Monday, April 1, 2024

What happens when a huge ship sinks? A step-by-step guide to averting disaster Oceans

cruise ship sinks

Within the last 100 years, only 22 cruise ships have sunk, if you include river cruise ships and ocean liners. Almost 2,000 people have died in these incidents but over half of those can be attributed to ships sinking before 1940. One of the biggest passenger ships ever wrecked, the Costa Concordia had 17 decks, six restaurants, a three-story theater, and enough room for 4,200 vacationers. On January 13, 2012, Captain Francesco Schettino agreed to a request by the ship’s chief maître d’, Antonello Tievoli, and sailed closer to Isola del Giglio than normal. Tievoli, a native of Giglio, wanted to impress and “salute” local residents.

Date and Location of the Incident

The MV Explorer was a small cruise ship that had many owners in her life, launching first in 1969. She has the honour of being the first cruise ship specifically used for cruises to the Antarctic Ocean. Unfortunately she also has the record of being the first ship to sink there too.

SeaBreeze – 2000

Unfortunately, Captain Schettino turned off the ship’s alarm for the computer navigation system and later admitted he thought he knew the waters well enough to navigate by sight. However, the ship’s first mate testified that the captain had left his glasses in his cabin and requested them. The Costa Concordia struck an underwater rock, capsized, and sank, killing 32 passengers.

The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse

When passengers board a cruise ship, they are typically given a safety briefing that includes information on how to use life jackets, where to find emergency exits, and what to do in the event of an emergency. It is important for passengers to pay attention during these briefings and to familiarize themselves with the ship's layout so that they can quickly and safely evacuate if necessary. Overall, the crew members on a cruise ship play a critical role in ensuring the safety of all passengers on board. By following strict safety procedures and protocols, and by conducting regular safety drills, the crew members help to minimize the risks of accidents and emergencies.

Cozumel tourist boat sinks next to docked cruise ship - Riviera Maya News

Cozumel tourist boat sinks next to docked cruise ship.

Posted: Sat, 06 Apr 2024 07:00:00 GMT [source]

In the morning, in calmer conditions, the salvage crew traces a skirted boom around the vessel to capture any fuel and hazardous wastes. A vessel’s location has a huge bearing on how quickly the operation unfolds. The Rena, a container ship that grounded off the coast of New Zealand, had to wait several weeks for equipment to arrive from Singapore – during which time the hull broke apart. To avoid this fate, a local salvage company gets involved, one of a few dozen operators around the world poised to rush to the scene of a maritime disaster. 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. With Giglio Island lying in a protected marine area, environmental issues relating to the Concordia wreck were of particular concern.

cruise ship sinks

One navy diver went to organise the helicopter rescue at the rear of the ship and Tracy and Moss were to organise a second at the front. But as the ship sank ever lower beneath the waves, people began jumping off the steeply pitching deck in panic and a rigid inflatable had to be launched into the churning sea to rescue them. "We'd let them go, off into the night, and they would just drift away into the pounding waves," he says. "The people in the lifeboats had a torturous time - they were getting deluged in spray, it was cold and completely dark, but we just had to carry on until all of the starboard side lifeboats were launched." Moss and the others had no idea how to evacuate a cruise ship, nor how to launch the lifeboats which hung high above the deck along each of the ship's sides, but there was nobody more qualified around to do it. In a statement to WCIV, a Carnival spokesperson said that “the weather and rough seas on Saturday” impacted the ship’s return to Charleston.

During this time, work also began to remove the vessel in what was the largest maritime salvage operation in history. It was not until September 2013 that the 114,000-ton Concordia was finally righted. The 19-hour process involved specially built underwater platforms, cranes, and some 500 people. In July 2014 the Concordia—outfitted with a number of steel containers serving as flotation devices—was towed to Genoa, Italy, where it was dismantled for scrap. 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.

It’s important to note that every incident is different, and the response may vary depending on the specifics of the situation. "As we were hovering above the ship it really hit me," Moss says, "I could see the Oceanos was in a critical situation. We could see waves breaking over the bow where we had been rescuing people." More than three hours passed before the first rescue helicopter arrived and hovered above the ship.

cruise ship sinks

The stats show that sinkings are exceptionally rare, and even when they do happen there are plenty of safety procedures in place. She sank just two years later due to an engine room fire on 20th May 1999 which cut all power, resulting in the ship going down the following morning at around 1 am. With modern safety procedures in place, the entirety of the ship’s passengers and crew (1,090 total) were evacuated with no casualties. She sank in 1927 off the coast of Brazil when a propeller shaft broke and damaged the hull of the ship. She sank slowly, but there was some confusion on board which meant that 314 people died of the 1,252 passengers and crew on the ship.

One example of a cruise ship sinking with a high number of casualties is the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. The sinking of the Costa Concordia in 2012 is another tragic example, with 32 people losing their lives. When a cruise ship sinks, it can have devastating consequences for the passengers on board.

They undergo extensive training and are equipped with the knowledge and tools necessary to respond quickly and effectively in case of an emergency. In most cases, cruise ships are designed with safety in mind and undergo rigorous testing and inspections to ensure they can withstand various weather conditions and potential hazards. Additionally, the crew is trained extensively in emergency procedures and evacuation protocols to ensure the safety of passengers in the event of an emergency. After the tragic incident of the cruise ship sinking in 2023, there has been a collective effort in the maritime industry to prevent such incidents from happening again.

The cause was excessive flooding, which was believed to have been caused by freak waves breaking apart a ventilation pipe that had been insufficiently repaired. Eventually sold to Costa Line, the forerunner company of Costa Cruises, she was given the name Bianca C. She sank for a second time in 1961 after an explosion in the engine room. The explosion killed one crew member but everyone else made it off the ship. Andrea Doria was struck by another ship, the Stockholm, and immediately began to list heavily which made many of the lifeboats inaccessible. She first launched in 1930 and was formally completed in 1931, and served as an ocean liner sailing from Canada to Europe for nine years. Her sister ship, Principessa Jolanda, actually sank earlier and would be on this list if I’d gone back slightly further, but she capsized and sank as she was launched in 1907.

Eventually, Moss found the captain, right at the back of the ship, smoking in the darkness. "I was calling, 'Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!' and just waiting for somebody to answer," Moss says. "In the effort to try and rescue people we were possibly going to kill them," Moss says. Two months after the ship ran aground, no trace remains of the MS Seascape in the ocean – but the work continues.

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