Concordia News: Please Post Here

[Uniall]

In an emergency situation, crew, who are trained to open elevators manually in emergency lighting, should be dispatched to check every elevator. It's even more outrageous, considering the orders sent from the bridge were "Everything is OK, go back to your cabins."

 

These issues were not on the Captain's mind. He was only interest in himself.

[sidari]

Uni ... It is one thing to open a lift/elevator that is at a floor or landing, it is totaly different when it is between floors and unseen! and as the emergency lighting generator failed sadly those people were never going to be found regardless of what orders were or were not being given.

 

Doors on lifts/elevators in commercial buildings or tower flats can be opened using a lift key in order to see where the lift car is positioned, there are some lift cars that are programmed to return to a given floor which could be dangerous in the event of a fire. I doubt that cruise ships have this type.

 

The only people who would likely be trained in persons marooned in lifts on a ship would likely be the engineering department.

Edited March 3, 2014 by sidari

[Uniall]

Uni ... It is one thing to open a lift/elevator that is at a floor or landing, it is totaly different when it is between floors and unseen! and as the emergency lighting generator failed sadly those people were never going to be found regardless of what orders were or were not being given.

 

The only people who would likely be trained in persons marooned in lifts on a ship would likely be the engineering department.

 

That's true but there's a lot of cross over training: Carpenters, Pipe Fitters, Plumbers, Electricians, Jacks of all trades. It strikes me that some passengers will be trapped in an elevtor in almost all emegencies and there should be a team trained to check on it just as there is suppose to be a team that checks all cabins listed with handicapped passengers. TV monitors operating on the emergency power system could also do the job.

Edited March 3, 2014 by Uniall

[sidari]

Uni ... With certain things on a cruise ship cross over training could become dangerous, expecting say a waiter to rescue someone confined in a lift/elevator with minimal training is just asking for trouble as i am sure you would agree.

 

It would be interesting to know who is actually tasked with checking them in the event of a blackout situation and who is tasked with releasing anyone confined.

[Uniall]

Uni ... With certain things on a cruise ship cross over training could become dangerous, expecting say a waiter to rescue someone confined in a lift/elevator with minimal training is just asking for trouble as i am sure you would agree.

 

It would be interesting to know who is actually tasked with checking them in the event of a blackout situation and who is tasked with releasing anyone confined.

 

Sid

 

While I agree with you on the macro level, I strongly disagree on the micro level.

 

I have met many mechanics (jacks of all trades) on cruises who had been cabin stewards or waiters on previous cruises and applied for a transfer to Engineering Department (Hotel Maintenance on a few cruise lines) from Houskeeping or Food and Beverage departments.

 

Furthermore, many of these stewards/waiters are well trained in assisting the specialized fire fighting teams, emergency medical teams, and life boat crews. There's no reason they can't assist eleveator evac, as well.

[qtlikeme]

Uni ... It is one thing to open a lift/elevator that is at a floor or landing, it is totaly different when it is between floors and unseen! and as the emergency lighting generator failed sadly those people were never going to be found regardless of what orders were or were not being given.

 

Doors on lifts/elevators in commercial buildings or tower flats can be opened using a lift key in order to see where the lift car is positioned, there are some lift cars that are programmed to return to a given floor which could be dangerous in the event of a fire. I doubt that cruise ships have this type.

 

The only people who would likely be trained in persons marooned in lifts on a ship would likely be the engineering department.

 

The emergency lighting generator was functioning for more than 2 hours after the impact!! Lights were on in the hallways and public areas of the ship as bright as they would be with the regular power system. Our photographs taken in the lifeboat area, while we waited for the call to evacuate and from the pier after we made it ashore, show plenty of lights still bright and glowing in the night until at least 11:40! Our friends, who started their swim from the ship around midnight have stated that at this point there was minimal light on the lifeboat deck or elsewhere on the ship. I find it a hard fact to accept that no one in authority thought that perhaps there were passengers trapped in the elevators and no one was assigned to check the elevators for trapped passengers! I will be avoiding using cruise ship elevators from now on!!

[Tonka's Skipper]

I cannot speak for the Concordia, however on vessels I have sailed on with elevators,(which were few), the elevators, upon losing power or the emergency alarm is sounded, is designed to

drop to the next floor and the doors open. There were signs telling folks not to use the elevators during emergencies. There was a team or individual of CM's who were assigned to make sure the elevator was empty.

 

If there was no crew team assigned to check and open the doors on the elevators, here is another area where Costa Line operations and safety/emergency plans were faulty, maybe even criminally .

 

AKK

Edited March 4, 2014 by Tonka's Skipper

[Uniall]

I cannot speak for the Concordia' date=' however on vessels I have sailed on with elevators,(which were few), the elevators, upon losing power or the emergency alarm is sounded, is designed to

drop to the next floor and the doors open. There were signs telling folks not to use the elevators during emergencies. There was a team or individual of CM's who were assigned to make sure the elevator was empty.

 

If there was no crew team assigned to check and open the doors on the elevators, here is another area where Costa Line operations and safety/emergency plans were faulty, maybe even criminally .

 

AKK[/quote']

 

Skipper

 

Your right on target. The additional fact that makes your charges more damning is the people were told the emergency was over and to go back to their cabins. Most people would interpret that to mean they could use the elevators, again.

 

John

[sidari]

Tonka .... Long time no see .... :) The generator i believe on Concordia was not a big unit and used to primarily power emergency lighting, given the number of lifts on the ship would it be possible for the unit to provide power them ? apart from lighting that is.

 

The issue of a lift dropping to a given floor is that there is no way of knowing if there is a fire on the other side! imagine it, the doors open and you are confronted with a fire and no way to get away from it. not a sensible option.

 

Uni ... I was making the point that you would not expect a waiter to carry out the actual job of releasing people from being confined in a lift nor would they likely know where the Lunar keys for the doors were assuming of course that ship lift doors require them in order for them to be opened, helping out others qualified to do the job yes i agree.

 

As Tonka stated most people would or should know not to use a lift in an emergency, maybe the lifts should have been immobilised right away as they can be on land by use of the Firemans switch, but even then there could still be people in the lift car.

[SomeBeach]

Here's my take.

When the alarm sounds for a drill crew are stationed at the elevators to prevent people from using them. There was no alarm. People were being told that it was an electrical issue, go about their business, back to their rooms. Now that would tell me that I wouldn't want to get into an elevator but maybe some folks felt it was ok to use since back up generators had come on.

My question would be were the elevators still working with the back up or were they knocked out from the get go?

 

The other thing I'm not clear on comes from this sentence in the article linked here. I know some things are lost in translation and I haven't found another article that offers a better explanation.

"In the vain of lifts become traps that night had died some passengers." - See more at: http://131.253.14.98/proxy.ashx?h=HkvmO4EZYsoRiDF5BSaMWNo8nJrYwlCs&a=http%3A%2F%2Fdreamblog.it%2F2014%2F03%2F03%2Fconcordia-tendine-bloccate-il-giallo-sulla-nave-ora-e-nel-locale-dge%2F#sthash.YImbXMZP.dpuf

 

The word "vain" throws me off. I'm wondering if that could mean vein or shaft and not necessarily the elevators itself. The article stated that some doors were closed, some open, and some at angles. Now it's a matter of determining if these passengers were trapped from the initial power loss or did they fall through open doors into the shaft when the ship capsized.

 

I'm trying to recall where the little girl was found. It seems that she, with her father and a few others, were the ones found in an area of an elevator. I recall that it was a very difficult area to remove them from but can't recall if it was ever confirmed that it was from in an elevator or shaft.

What we do know is that the girl and her father were at lifeboats (his girlfriend got on one) but they ran back to their room for the dad to get his meds. At that point I believe the alarm had sounded so the elevators should not been in use.

[Tonka's Skipper]

Tonka .... Long time no see .... :) The generator i believe on Concordia was not a big unit and used to primarily power emergency lighting, given the number of lifts on the ship would it be possible for the unit to provide power them ? apart from lighting that is.

 

The issue of a lift dropping to a given floor is that there is no way of knowing if there is a fire on the other side! imagine it, the doors open and you are confronted with a fire and no way to get away from it. not a sensible option.

 

Uni ... I was making the point that you would not expect a waiter to carry out the actual job of releasing people from being confined in a lift nor would they likely know where the Lunar keys for the doors were assuming of course that ship lift doors require them in order for them to be opened, helping out others qualified to do the job yes i agree.

 

As Tonka stated most people would or should know not to use a lift in an emergency, maybe the lifts should have been immobilised right away as they can be on land by use of the Firemans switch, but even then there could still be people in the lift car.

 

Hey there Sid!

 

The elevators do not work on emergency power, except the lighting. When the power goes off and the emergency comes on the elevator drops to the next floor and the doors open or are released and can of pushed open.

 

While I agree the idea of the fire is scary, its not likely to be right in the area of the elevator you just got on too. At least sensible folks would or should not get on a elevator in a area smoky or on fire.

 

AKK

[watertheodds]

Below is the translation about the elevators from the article being discussed:

 

The elevators . Have been viewed as a stern and those amidships , from 7 bridge , at the water , up to 10 or even 11 . Some were found with the doors open , some closed doors , some with doors deformed likely since the overthrow of the ship. In the elevator shafts become traps that night some passengers had lost their lives . Down there , at the edge of the stair ramps are visible bags with labels bearing the name of the owner, a shoe, clothing , ornaments of various kinds: objects that the height of the tides periodically moves and who have found themselves out of place since the night of 13 January 2012, when the giant was tilted on its right side . The other day there were , say those who have inspected the sites, so yesterday , today no one knows tomorrow they might occur others. Climbing and descending to the lower floors , those who made the journey felt underfoot the floor soaked with water.

[SomeBeach]

Below is the translation about the elevators from the article being discussed:

 

The elevators . Have been viewed as a stern and those amidships , from 7 bridge , at the water , up to 10 or even 11 . Some were found with the doors open , some closed doors , some with doors deformed likely since the overthrow of the ship. In the elevator shafts become traps that night some passengers had lost their lives . Down there , at the edge of the stair ramps are visible bags with labels bearing the name of the owner, a shoe, clothing , ornaments of various kinds: objects that the height of the tides periodically moves and who have found themselves out of place since the night of 13 January 2012, when the giant was tilted on its right side . The other day there were , say those who have inspected the sites, so yesterday , today no one knows tomorrow they might occur others. Climbing and descending to the lower floors , those who made the journey felt underfoot the floor soaked with water.

 

Thank you Water. Your translation site is much better than what I have. Up until an upgrade on my puter a few months back I had a much better translation site than I currently do.

 

Reading what you have it seems that they were found in the shaft. I do remember that some time had passed before they were found and removal was difficult.

[watertheodds]

Yes, my thoughts are that when water came through the ships interior, people were swept into the shafts. I don't comment here very often but I remember this being (over)discussed when CostaSmurfette was on this thread. At the time I found it hard to believe people were left in elevator cars for the entire evacuation period or that the elevators did not have safety features in place to bring them to a floor and open the doors when power is lost. At the time of the first round of discussion on this topic I did extensive research on all the articles posted online regarding victims being located within the actual cars trapped and found nothing conclusive.

 

That having been said I certainly would not question someone that was on the Concordia that fateful night and has direct knowledge it is true.

[Uniall]

Thank you Water. Your translation site is much better than what I have. Up until an upgrade on my puter a few months back I had a much better translation site than I currently do.

 

Reading what you have it seems that they were found in the shaft. I do remember that some time had passed before they were found and removal was difficult.

 

Not to worry, you displayed great perception at decoding "vain" which should have be spelled "vein" to mean elevator "shaft". ;)

[Tonka's Skipper]

Well we are in March......I would expect some more activity soon!

 

AKK

[Mike.Minh]

Hey there Sid!

 

The elevators do not work on emergency power' date=' except the lighting. When the power goes off and the emergency comes on the elevator drops to the next floor and the doors open or are released and can of pushed open.

 

AKK[/quote']

 

I am not sure that I like the notion of "dropping" to a lower floor, and here is why. I have no specific tech knowledge about the type of elevator used on ships, but given the usual counterweight, it takes the same amount of energy (power) to move an elevator car up or down. Dropping sounds like "letting go" whilst applying brakes. An empty elevator would by principle not move, if the weight of passengers for an occupied car is enough to make it move is something to ask engineers who have more knowledge than I have. The energy required is the energy to accelerate/brake a mass, not to lift it up/down. Big difference.

 

This theory flies partially out of the window if hydraulic elevators are used.

[watertheodds]

This article is a little clearer version of the Italian news story we have been translating.

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/27/4727166/captain-of-shipwrecked-cruise.html

[sidari]

Mike ... In the UK for people confined within a lift car and release is required you have to go up and into the lift motor room and turn off the power to the affected lift car. If the counterwright is below the lift car you would manually wind the lift car upwards, if it is above the lift car you would wind the car down, the brake is lifted manaually by one person who would then re apply it once the lift car has been manually wound to the desired level. It is far easier to manually wind a car down than up for obvious reasons.

 

The power is always left off until such time that an engineer can check what went wrong with it, with Hydraulic lifts the motor room is always on the ground floor and the lift car can be lowered by bleeding the hydraulic fluid bank into the holding tank which allows the hydraulic ram to lower the car.

 

Most lift car brakes are applied when there is a power loss holding it where it stops.

[SomeBeach]

This article is a little clearer version of the Italian news story we have been translating.

 

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/02/27/4727166/captain-of-shipwrecked-cruise.html

 

I think the Chief Prosecutor has made his position pretty clear. He's going for what Schettino did (and didn't do) that led to the tragedy and not what the ship did in it's final hour.

 

Water, I want to add I do recall that you looked into the elevator situation way back when, as did I. At the time, we agreed it was the shaft.

Also seem to recall that some sort of platform was constructed in the area on the outside of the ship to enable divers to access the area of the shaft.

[Tonka's Skipper]

There is a short note in the new Marine log, that quotes the environmental Minister from Italy as saying that there are about 12 companies, from 6 nations that are bidding on the scrapping of the Concordia.

 

He also stated, that the Italian government would prefer (not require) that the scrapping be done by a domestic company.

 

I believe the realities of the requires to scrap a vessel of this size is settling in.

It requires a lot of space and specialized operations and its not cheap. As far as I know, Italy does not have a scrap yard that big/specailized to do the job.

 

AKK

[Ken711]

There is a short note in the new Marine log' date=' that quotes the environmental Minister from Italy as saying that there are about 12 companies, from 6 nations that are bidding on the scrapping of the Concordia.

 

He also stated, that the Italian government would prefer (not require) that the scrapping be done by a domestic company.

 

I believe the realities of the requires to scrap a vessel of this size is settling in.

It requires a lot of space and specialized operations and its not cheap. As far as I know, Italy does not have a scrap yard that big/specailized to do the job.

 

AKK[/quote']

 

Also check the latest weekly report. Some interesting photos of the port side bumpers that the sponsons will attach to.

 

http://www.giglionews.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/rel_sett_osservatorio020314.pdf

[Tonka's Skipper]

I am not sure that I like the notion of "dropping" to a lower floor, and here is why. I have no specific tech knowledge about the type of elevator used on ships, but given the usual counterweight, it takes the same amount of energy (power) to move an elevator car up or down. Dropping sounds like "letting go" whilst applying brakes. An empty elevator would by principle not move, if the weight of passengers for an occupied car is enough to make it move is something to ask engineers who have more knowledge than I have. The energy required is the energy to accelerate/brake a mass, not to lift it up/down. Big difference.

 

This theory flies partially out of the window if hydraulic elevators are used.

 

Hi Mike,

 

I referred to *dropping* as lowering a few feet to the next deck/floor. The elevators are designed to do just that. Not *drop* like to the bottom of the shaft.

 

Hydraulic or electrical, the design is the same, to safely *lower* the elevator to the next floor/deck. In fact hydraulic would likely be easier to engineer, just release the oil pressure.

 

AKK

[Tonka's Skipper]

Also check the latest weekly report. Some interesting photos of the port side bumpers that the sponsons will attach to.

 

http://www.giglionews.it/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/rel_sett_osservatorio020314.pdf

 

 

 

They are also cutting off the rudders, most likely to make the tow easier.

 

AKK

[SomeBeach]

First, sorry for the boo boo in my last post. Should have been *its* and not "it's."

 

This link has a quote from Schettino's lawyer. As I said in my last post, the prosecutor is going after Schettino and not the ship. Schettino's lawyer is blaming the ship for the loss of lives.

 

http://www.inquisitr.com/1153285/costa-concordia-captain-returns-to-the-ship-claims-ive-taken-responsibility-for-my-actions/

 

Not showing this to start a lawyer bashing bunch of comments. This would be what a lawyer is suppose to do for his client.

John, would this be an attempt at casting "reasonable doubt" to get his client off?