Tag Archives: Concordia

Costa Concordia refloating scheduled to happen in June

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By Tom Stieghorst

Concordia wreckItalian authorities and Costa Cruises executives held a briefing in Italy updating the progress on refloating the Costa Concordia.

The update comes a few days before the second anniversary of the partial sinking of the Costa ship.

Engineers pulled the Concordia upright last fall and are preparing to refloat the ship before towing it to port to be scrapped.

Project managers are targeting June to move the wreck from Giglio Island to an as-yet-unknown destination. Prior to that, they will attach another 19 sponsons to the hull.

The plan calls for sponsons to be fastened to the ship in April. Then water will be pumped out of the tank-like sponsons, providing buoyancy to raise the ship off its fabricated platform about 30 meters below the surface to a depth of about 18.5 meters.

A total of 2042.5 cubic meters of fuel and 240 cubic meters of sewage were removed from the ship last March, along with 240 tons of material from the seabed, according to the project briefing materials.

Authorities initially contacted 30 salvage companies and are in the process of picking one. The field has been winnowed to companies from Italy, France, Norway, the U.K. and Turkey, with final selection expected in early March.

The project has a $30 million option to retain the Dockwise Vanguard, the world’s largest semi-submersible vessel, as an alternative for transporting Concordia.

About 60% of the direct spending on the recovery (about 261 million euros) has benefited Italy, with another 21% of the benefits flowing to the U.S., 12% to the U.K., 3.8% to the Netherlands and 2.6% to Germany, the project said.

It estimated the overall impact on Italy’s GDP at 540 million euros.

Concordia captain’s lover admits to being on bridge

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Concordia captain’s lover admits to being on bridge

A woman claiming to be the lover of Captain Francesco Schettino has told the court in his manslaughter case that she was on the bridge with him when the Concordia ran aground last January.

The tragedy resulted in the deaths of 32 people when the ship veered too close to the coast of the island of Giglio and a large hole was ripped in the hull.

Subsequently, the ship partially sank and reports suggest that a series of errors were made in the immediate aftermath of the accident and in the way that the evacuation was handled.

Schettino is currently on trial for manslaughter and abandoning ship, with his first mate already testifying that it was immediately clear the ship would need to be evacuated, even though the captain took no such action for approximately one hour following the collision.

Now, further damning evidence has come to light, with Moldovan dancer Dominica Cemortan testifying that she was in a romantic relationship with the captain and was present on the bridge when the Concordia ran aground.

She claims that she was invited to join the captain as he oversaw a close sail-past the island that ultimately resulted in tragedy, and media outlets in Italy have been quick to suggest that Captain Schettino may have been distracted by her presence or, worse, even showing off in order to impress her.

Ms Cemortan added while on the stand that she had joined the ship hours before the collision without paying for a ticket, stating: “When you are someone’s lover, no-one asks you for a ticket.” However, she then dismissed the comment, claiming it was a joke to her translator.

She told the court that once the evacuation started, the captain told her to “save herself”, and that she helped other passengers into lifeboats before evacuating herself. The case is on-going.

Charges of evidence tampering filed in Concordia shipwreck

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Charges of evidence tampering filed in Concordia shipwreck

Official press release.

(ANSA) – Grosseto, October 7 – Italian consumer group Codacons announced on Monday it filed charges of evidence manipulation in the Costa Concordia shipwreck probe and delivered the complaint to prosecutors in the Tuscan city of Grosseto.

The trial resumed on Monday of ex-captain Francesco Schettino who was in command of the giant cruiser when it smashed into a rock formation on Giglio Island off the Tuscan coast, on January 13, 2012, causing one of Italy’s largest maritime disasters.

Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter and dereliction of duty for his role in the shipwreck that killed 32, forced the evacuation of thousands onboard, and caused massive economic damage to Costa Cruises and to Giglio Island, a popular Tuscan tourist destination where the massive ship crashed.

Codacons’ charges concern maintenance records that Costa Cruises delivered to experts during their appraisal of the evidence. ”Specifically, it concerns files related to compulsory tests for the emergency generator, to be performed weekly,” Codacons announced in a note.

”Precisely those related to 10 weeks before the accident – were modified two months after the accident, on March 13, 2012,” Codacons continued. Codacons complained that the values were changed ”all at the same time, in other words within a few dozen seconds, moreover with the insertion of identical values, such as for the temperature of the water and the temperature of the oil”.

”Malfunctioning of the emergency generator (was) a possible cause or secondary cause of the tragic epilogue of the shipwreck in terms of human lives, and is one of the main aspects that Codacons has been fighting from the beginning of the trial, and evidently it is not by chance that the alterations of the data concern precisely that front,” Codacons claimed.

The consumer group called on the Grosseto prosecutor’s office to open an urgent investigation into related facts and relative responsibilities, as well as called for the immediate seizure of documentation