UK airport.

[Littlepeahead]

I was touched by the kindness of the lady in the port who took people in. And the dad, who it turns out is a fireman who stayed calm and kept reassuring his little kids. Shame the Captain was an arrogant coward.