Concordia News: Please Post Here

[CostaSmurfette]

Oh and to correct an entry a few pages back in this thread....

 

Costa Crociere, Iberocruceros & AIDA have their flag registry in Genova, Italy and not Panama as stated in this thread. Carnival Cruise Lines register their ships in Panama, exception to that is Carnival Spirit which is registered in Malta.

 

Therefore, Concordia worked to the Italian regulations and as such the ship and it's crew fall entirely under the Italian judiciary system and the Italian investigative authorities with NTSB, MAIB etc invites to oversee, learn information and share expertise & discussion. Just as with Carnival Splendor, the Panamanians took primary investigative position with invited "guests" the NTSB et al when her engine controlroom suffered the fire a few years ago off Mexico.

 

Those of you wanting a quick resolution to the "blame game" should consider the aviation industry, which has a very similar setup to accident investigation procedures to the shipping industry.

 

When the Concorde crashed at Paris Orly in 2000, it was some 4 years before a report was finalised and released...then a further 6 years before any litigation reached the judiciary system. Concorde was far more "cut and dry" compared to Concordia, there were just two main nationalities involved, a French crew and mainly German/Swiss passengers who were flying to meet the cruise liner Deutschland in New York, the aircraft was on a special Deilmann charter flight at the time of the crash.

 

As someone who has studied air crashes in depth for over 35 years, I can honestly say that in all probability a preliminary report into Concordia might be released by the end of this year, however, the full report could take 2-3 years to compile and any litigation could take anything upto 5 years after the final report....the litigation will inevitably delay the compensation cases since the compensation cannot be settled until the definite causes of the accident have been agreed.

 

The snippets seen in the Italian media thusfar are not to be treated as official findings as they are literally snippets, often taken out of context....the Italian language is notoriously difficult to translate into English correctly and is frequently mistranslated and misunderstood.

[CostaSmurfette]

In relation to the webcam leaving the island....I believe the people of Giglio just want their lives back...and who can blame them, afterall, they have been front page news for almost 7 months, it has to get wearing after a time.

 

I seriously doubt there is any subterfuge or conspiracy going on...the island's own webcams still show the ship, so that pretty much cancels out any conspiracy theory about wanting to hide things, doesn't it?

 

Anyone wih a consiracy theory should place themselves in the shoes of those who live there and who have looked out of their windows and seen the hull sat there day in, day out....they want their lives back (not to mention their privacy).

[Ratt]

I'll be glad when the hull has been removed and life can return to normal again....I doubt many of the people on Giglio will miss that hull or the frenzy surrounding it too.

 

I can see at least 4-8 of the below potential causes being cited.....

 

While I'm not ready to lay all of the blame on the captain and I will wait for all the facts, I do agree with others that there is more than enough information to hold the captain responsible for the majority of the problems that happened to the Concordia that night. Weather you agree with the sail by or not the fact is that the ship was going way to fast and was way to close to the island to not have an accident happen. If and I think it's a pretty big if, the captain is found to not have been the primary cause of hitting the island, he is most defiantly responsible for making sure all passengers and crew are cared and I don't think most people think he did that. From the information we already know he didn't pass relative information to the proper authorities, he waited to long to declare an emergency and he waited to long to order an abandon ship. While there is still information that we don't know about the facts are pretty well laid out in front of us and I don't believe there will be any startling revelations when the investigation is complete.

 

I do think there is a difference of opinion and it comes down to if a person thinks the captain is guilty with the facts we have now or if he is convicted once a judge / jury has heard and seen the facts and then decided that he is guilty. I'm taking a guess here but I believe that Uniall has prosecuted cases in the past and if so it would be his job to look at the facts he has at the time and decided if the person is guilty, and if so they would then be charged. Even if a jury decided that the person wasn't guilty it doesn't mean that Uniall would change his mind and believe the person is not guilty. On the other hand sidari is looking at it from the stand point that the captain is innocent until he is found guilty by a jury. On the other hand, I don't think sidari is saying that the captain is innocent and not responsible, but rather that he wants to wait for all of the facts and information before making a decision as well as letting the legal system do it's job in deciding the captain's fate.

 

While we all have differences of opinions, I do think we all can agree that the most important thing that comes from accidents like this is that we learn what can be done better.

[CostaSmurfette]

Last week I saw a photo taken aboard Concordia the night before the accident, it was a family photo with Francesco Schettino stood in the middle.....the body language and facial expression of Francesco Schettino spoke volumes....he was visibly uncomfortable, unsure, his mind was somewhere completely different. I chatted with the husband in the photo and he said when he spoke to the Captain, he seemed nervous, as if something was wrong, very out of sorts all evening...and that was 24 hours prior to the accident. The ship had another power dropout that afternoon, a relatively short one, but the husband in the photo could tell that the Captain was deeply concerned about something.

 

Regardless as to what measure of blame is officially placed onto Francesco Schettino's shoulders will be, there is one thing that no-one seems to grasp here.

 

People behave in very peculiar ways when under pressure or stress.....and no amount of training can squash that behaviour for those who are said to be "in command".

 

That is why it disturbs me a great deal how people have seen fit to assassinate Francesco Schettino...yes he was highly trained for all eventualities...but, you can be the best trained individual in the world and still fall completely apart when caught in an emergency situation.

 

We all like to think we could handle every emergency, we HOPE that we could...but more often than not, its our brain and/or body that fails to follow orders and that is the human achilles heel...we are just human beings at the end of it and no matter what we try to do, sometimes it just ain't going to happen and we turn to jelly, the training flies right out the window and we end up a jibbering wreck.

 

Not a day goes by where Francesco won't be wishing he had done this or that differently, but he cannot change what happened, no matter how much he goes over it again and again in his mind. He screwed up somehow, and he panicked...he isn't the first and he surely won't be the last either....but he alone was not the only reason for what happened cos accidents are not that easy...as you well know, there are lots of aspects that the armchair experts have no clue about. If only it WAS so cut and dry...

 

The other day the media caught him out on a speedboat...well...good for him, it was something he needed to do...whether the world approves or not is neither here nor there, he needed to clear his head, to get outside into the fresh air and feel human again, if only for a couple hours.

 

It really depends on who Francesco was with on the boat, chances are he will have requested and received special dispensation to go off out for the day...it was probably his first real chance to relax since the accident....house arrest is no party, the walls close in on you just as they do when in jail....just cos you have the use of and access to all parts of your home and garden, doesn't make it any easier...if anything it's harder cos you have to adjust to not being able to step outside your own front door.

 

By saying that Francesco turned into a jibbering wreck when the accident happened is not feeling sorry for him or trying to excuse what actions he took, but I think people have lost sight of the basic fact that he is a human being and by virtue of that, he is as imperfect as the rest of us. Just cos he has been trained to the nines, mainly on simulators, does not mean that he is Superman...he breaks down and fluffs things just as we all do...none of us are immune to making mistakes.

 

On this thread, I personally find what some are saying repulsive and offensive...just as I did when aboard Costa Allegra in 2010 when certain fellow passengers held the English speaking hostess hostage, demanding to see the Captain regarding the tender that sank with all hands at least a dozen times off Hurghada....it didn't sink, nor was it in any danger of doing so, but to hear these grown men berating the young crewmember like they did was frankly a disgrace....and yes they were British passengers acting like thugs.

 

People need to step back sometimes and listen to themselves or read what they have typed and ask themselves was it really justified when they are not in that person's shoes (nor will they ever be)...and try and see things from the opposite point of view, putting themselves into the shoes of the person they are baying for blood from, especially when they do not have 100% of the facts.

[Uniall]

Rhetorical Questions

 

If there is sufficient information to charge a person with the crime pedaphelia, would you allow that person to take your child for a day in the park because he has not been convicted?

 

For that matter, would you allow him to take your child even if a jury found him not guilty?

[CostaSmurfette]

Rhetorical Questions

 

If there is sufficient information to charge a person with the crime pedaphelia, would you allow that person to take your child for a day in the park because he has not been convicted?

 

For that matter, would you allow him to take your child even if a jury found him not guilty?

 

To stay on subject to this thread....

 

Would I sail with Francesco Schettino on the bridge again...absolutely, no hesitation.

 

Have I sailed with him as an officer on the bridge in the past, absolutely.

 

To compare a paedophile to a human who made a mistake in judgement is completely unjustified. A paedophile doesn't abuse a child by mistake or by accident, they do it cos they want to, cos they get kicks from doing so.

[Uniall]

To stay on subject to this thread....

 

Would I sail with Francesco Schettino on the bridge again...absolutely, no hesitation.

 

Have I sailed with him as an officer on the bridge in the past, absolutely.

 

To compare a paedophile to a human who made a mistake in judgement is completely unjustified. A paedophile doesn't abuse a child by mistake or by accident, they do it cos they want to, cos they get kicks from doing so.

 

Captain Schitino intentionally put the ship in a zone of danger because he wanted to impress others and he was getting big kicks out of it and people died.

 

There is already enough evidence adduced to show that Captain Schitino can not be trusted with the safety of passengers, crew or vessel. He has proven himself to be a menace to all around him.

 

Just because some people might have subconcious death wish is no reason to subject the general public to ever again having Schitino in any maritime decision making position.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Uniall

[CostaSmurfette]

Captain Schitino intentionally put the ship in a zone of danger because he wanted to impress others and he was getting big kicks out of it and people died.

 

There is already enough evidence adduced to show that Captain Schitino can not be trusted with the safety of passengers, crew or vessel. He has proven himself to be a menace to all around him.

 

Just because some people might have subconcious death wish is no reason to subject the general public to ever again having Schitino in any maritime decision making position.

 

Whatever you personally feel about him, please have the decency and courtesy to spell his name correctly.

 

No-one, not even you, have the 100% facts as to what happened that night...only those directly involved and those who are officially investigating the tragedy know them. Your speculation proves nothing and only extends the upset to those who lost loved ones...you are rubbing salt into a wound with your rhetoric and insults towards the crew as a whole, not just individuals therein.

 

If you were a lawyer and your client was being treated as you are treating Francesco Schettino, you would be the first to cry foul. You do not have to like a person to be respectful to them.

Edited August 6, 2012 by CostaSmurfette

[CostaSmurfette]

Uniall...I notice that you have yet to sail with Costa Crociere, so by that I consider your thoughts about the accident as pure straw grasping and speculation.

 

Just as I am sure those who did not sail with RCI speculated and grasped at straws when Monarch of the Seas grounded off St Maarten in 1998...due, and I quote "a myriad of human performance deficiencies" along with navigational errors on the charts that did not show a buoy that marked the reef that she sat herself on whilst under the command of her Captain.

 

The Concordia accident was going to happen eventually, if not to Concordia it was going to be another ship under any one of a few hundred Captains. Afterall, in 2007 when Sea Diamond was lost off Thira with the deaths of 2 people, cries of "it must never happen again" rang out from all quarters...the captain was immediately thrown under the bus and blamed...only to be proven not his fault when the charts were inspected and found to be incorrect.

 

The cruise industry AS A WHOLE is complacent...just as the aviation industry was before 9/11...oh we have had some close calls, near misses...but nothing too serious, no reason to tighten things up or make sure that the equipment used is right for the job or that people (humans that make cock-ups sometimes) are trained enough.

 

When humans can be trained not to make mistakes, a safer world we will live in....or maybe not since the computer in a robot has o be programmed by a human...darn it...you see...that totally impossibly unfluffable human being is in the equation yet again....

 

It's no good Uniall....while humans walk this earth of ours...MISTAKES will always be made by someone, somewhere...the important issue is not so much the mistake but whether we actually learn from it, thus preventing the same mistake happening again....crack that code and we can all become superhumans ;)

[Uniall]

Whatever you personally feel about him, please have the decency and courtesy to spell his name correctly.

 

No-one, not even you, have the 100% facts as to what happened that night...only those directly involved and those who are officially investigating the tragedy know them. Your speculation proves nothing and only extends the upset to those who lost loved ones...you are rubbing salt into a wound with your rhetoric and insults towards the crew as a whole, not just individuals therein.

 

If you were a lawyer and your client was being treated as you are treating Francesco Schettino, you would be the first to cry foul. You do not have to like a person to be respectful to them.

 

I am a lawyer and a retired proscutor. As I've said before, there is already enough uncontravertable public information to find Schitino guilty in the court of public opinion and condemn him to a life of being reviled, scorned and dispised by the public wherever and whenever he is encountered.

[CostaSmurfette]

I am a lawyer and a retired proscutor. As I've said before, there is already enough uncontravertable public information to find Schitino guilty in the court of public opinion and condemn him to a life of being reviled, scorned and dispised by the public wherever and whenever he is encountered.

 

Ah but you see....the public arena is usually biased, relatively unknowledgable when it comes to maritime law (specifically Italian maritime law)...so the public hang 'em high rhetoric really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

You are speaking from your heart, not your legal training...its obvious that the hang 'em high syndrome is an emotional expression of your fury that a ship ANY ship got into trouble so soon after Sea Diamond in 2007 when the world and his wife begged that it never happened again.

 

Take away the emotive issues and you know as much as the rest of us do...bugger all.

 

To speculate is part of human nature, to insult is also part of human nature....and to hang 'em high is sometimes human nature too, we all need someone to blame when things get cocked up, especially when people die in the process....it's a natural emotional response...its human.

 

However.....since no-one here on the internet can say with any measure of surety that Francesco Schettino is absolutely 100% guilty of anything apart from being a human who may or may not have contributed to a tragic loss of life, no-one on the internet can hang 'im or anyone else high....just yet, anyway.

 

And there lies the rub....you want your pound or two of flesh...any flesh will do, just so long as the flesh is ripe, raw and bloody. Nothing wrong in that but as a lawyer/ex prosecutor...you should know the old saying about innocent until PROVEN guilty.....yes, Schettino make a cock-up but he alone was not the only cause cos it is NEVER that easy, especially when you have technology and a vehicle/vessel in the mix.

[Uniall]

Ah but you see....the public arena is usually biased, relatively unknowledgable when it comes to maritime law (specifically Italian maritime law)...so the public hang 'em high rhetoric really doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

 

You are speaking from your heart, not your legal training...its obvious that the hang 'em high syndrome is an emotional expression of your fury that a ship ANY ship got into trouble so soon after Sea Diamond in 2007 when the world and his wife begged that it never happened again.

 

Take away the emotive issues and you know as much as the rest of us do...bugger all.

 

To speculate is part of human nature, to insult is also part of human nature....and to hang 'em high is sometimes human nature too, we all need someone to blame when things get cocked up, especially when people die in the process....it's a natural emotional response...its human.

 

However.....since no-one here on the internet can say with any measure of surety that Francesco Schettino is absolutely 100% guilty of anything apart from being a human who may or may not have contributed to a tragic loss of life, no-one on the internet can hang 'im or anyone else high....just yet, anyway.

 

And there lies the rub....you want your pound or two of flesh...any flesh will do, just so long as the flesh is ripe, raw and bloody. Nothing wrong in that but as a lawyer/ex prosecutor...you should know the old saying about innocent until PROVEN guilty.....yes, Schettino make a cock-up but he alone was not the only cause cos it is NEVER that easy, especially when you have technology and a vehicle/vessel in the mix.

 

I don't speak from my heart, I speak from my 45 years of legal education, training and experience, including working with European prosecutors on international law matters and cases.

 

Innocent till proven guilty only applies to imposing criminal punishment. It does not apply to the court of public opinion and the imposition of public animosity. As I've said before, the court of public opinion even knows, with certainty, that some people are guilty of crimnal after a jury declared them not guilty. (i.e. OJ Simpson et al)

 

It sounds to me that you are "projecting" your own bleeding heart bias that would rather put thousands more potential passegers in danger than banishing a dangerous person from the sea.

Edited August 6, 2012 by Uniall

[MorganMars]

Costa Smurfette,

 

Welcome aboard! Thank you for your reasoned and knowledgable posts.

 

Regards,

MorganMars

[Uniall]

I suspect that "Costa Smurfette" is an agent provocateur working on behalf of Captain Schitino or Costa Cruise Lines or both. :cool:

 

Smurfette registered with Cruise Critic today for the sole purpose of defending Schitino on this thread. ;)

 

Could the diminutive feminine suffix "ette" be a clue that Smurfette is none other than Dominica, Schitino's Inamorta? :p

[sidari]

"Could the diminutive feminine suffix "ette" be a clue that Smurfette is none other than Dominica, Schitino's Inamorta?"

 

you have got to Laugh ..... :D

 

John .... How could it be her? smurfette has been studying aircrash reports for 35 years which means Domnica would not have been born then! time to look for a new private investigator/prosecutor methinks ... :eek:

 

Once again the court of public opinion will not be the ones finding Schettino guilty, if the court does that is.

 

Only a Fool never learns from History!

[Uniall]

"Could the diminutive feminine suffix "ette" be a clue that Smurfette is none other than Dominica, Schitino's Inamorta?"

 

you have got to Laugh ..... :D

 

John .... How could it be her? smurfette has been studying aircrash reports for 35 years which means Domnica would not have been born then! time to look for a new private investigator/prosecutor methinks ... :eek:

 

Once again the court of public opinion will not be the ones finding Schettino guilty, if the court does that is.

 

Only a Fool never learns from History!

 

Maybe Dominica has given up on seaman and has been dating airline crash investigators as her new "love is in air" focus...:D

 

Once again, there are 4 courts, listed with declining level of evidence required, that will rule on Schitino's guilt:

 

Criminal Court: possible punishment: jail

Civil Court: possible punishment: money damages

Administrative Court: possible punishment: banishment from Sea

Public Opinion Court: possible punishment: banishment from Society

Edited August 6, 2012 by Uniall

[Tonka's Skipper]

Smuffette, whoever she maybe does have a knowledge of the industry and investigative practices.

 

Cooking down her comments, which were very good, boil down to what we have discussed before:

 

1. The poor judgement and errors made by the Master.

 

2. The poor abilities and /or training of the bridge duty officers.

 

3. The policies and operational practices of the Costa line, E.I. office executives.

 

All these folks will have part of the responsibility for the casualty, but in my opinion its still the Master responsibility and major fault.

 

As to the speed vessel are built, I am not so sure I agree there....the yard does put out good vessels. But there is issue involving the Concordia class and other vessels in the electrical system as they have been reported as being originally designed for smaller vessels and then just enlarged to cover the Concordia class.

 

There is a old tradesman saying...........*you can't just enlarge a design, proportion must also be taken into account*. Meaning that the electrical system may have issues and may be part of the problem, if not on the Concordia but the Carnival Splendor fire and the QMII.

 

Lastly the hours the crew puts is a point well taken............when I was sailing a 12 to 14 hours day was not at all unusual. My personal record was 54 hours straight will only a short cat nap or 2 in the cargo office.

 

Smuffette pointed out,there are rules now to prevent this,but when at sea there is just so many crew personal available to get whatever jobs need to be done...............again the line operational policies, both written and verbal/under the table, control this not the crews........

 

There is still a good deal of information and facts we still do not know...............

 

AKK

Edited August 6, 2012 by Tonka's Skipper

[Uniall]

The Schitino Defense Team

 

 

........See No Evil.............Hear No Evil..........Speak No Evil.......

[TheBestIsYetToCome]

 

The other day the media caught him out on a speedboat...well...good for him, it was something he needed to do...whether the world approves or not is neither here nor there, he needed to clear his head, to get outside into the fresh air and feel human again, if only for a couple hours.

 

 

I disagree that he needed to be on the sea in order to get fresh sir and feel human again. I think it is horribly insensitive to the families whose loved ones perished while he was in command on Concordia. He should get his fresh air by stepping into the backyard, but never, never by going to sea where he could be photographed. It says a great deal to me that he did not consider how painful it would be for the families to see him out enjoying the ocean, the very place their loved ones perished, doing the very thing he was doing when their lives ended. It gives me heartburn, I can't imagine how it made the family members feel.

[DocF]

My friend, Marty Joppich, ended his life after he realized that he had been responsible for the deaths of 10 of his crewmen. This was when the Cedarville was sunk in a collision in fog (1965). These were not passengers or guests, but working crew, folks.

 

How can the skipper of the Costa Concordia be so oblivious to his failures in the sinking of his command and the loss of passenger's lives? Perhaps it has not yet sunk in to his thick head that he did wrong.

 

Doc:mad:

[silverfoxcruiser]

Costa Smurfette,

 

Welcome aboard! Thank you for your reasoned and knowledgable posts.

 

Regards,

MorganMars

 

DITTO!! AND THANK YOU FOR JOINING US!!

Silver

[cruiserfanfromct]

CS,

 

You're right, the Costa Concordia and the other Costa ships are now registered in Italy, but for years Costa ships flew the “flag of convenience” of Panama.

 

It is very likely there was more than just one factor that contributed to the "accident" and the series of events will come to light in the investigation and subsequent trial -- if there ever is a trial.

 

But I think you are making it far more complicated than it should, because what it boils down to is this: had there not been a "salute", the "accident" would obviously not have happened. Who, then, ordered this "salute"? Costa maintains they certainly did not and it is apparent Costa would have very little or nothing to gain and a whole lot to lose in ordering such a risky manuver for the sole benefit of just a handful of their employees. This happened at NIGHT, in WINTER with NO TOURISTS on the tiny island and NO ANNOUNCEMENT of the close "sail-bye" except in the daily bulletin where it was printed that it would happen around 9:30pm that evening and was to be 5,000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY.

 

Of course, we are all human and make mistakes and we can buckle in a crisis but not all of us are responsible for the lives of over 4,200 people and a half a billion dollar cruise ship. The biggest problem I have with what I've seen in the several press interviews given by Captain Schettino is that, in my opinion, he shows neither genuine remorse nor one ounce of contriteness. He blames others and doesn't step up to the plate and own up to his bad judgement and egregious lack of leadership. I have just one question for this captain: Where were you and what were you doing in the minutes leading up to the "accident" that was far more important to you than the safety of your 4,200 passengers and crew? Hopefully, he will have to answer this in court one day.

Edited August 7, 2012 by cruiserfanfromct

[CostaSmurfette]

OK...lets take the replies and dig them out a bit...

 

Firstly....the electrical systems and other ancilliary equipment built into the original ship of this class...known currently as Carnival Destiny. She was the seed from which the class came from, the same class that over the years and 2-3 marques later became the Concordia class.

 

Tonka....this is what I was getting at in regard to the wording "redundancy". Destiny is significantly smaller than Concordia and her equally troublesome sibling, Carnival Splendor, yet intrinsically they have identical systems running them...Destiny has a much larger area of redundancy (or room to move in a crisis) within her elecrical and ancilliary systems than Concordia/Splendor/Pacifica et al. Whatever breakdowns Destiny suffers, she handles without so much as a blink, whereas the same breakdown on Concordia was essentially a full power out situation.

 

It is very well documented that in the 6-8 weeks prior to the accident the frequency of electrical type problems with the main gensets and controlroom cabling aboard Concordia was increasing both in regularity and in severity. So much so that had she reached Savona that night, she was to have spent the day not only unloading and loading pax and provisions, but engineers were to be waiting to deal with the electrical issues that she suffered.

 

I know from speaking to both crew and passengers on board in the days leading up to the accident and the night itself that she was behaving pretty badly...often blacking out 3-4 times per 24 hour period. Each time this happened and systems required rebooting, her systems weakened still further.

 

This is why the photo taken on the evening of January 12, 2012 was important to me, it was blatantly obvious that Francesco Schettino was indeed concerned about the ship's behaviour. The passenger told me that throughout the evening other the Chief Engineer came to Francesco and spoke to him, and each time the colour dropped from Schettino's face...again indicative of a problem.

 

The passenger knew it to be the Chief Engineer by the photo of him in the main reception area.

 

Next...the fight of flight syndrome....it is something that we all have and its something that sometimes we have absolutely no control over, no matter how well we are trained to do our duty and/or job.

 

Speaking with Francesco Schettino's peers, it came as a shock to them as to how he reacted to crisis...but by the same token, they too have looked closely at themselves and asked what they would do in his shoes...and these are not all Captains, First Officers & Staff Captains from Costa Crociere, these are peers from a variety of cruise lines and shipping companies. Almost all have said that when the worst happened, they HOPED that they could retain a cool head and do their duty to the best of their ability...BUT...since none of them have ever been placed into that position except on simulators which with the best will in the world is a franction of the real experience, they could NOT guarantee that their own fight or flight reflexes would keep them at the bridge in an emergency situation like Concordia.

 

Human beings have a major problem...their brain often over rules their body and when it happens, there is very little (if anything) that can be done...you either run/crumble or you stay at your post...no-one can ever be 100% sure what they would do until that occasion arises...no-one.

 

Next..the court of public opinion....yes, very vocal, yes, very emotionally charged...again we are mere humans.

 

But...whatever the public at large thinks does not mean bugger all in the confines of a court of law. Different rule book, different set of boundaries...

 

Uniall...as a prosecutor turned defence lawyer (gamekeeper turned poacher)...in your role as prosecutor, it was your duty to ensure that all evidence was presented within a set number of guidelines...it had to be truthful, it had to be backed up (eyewitnesses are notoriously bad in criminal cases) so the need for material evidence that has been verified forensically as being correct and true is essential. Only when the evidence is in and the seams around the evidence are sealed closed do you then proceed with trial...but even then there is no guarantee of conviction.

 

Public flogging and hanging went out a very long time ago...the days of the lynch mob are thankfully long gone...and I would hope that you Uniall, did not prosecute anyone on the wave of public emotion....otherwise there are bound to be alot of people in jail right now with a good excuse to appeal.

 

The judiciary in Italy have a tremendously hard job. I doubt a trial will take place thanks to the abhorrent levels of tabloid stupidity...and the lack of self control of a certain Italian Coast Guard officer who frankly needs sacking since whatever his own personal thoughts about Francesco Schettino are, they have no place in the tabloids....there is nothing worse than a puffed out chest giving it the "I'm the hero, he's a cad" speech a few days out from a tragedy...save it for the legislators and judiciary...on and the investigators too, they will pick it apart whereas the tabloids will make you a star overnight and sensationalise your words.

 

Finally...the speedboat ride...well once again its the paparazzi problem. Just as with Princess Diana & Dodi Fayed, those damned tabloids have their cameramen pretending to be tourists loitering around, nosing their way into business that does not need to be nosing into...like pigs at a trough, waiting to snap that elusive picture..."oh look he is on the toilet...lets see what colour loo roll he uses".

 

Yes...we all know about the paparazzi and how they can collapse a judicial inquiry or court case.....Richard Murdoch (the owner of the Sun and the idiot who allowed phone bugging strikes again). Yes...we know exactly what the game is...and thanks to the SUN and the rest of the tabloids any real evidence has been tainted, diluted and totally screwed...bit like the now infamous footage of water running down the stairs allegedly on Concordia that was actually Carnival Sensation in May 2009 when a pipe burst on board......

 

But hey...makes a great headline though, doesn't it? ;)

[CostaSmurfette]

Sail-by's....

 

They have been carried out for at least 60 years, mostly safely but not always.

 

Back in the 50's a ship sailed too close to a Caribbean island, ripped her bottom clean off and caught fire. She is now a divers delight.

 

So whether or not sail-by's are good, bad or indifferent is moot.

 

They won't happen any longer and afterall said and done, looking at some images and footage that I have seen in the last few months, cruise lines have had a bitof a habit of playing fast and loose with their ships to give their punters a thrill...but that is the nature of the beast...yep...you got it...humans. We get bored of seeing the sea all day long and want some excitement occasionally....lets go strafe an island or volcano for the sheer fun of it and if we get it on the webcam (such as Carnival Magic last year) all the better cos then the world can see what total pratts we are :rolleyes:

 

But by the by...every cruise line has done it...hence why I said that a Concordia type accident was bound to happen eventually...the law of averages and all that.

 

Play fast and loose once too often...RCI, Celebrity, Carnival, Costa, HAL, Azamara, RSSC, MSC et al..they have all played chicken with something hard and immoveable over the years.

 

Concordia meant game over...and sadly, rightly so too...you can only push the boundary so much before it comes back and kicks you in the aft.

 

Oh and lets get another misnoma out of the way...Concordia has not sunk, she is capsized onto a shoreline. Had she gone bow first into the rock instead of side on, well then yes, chances are she would have gone down by the head pretty quickly and with a few more lives too.

 

Whether it was luck, great seamanship, good judgement, devine intervention, accidental or whatever as to how she did a 180 degree turn and sat on the shoreline in a frankly superb position for evacuation may never be known...but she did not sink...and that saved countless lives. Granted 32 lost is 32 too many but everyone I have spoken to...including crew who were aboard that night...are grateful that she landed where she did...as to how she got there, its immaterial, they are just pleased that she was within a reasonable distance of safety for the majority of people on board....and that the weather was beautifully calm too, which for January in the Med is rare.

[sidari]

Public Opinion Court: possible punishment: banishment from Society

 

Uni .... clearly those in his own town have a different opinion!

 

CT .... take a look at youtube,there is a video there which is claimed to be the Concordia doing a sailby and guess what? its at night ... :eek: so that puts your theory out of the window somewhat.

 

Next...the fight of flight syndrome....it is something that we all have and its something that sometimes we have absolutely no control over, no matter how well we are trained to do our duty and/or job.

 

Just in the same way as someone leaving the scene of a car accident and leaving 2 young girls to Die!!

 

Smurfette ... Dam you mentioned it again! the 2nd time on these boards ..the damned SCUM.

Edited August 7, 2012 by sidari