Cruise ship runs aground. Three dead.

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Cruise ship runs aground shortly after leaving port. Three dead. "It was like a scene from Titanic".

My oldest daughter showed this to me this morning. Over the summer her fiance took her on a cruise. They went to Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Cayman Islands. She loved it, had a great time, but she said the whole time they were out, something like this was in the back of her mind. She's vowed to never go on one again. I told her thats ridiculous, a bus wreck will kill more than three, and yet she still rides the school bus.

Travel by ship has got to be the second safest mode of transportation, with walking as the first, although pedestrians are hurt quite often, so I suppose ship travel is the safest.

How often have there been shipwrecks in the last fifty years? Ships, not boats.

I also wonder if while the passengers were waiting on the rescuers to evacuate them, someone played Celine Dione on their ipod just to get the full effect of the song.

(Realized this should have a gallows humor warning mark or something lol)

Those ships usually have a buffet, and as long as you stay close to them you're safe. Plenty of human life rafts hanging around there, and as soon as the alarm goes off they instantly stroke out and go belly-up (cholesterol)

Then I think it's safe to say life raft deployed!

It's been reported that the Captain of this ship was aboard one of the first life-boats to leave the ship! He's been detained by the Italian Police & charges for abandonment & manslaughter are pending. (I think MURDER should be the charge, him running like that!)

What a horrible accident! I read that there were no evacuation exercises performed for the whole week they were on the cruise (one was to be scheduled for Saturday). I also read that the ship may have run aground because of some kind of power failure. From being around cruise ships (my dad is a commercial fisherman, and I've gone with him a few times), which are huge, it would take a LOT to tip a cruise ship over. I read that there was about a 50 foot hole in the side of the ship, which would also take a lot to do. It must have a been a combination of going relatively fast with such a large vessel and colliding with razor-sharp/rock-hard coral. It's sad that the captain abandoned his ship in the midst of all the chaos and turmoil. Sounds like a lot of lawsuits will be coming their way. It'll be interesting to see how all this plays out.

The Brave Italian Captain chose not do go down with his ship. Why am I not surprised. I have what has got to be the thinnest book ever published: The Compete Compendium of Italian Heroes.

ruveyn

It didn't actually sink - more like "reclined" somewhat: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16560050
Still bad form for the captain though.

Not murder. Negligent homicide at most, and dereliction of duty for sure.

ruveyn

Actually, morally this is murder. A captain is supposed to go down with the ship in an "accident" kind of situation. In this case (almost a week at sea) with NO safety drills completed, crew with a lack of training & this coward running as far & as fast as he could? It was murder.

The Captain is facing prosecution. The Italian men on the ship apparently stomped over women and children to escape. Not many crew are going to get a medal of valor.

Horse poop. The only thing that counts is "legally" not "morally". Laws are man made facts. Morality is opinion.

ruveyn

I don't agree with the statements that keep flying around that it was like a scene from titanic, 1496 people died in the titanic disaster, so far a handful have died, no comparison, it's still a disaster and a tragedy but still...slight exaggeration.

I can understand your daughter's logic of not wanting to travel by ship again Oliveoilmom. Think about it if your bus crashes, chances are help will be with you fast and the only other dangers are things like petrol leaking and some dramatic explosion like in movies(not likely). Other cars crashing into the now stationary bus and causing you further injury etc.

Compare that to a cruise ship, that is at sea, sharks, icy cold water, risk of drowning, then you have the 1000+ people all scrambling for a lifeboat, people can get trampled and do allsorts of crazy things when their life is in danger. Then you have to consider how difficult it is to rescue people in that situation. A bus crash would be cleaned up within a few hours, the ship is still there days later and people may still be trapped awaiting rescue.

A few shipwreck stats;

July 10, 2011: An overloaded cruise vessel sinks in Russia's Volga River near Kazan, killing 122 people.

June 21, 2008: The Princess of the Stars ferry tilts and capsizes off the coast of the Philippines during a powerful typhoon. More than 800 die.

February 3, 2006: After a fire breaks out during a Red Sea ferry voyage from Saudi Arabia to the Egyptian port of Safaga, more than 1,000 people drown.

September 26, 2002: Senegalese ferry capsizes in a storm off Gambia, killing more than 1,800 people.

Incidents in the past 10 years from one small source, the reason the death toll is so high is I imagine not only due to the amount of people on the vessels but also the difficulty in rescuing people at sea, so I really can understand your daughter's caution even though bus / car crashes are more frequent.

As for the captain, yes it was wrong that he was on the first lifeboat but all that says about him is that he valued his own life above others and he will pay for it. Can you honestly say you'd stay on a sinking ship because that would be the heroic thing to do?, I know I wouldn't! Unless your put in that situation there is no telling how much you would panic and try to flee, I'm not saying it's right, just again I see why he left, self preservation and all that, he was probably on the first boat because he knew how bad the situation was and wasn't willing to risk waiting for a later boat.

When they get done with this "captain" and let him out of jail, some years hence, we will not be permitted to command any vessel whatsoever, not even a one man canoe.

And the captain was not the only disgrace. Many of the crew of this unfortunate ship made for the lifeboats. Apparently they never head of "women and children first".

ruveyn

How did they expect the passangers to know how to lower the lifeboats themselves.
That is rather cowardly by the captain and his crew.
However I agree totally with Az29 that this was no titanic scene. The boat did not split in half and sink taking thousands with it in friggid artic water....no it just ran up on a sandbar and fell over.
I am sure alot of people are hurt from the boat ending up on its side, but for a big cruse ship...it could have been alot worse. The death totals are actually rather remarkably low expecially since the captain and his crew jumped ship first chance they got.

Yes it was very cowardly, that was what I was trying to say (I failed though), no doubt the captain and crew panicked just as much as the passengers and it was a case of well screw you I don't want to die I'm off. They basically didn't care about the passengers just themselves so the passengers knowing how / being able to lower the lifeboats themselves probably didn't cross their minds at all.


Well that's a good thing because he obviously isn't a very good captain, but will he go to jail? I will not be surprised if he pulls the blind panic / temporary insanity card out to get him off with it.

Instead of jumping all over the captain and crew, why don't we wait until we actually get some facts.

Remember, the Italian criminal justice system is inquisatorial, not adversarial--so the police questioning the captain at this stage is little different than any other investigation of a transportation accident.

There are "reports" that he evacuated early. When those reports become evidence, or findings, then I will pay them some heed. Until then, let the few remaining missing people be found quickly, and let's be thankful that the death and injury tolls were as light as they were.