A Concordia Crew Member Posts on Facebook

[Jimsgirl]

No one in any report has mentioned if or when an announcement was made from the bridge advising the passengers to go to their muster stations, for the crew to lower or at least place the lifeboats into the lowering position, or the final call to "abandon ship".

 

There was several hours between the collision, and the time passengers were actually being able to get into the lifeboats. Evacuation measures could have been taken in that time, but clearly were not.

 

It seems that during that time no guidance was given to either crew or passengers, and no attempt to evacuate, even as a precaution , so one can only assume there was chaos on the bridge.

 

Had the Captain been drinking?

 

I know that several years ago, a cruise ship (believe it was a Celebrity ship) was IN PORT (it was embarkation day) on the West coast, the US Coast Guard did a "spot inspection", they smelt liquor on his breath as they spoke with the Captain, and he was arrested on the spot, and taken off the ship in handcuffs.

 

The ship sailed with the Deputy Captain in charge.

 

As I wrote in another posting I doubt if we will ever really be told the truth, evidence will be given behind closed doors (as in Grand Jury procedures), and you know that the company will bring out the spin doctors to protect their bonuses, their pensions and stock options.

[PelicanBill]

Remember this is how it happened from her point of view - and we have to believe that many crew members are trained and did their best. She may not have know when she posted that there were still hundreds aboard when the last lifeboat got away, and that the captain left long before the last people were airlifted at 3am. And she may not have see the firsthand reports of overcrowding on lifeboats, panic, and crew members unable to operate the lifeboats or lifeboat cranes.

 

Every story will be different, and we must remember that every person aboard went through trauma. People respond in many different ways to such trauma. Two people who left that ship together could tell very different stories.

[gentlemancruiser]

Exactly WHEN do these happen? I have been a passenger many times on different lines and WORKED for months on ships as crew and have NEVER seen this happen once! Not saying it doesn't but I have never seen, heard of or experienced a whole passenger evacution safety drill....ever.

 

I have to agree with SakeDad

In all of my 18 cruises, I've never seen a muster drill or passengers drill where passengers were lowered in lifeboats.

From what I know putting passengers into lifeboats high above the waterline is a very risky manover and I would assume it would only be done after a Captains order to abondon ship. I'm sure the crew have pratice drills and I've seen them, but I can't see passengers participating.

[nycruiser80]

Although they don't practice in those conditions (obviously) - they do practice loading the lifeboats with all the passengers and lowering them into the water. It's a well documented activity by cruise pax who have to go through it.

 

Granted, loading 4000 calm but annoyed people in a drill is totally different then loading 4000 panicked, screaming people on a sinking vessel... So I guess they never really practice it in that scenereo of course, but they do practice it in a drill manner. I know it's not entirely compatible but no safety practice can completely prepare you for the real thing.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

They actually do evacuation drills with passengers? Anytime I have seen evacuation/safety drills it was crew only drills. During such drills they do a safety drill and then unload and sail only one side of the lifeboats. I was told on the next sailing they unload and sail the other side of the lifeboats. I wasn't aware that they involve the passengers in it. I have been on 30 cruises and I havn't seen it yet but I know that anything is possible.

 

I just think on the Concordia the crew did not work well as a cohesive group. Direction comes from the top and it seems the captain may have lacked that. I recall the Star Princess fire a few years back. Supposedly it was chaotic but according to passengers everyone was at their muster station rather quickly and the crew, despite the chaos, seemed to know what they were doing and what there roll was. They never abandoned ship but I beleive they were close in doing so. Also once everyone was assembled into their muster station the captain came on and addressed them. If you search it on youtube you will find his address and see the passenger sitting in their muster stations awaiting further instructions. I guess it has to come down to how the crew works together.

[van-lop]

I don't think that the crew has any blame on this incident. Probably they were as frightened as all the passengers. They are there to make a living, not because they enjoy cruising. The only person to blame is the captain!! Why, why, with all the technology that we have now he was in the wrong place. We own a 50 feet yatch and is amazing all the technology, now imagine a cruise liner. That thing that the rock was not on the charts, sorry Mr. that's not true!

[Cyber Kat]

We were on a cruise last June and they made an announcement that they would be doing a drill with the crew members - so people wouldn't panic. They actually put crew members - not passengers - into a life boat and lowered it. I recall one of the crew telling us that they do it periodically, so they know what to do beyond showing up at the muster station.

[Capricruiser]

I think there is crew and there is crew. That is, the waiters and stewards all receive some basic emergency training but there are select crew members that are responsible for the more demanding tasks in an emergency. I suspect that passengers that reported lack of help from "the crew" may have been seeing the poor waiters, cabin stewards, laundry workers, etc. who were just as afraid and confused as they were. On the other hand it was probably the officers (captain excluded perhaps) and staff personnel who directed the evacuation of both passengers and lower ranking crew members.

[peteinsonj]

Not that I'm the world's most experienced cruiser, but while there may not be life boat drills with passengers entering them, I do recall on the inaugural Crown Princess cruise that once we were at port, the crew did in fact do a drill where they lowered at least a number of lifeboats. (not the tenders)

 

Also, keep in mind, that many of the "lifeboats" are also used as tenders, and as such the crew should be very experienced loading and getting them to shore safely.

 

Of course, I cannot imagine they ever drilled like this with the ship listing.

[wingnt68]

Nobody is disputing the fact that the passengers who just boarded did not participate in a muster drill, but most of the passengers on board were finishing up their cruise and had completed it. As has been posted many times, this particular cruise allows passengers to embark at several ports along the way.

 

I think if they scheduled a muster drill at every embarkation passengers would complain. Would you like if everything had to stop 5 times per cruise for a muster drill? (maybe that's what needs to happen)

 

 

I have NEVER been on a cruise that we didn't do a muster station drill BEFORE we left the dock. I think it should be mandatory.

[gentlemancruiser]

Not that I'm the world's most experienced cruiser, but while there may not be life boat drills with passengers entering them, I do recall on the inaugural Crown Princess cruise that once we were at port, the crew did in fact do a drill where they lowered at least a number of lifeboats. (not the tenders)

 

Also, keep in mind, that many of the "lifeboats" are also used as tenders, and as such the crew should be very experienced loading and getting them to shore safely.

 

Of course, I cannot imagine they ever drilled like this with the ship listing.

 

It would be the deck officers who were operating the life boats. Not sure if during the emergency on Concordia they would have been distracted by dealing with the hole in the hull first. Who knows.

I still believe had the Captain properly assessed the situation at the start and preapred passengers while there was still plenty of time there may no have been so many complaints about how the evacuation went.

[Misten]

http://www.news.com.au/world/going-down-with-the-ship-not-this-captain/story-e6frfkyi-1226244699740

"Asked on the news channel SkyTG24 whether captain Francesco Schettino, arrested on Satruday for multiple homicide, had left the liner "well before all the passengers were evacuated", prosecutor Francesco Verusio replied: "Unfortunately I can confirm that..."

 

 

 

It could be right, but it just could be a view of the Prosecutor who is there to procure a guilty verdict, not to point out the Captain's possible innocence.

 

If the Defense lawyer had said the same thing, then it would be a far different matter.

 

And again, IF the journalists are elaborating on the events, it is possible that the prosecutor did not use QUITE that wording, or simply that it was 'can't' not 'can' but difficult to distinguish as presumably he spoke with a foreign accent.

 

Its early days yet. The truth will out eventually.

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

Although they don't practice in those conditions (obviously) - they do practice loading the lifeboats with all the passengers and lowering them into the water. It's a well documented activity by cruise pax who have to go through it.

 

Granted, loading 4000 calm but annoyed people in a drill is totally different then loading 4000 panicked, screaming people on a sinking vessel... So I guess they never really practice it in that scenereo of course, but they do practice it in a drill manner. I know it's not entirely compatible but no safety practice can completely prepare you for the real thing.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Can you direct us to a reference to this? My experience is limited to a few cruiselines, but it goes back a long ways across a lot of ground and a lot of cruises...and I haven't ever seen this. Lifeboat drills are done -- with crew -- on most every voyage I can remember. But, it's been announced that the crew is drilling and passengers are specifically instructed to disregard the announcements that are not intended for them.

 

On the other hand...I'm sure many of us have seen virtually the entire company of passengers tendered to shore; is that perhaps what you're thinking of?

[peteinsonj]

Can you direct us to a reference to this? My experience is limited to a few cruiselines, but it goes back a long ways across a lot of ground and a lot of cruises...and I haven't ever seen this. Lifeboat drills are done -- with crew -- on most every voyage I can remember. But, it's been announced that the crew is drilling and passengers are specifically instructed to disregard the announcements that are not intended for them.

 

On the other hand...I'm sure many of us have seen virtually the entire company of passengers tendered to shore; is that perhaps what you're thinking of?

 

Perhaps the OP is thinking about the TENDERS (that are also used as lifeboats)? Those are used at many ports of call.

 

I have never seen actual passengers put in lifeboats as a drill. I cannot imagine that being done.

[ObscureAllure]

Exactly WHEN do these happen? I have been a passenger many times on different lines and WORKED for months on ships as crew and have NEVER seen this happen once! Not saying it doesn't but I have never seen, heard of or experienced a whole passenger evacution safety drill....ever.

 

 

My grandfather who is an avid cruiser was a part of one of these drills on the Conquest recently here in the port of New Orleans (their last cruise - so with in the last monthish?) and he described to me how hard it was to get on the lifeboat (he's a robust 80) but that it was "exciting" either way... Unless they called it a drill and it was something else entirely - I'm going to believe him. People have also posted pictures of the drills where they lower the lifeboats here on the forums, but I am not aware as it if those contained people or not.

 

Maybe I should correct it to say I know that they do drills with lowering the lifeboats and in at least this one case I am told by my grandfather that they boarded... but I just assumed since he did it, it was standard practice when then the the lifeboat drills to put passengers inside. I have no idea, just going off of what he said - that in their drill he got ON the lifeboat.

[ObscureAllure]

Can you direct us to a reference to this? My experience is limited to a few cruiselines, but it goes back a long ways across a lot of ground and a lot of cruises...and I haven't ever seen this. Lifeboat drills are done -- with crew -- on most every voyage I can remember. But, it's been announced that the crew is drilling and passengers are specifically instructed to disregard the announcements that are not intended for them.

 

On the other hand...I'm sure many of us have seen virtually the entire company of passengers tendered to shore; is that perhaps what you're thinking of?

 

This might have been what he was referring to? He described it to me as the lifeboat drill and since I have seen so many people post pictures of the lifeboat drills I just assumed he was correct... but again he's 80. He could be confusing the two or combining the two. My apologies if I stated it incorrectly - I am only going off of what he said! :(

[pingata]

We'll see on Splendor in a couple months if people pay attention during muster. I do pay attention just in case. Never thought I'd see one of these modern cruise ships have to evacuate.

 

We sailed on Costa Atlantica 2 years ago, and recently on RCI Freedom of the seas. Incredibly enough, after all the comments I have been reading about the evacuation, our family always agreed that the best emergency drill we had was on the Costa Atlantica. It was almost a military drill!!!! The staff was reviewing our life jacket set-up tightening-up the belts, etc. The information was given in 6 languages!!!

 

This year on RCI, I was very surprised that we did NOT have to wear our life jackets. So I made sure we had all 4 in our cabin including 1 small for our 9 year old. Sure enough there was only 2!!!! I asked the steward 2 extra life jackets for the kids. They also did NOT demonstrate the evacuation alarm as it was previously done on the 5 other cruises we had done (Costa, Disney, Carnival).....

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

I guess I'm going to have to disagree about whether one report of one gentleman being loaded into a lifeboat and then lowered to the sea (a report that appears to need a little clarity about exactly what happened) is an example of a well-documented cruise activity.

 

I suspect an awful lot of people have had an exciting transfer into a tender/lifeboats -- stepping from the ship's tender dock onto the tender/lifeboat can certainly be very tricky no matter how agile or young you are. But, I have my doubts that an entire ship's company was involved in a drill where lifeboats were deployed from the davits. As always...my experience is limited to...my experience. :)

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

This might have been what he was referring to? He described it to me as the lifeboat drill and since I have seen so many people post pictures of the lifeboat drills I just assumed he was correct... but again he's 80. He could be confusing the two or combining the two. My apologies if I stated it incorrectly - I am only going off of what he said! :(

 

I didn't see this post until after I made my previous post, sorry. But, I think the mystery is solved.

[Misten]

Who do we believe?

 

"The chairman and CEO of Genoa-based Costa Cruises, Pier Luigi Foschi, says his company maintains high security, safety and quality standards. In the case of the grounded Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia, Foschi said he was not aware of 'serious' human errors, but says his company had never cut costs at the expense of safety"

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2012/jan/16/costa-cruises-ship-safety-video

[mousey]

COMPLETELY AGREE 100%!

 

As sad as this horrible incident is and even losing one life, I am at the least happy that the vast majority made it out alive. It could have been so much worse and thanks to the people who helped rescue people (crew, passengers, residents of the city, emergency workers, all of the people who helped!) it was a miraculously better than it could have been.

 

THANK YOU to everyone who helped in this situation and to the crew who helped. I hope this girl from FB knows that there are many people out there who understand the monumentous effort they put forth and the impact it had in the survivors. I'm definitely one of them!

 

 

 

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I totally agree with you. I don't think it is a good thing to rush to judgement until all the facts are in. There are many upset people right now, and rightfully so, who are saying things that they may regret later. I'm just thankful for all the people that did the right thing on that small island in Italy and helped the people from the Concordia as best they could.

 

I pray for all the people involved in this terrible accident and hope that everyone that was hurt recovers fully and quickly and that those that are making their way home arrive safely without anymore trauma. I pray for the souls of those that were lost and their family and friends.

 

Peace to all.

[maxsales]

"Asked on the news channel SkyTG24 whether captain Francesco Schettino, arrested on Satruday for multiple homicide, had left the liner "well before all the passengers were evacuated", prosecutor Francesco Verusio replied: "Unfortunately I can confirm that..."

 

 

 

It could be right, but it just could be a view of the Prosecutor who is there to procure a guilty verdict, not to point out the Captain's possible innocence.

 

If the Defense lawyer had said the same thing, then it would be a far different matter.

 

And again, IF the journalists are elaborating on the events, it is possible that the prosecutor did not use QUITE that wording, or simply that it was 'can't' not 'can' but difficult to distinguish as presumably he spoke with a foreign accent.

 

Its early days yet. The truth will out eventually.

 

Sorry can't agree with your statement. I seriously doubt that the prosecutor would perjure himself in an attempt to gain a guilty verdict. His statement "I am sorry I can confirm that" Indicates he had first had knowledge of the Captain leaving early. If he did not then he has left himself open to prosecution and civil suite.

[pingata]

I totally agree with you. I don't think it is a good thing to rush to judgement until all the facts are in. There are many upset people right now, and rightfully so, who are saying things that they may regret later. I'm just thankful for all the people that did the right thing on that small island in Italy and helped the people from the Concordia as best they could.

 

I pray for all the people involved in this terrible accident and hope that everyone that was hurt recovers fully and quickly and that those that are making their way home arrive safely without anymore trauma. I pray for the souls of those that were lost and their family and friends.

 

Peace to all.

 

 

Totally agree with you, and there is always so much to learn in such a terrible tragedy.

 

Actually, I had forgotten about the life jacket event on RCI I described below. So I just sent my comments to RCI stating that hopefully the Cruise Lines will review their procedures and policy. I believe everyone is very critical of Costa today, but it could be another cruise line tomorrow. Let's be pro-active and as paying passengers we have a lot to say, specially using this website.

 

I was also thinking what would have happened if we would have been onboard the Concordia. This was our kid's 6th cruise and they are 9 and 11 years old. So this year, we agreed to let them sign in and out of the Kid's Club as they wish. They had their friends, they were going as they pleased around the ship, and I always felt safe since they were wearing their bracelet with their Muster Station number, and the staff would help them in case of emergency. But in the Concordia's confusion, in the dark, who would have help them?? Families should have a plan, same as we have in our own home in case of fire.

[lakelady2451]

I also believe we've reached a point to where the muster drill is meaningless, at least to pax. It's a good exercise for crew, but I can't tell you the last time I saw any one passenger really paying attention to procedures..

 

We were on Hollands Eurodam Dec 3 and I was surprised at the attentiveness of the passengers. However the Captain set the pace. The passengers were being pretty good, then the captain announced that he takes the drill seriously and he still heard talking and it was not good. You could hear a pin drop after that. A few minutes later after he walked the entire promenade deck they dismissed us. Oh, one more thing, not having children I'm not sure if this applies to all ships, but I noticed the kids wore id bracelets.

[Misten]

Sorry can't agree with your statement. I seriously doubt that the prosecutor would perjure himself in an attempt to gain a guilty verdict. His statement "I am sorry I can confirm that" Indicates he had first had knowledge of the Captain leaving early. If he did not then he has left himself open to prosecution and civil suite.

 

I doubt perjury comes into it. He COULD have been quoted correctly, but it could have been a lack of perfect knowledge of English or a misinterpretation of Italian, or maybe even a little over-enthusiastic journalism (!) The captain hasn't been charged as yet and so the prosecutor might have been saying that he could NOT (can't) discuss the matter while the case is still being assessed - after all, there is the principle of Innocent until PROVEN guilty to be considered. Who knows?

 

In the meantime, a letter in the Press brings a few other considerations to light:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/letters/9016327/Blaming-collision-ships-captains-deters-recruits-to-the-merchant-navy.html

 

"SIR – It takes 20 years to gain the qualifications and experience to become a ship’s captain, twice as long as for an airline pilot.

 

A captain is responsible for the lives of up to 5,000, 10 times more than the airline pilot. He will be away from home for six months at a time, 70 times longer than the pilot. His salary will be less than a third.

 

If the pilot crashes his jumbo jet on landing and most passengers survive, he will be hailed a hero. If the captain’s ship hits an uncharted rock in the Channel, he will, as day follows night, be arrested.

 

Such criminalisation is now the primary reason why the merchant navy is unable to recruit and retain junior officers, and this situation has just got a whole lot worse".

[AirStang7]

We were on Hollands Eurodam Dec 3 and I was surprised at the attentiveness of the passengers. However the Captain set the pace. The passengers were being pretty good, then the captain announced that he takes the drill seriously and he still heard talking and it was not good. You could hear a pin drop after that. A few minutes later after he walked the entire promenade deck they dismissed us. Oh, one more thing, not having children I'm not sure if this applies to all ships, but I noticed the kids wore id bracelets.

Bracelets are required on all lines for children under a certain age, can't remember what age exactly.

I'm glad to know on your cruise the captain made a point. However, you mentioned one thing, it was HAL and we all know the demographics of HAL are far more 'mature' I guess you could say. Even the families with kids onboard are more likely to make sure they are respectful. Go on a Carnival ship and you'll see people letting their kids climb on rails like monkeys, to where crew has to tell them don't do it and instead you'll see the parents get after the crew for yelling at their precious children.

Now even if a drill is quiet, like say Carnival where they do tell people to shut up. It still doesn't mean they're paying attention, they're just patiently waiting to get back to the bar. I will say I'm shocked we didn't have a worse loss of life than we did with this current incident. I was truly expecting a triple digit loss in something such as this. So parts of the system are working quite well. And it's quite obvious that even without a drill we had a pretty successful event. Would having the drill earlier meant more survivors? We can't answer that, but I'll put my opinion in here that I think it's doubtful much would've changed. The fact is you really just have to be able to think and rationalize your way through such an event.