” Survivors of the Costa Concordia cruise disaster expressed anger over the “insulting” prison sentence given to the captain who abandoned his ship while passengers and crew were still aboard.
Francesco Schettino was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his actions during the accident and for causing the deaths of 32 people in the wreck off the Italian coast. The punishment, handed down Wednesday by a three-judge panel in Tuscany, was 10 years short of what prosecutors had sought.
He was given 10 years for manslaughter over the deaths, five years for causing the shipwreck when he steered too close to Giglio Island, one year for abandoning the vessel when hundreds were still aboard, and one month for downplaying the collision to maritime authorities, delaying the arrival of help.
” That’s less than four months per person who died,” said Blake Miller, from Austin, Texas, who escaped the January 2012 disaster on a lifeboat. “
” The wreck of the luxury liner Costa Concordia was re-floated on Monday and will soon be towed away and broken up for scrap, more than two years after it capsized off the Italian coast, killing 32 people.
The 290-meter Costa Concordia ran aground on rocks near the Tuscan holiday island of Giglio on Jan. 13, 2012. The rusting hulk of the once-gleaming-white ship had been resting on a temporary platform since being righted a year ago.
In what has become one of the largest salvage operations in history, air was pumped into 30 large metal boxes, or sponsons, attached around the hull of the 114,500-ton ship. The air forced out the water in the sponsons, lifting the vessel off the underwater platform.”
The ship has been lying on its side, half submerged and perched on two underwater mountain peaks, since it crashed in January 2012, killing 32 people.
At 9 a.m. this morning, workers in Italy began the “parbuckling” process, using pulleys and steel cables to slowly pull the 60,000-ton ship into an upright position. Scroll down for a live stream of the salvage operation.
If the process fails, there is no backup plan. The ship will likely be disassembled where it lies, at huge cost to the local environment, a nationally protected marine park and coral reef.
At around 2 p.m. local time, Titan Micoperi, which is conducting the operation, announced “evidence of a smooth rotation movement of the hull, with a consequent rotation of about 3 degrees.”
Costa Concordia: Rare Aerial Footage Of The Stricken Liner
Published on Sep 14, 2013
” Rare aerial footage shows the Costa Concordia lying off Giglio island in Italy ahead of a complex operation to right the giant vessel. Report by Jeremy Barnes.”
” Representatives from Costa Crociere and the Italo-American consortium Titan-Micoperi today presented the details of their much anticipated plan to remove the wreck of Costa Concordia from the Island of Giglio using cranes and caissons to float the vessel.
As we learned weeks ago, Titan Salvage and Micoperi were selected to remove the stricken Costa Concordia from Giglio Island after beating out several leading salvage companies vying for the historic contract. Titan Salvage, part of the Crowley Group, is an American-owned specialist marine salvage and wreck removal company and is a world leader in its field. Micoperi is a wellknown Italian marine contractor with a long history as a specialist in underwater construction and engineering.
The requirements laid out for the job included refloating the hull in one piece while giving top priority to minimize the environmental impact, protecting Giglio’s economy and tourism industry, and maximizing safety.”
” Once floated, the wreck will be towed to an Italian port and dealt with in according Italy. Meanwhile, the sea bottom will be cleaned and marine flora replanted.
While the method has been used before to refloat ships, never has it been done to this scale. One thing is for sure however; whatever happens, the operation to refloat and remove the Costa Concordia from the shores of Giglio will be a historic one, and one the world will be keeping a close eye on. ”
That is the plan and here is the reality . So far , so good . What an incredible undertaking .
” The salvage operation to remove the Costa Concordia cruise ship from the shores of Giglio hit a milestone today when crews positioned the largest of five subsea support platforms onto the seabed next to the wreck.”
” The platform, known as Platform No. 1, will be secured to the granite seabed in order to provide support when uprighting the ship.
Platform no. 1 was built at the Rosetti shipyard in Marina di Ravenna and weighs about 1,000 tonnes. It measures 40m by 33m, is 22m tall and is supported by 5 big pillars almost 2m in diameter.”
” The operation was carried out using the dynamically positioned heavy lift ship Svenja, which is owned and operated by SAL Heavy Lift.”
” More than a year after the Costa Concordia ran aground off the Italian coast, the ship remains where it wrecked. More than 400 workers are attempting one of the largest salvage operations in history, a process that will cost around $400 million and will take at least until this summer to complete. They have a tough slog ahead: Just removing the 2100 tons of fuel took 31 days and 20 vessels. Because the ruined ship is lying on its side, the engineering teams have to hoist it upright—preserving a seabed lush with coral, sea-grass meadows, and giant clams—before towing it to a safe harbor for disassembly.”
” 2011 Delivered So Much Political Chicanery And Congressional Knavery Some Thought That 2012 Couldn’t Possibly Outdo It.
The more cynical among us, including your humble correspondent, knew better. A presidential election year would be enough to guarantee a new low, and we knew Obamacare would come before the Supreme Court, NBC would be in charge of the Olympics, the EU would continue its monetary meltdown while France — our favorite comic opera country — would be holding its own presidential election. Inevitably, we concluded, 2012 would leap every hurdle to make 2011’s nitwittery seem mild in comparison. And, of course, it did.
The monthly accounting of 2012 is ready, and it reads like a movie script Mel Brooks would have rejected.
JANUARY was a tough month. Several of the Republican presidential wannabes rolled over quicker than the Italian cruise liner Costa Concordia. The difference between the candidates’ Gucci-shod consultants and the ship’s captain (one Francesco Schettino) was obvious. Schettino abandoned ship as fast as he could, leaving the women and children behind. The consultants clung desperately to their candidates until the money ran out. ”
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