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Subscribe to RSSMaria Papa and her daughter, Melissa Goduti, who were both on the ill-fated cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy, talk to TODAY's Ann Curry about the harrowing and chaotic experience.
A Connecticut mother and daughter aboard the cruise ship that grounded off the coast of Italy described a scene of chaos as passengers fended for themselves to climb aboard lifeboats.
Costa Condordia passengers Maria Papa and her daughter, Melissa Goduti, blame the ship's captain, not the crew, for confusion.
"The crew members were running around like the actual passengers," Maria Papa told Ann Curry live on TODAY Tuesday. "They couldn't answer any questions to anyone; there wasn't anybody speaking English...there was so much chaos."
Survivors told harrowing stories of escape from the capsized ship, which struck a reef off the coast of the Tuscan island of Giglio on Friday with more than 4,200 passengers aboard, including more than 100 Americans. Authorities on Tuesday accused Capt. Francesco Schettino of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship before all passengers were evacuated.
Official to fleeing captain: 'You go aboard. It is an order'
The death toll rose to 11 on Tuesday when divers extracted five more bodies, all of them adults wearing life jackets, from the rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point. Another two dozen people remained unaccounted for.
During a heated conversation the Italian coast guard told the captain of the Costa Concordia to go back to the ship. NBC's Michelle Kosinski reports.
"I think if the captain took more of a hand on it, then I think the crew would have been better able to understand what was going on," Papa told Curry.
Papa and Goduti managed to flee the ship -- an especially nerve-wracking experience for Papa because she doesn't know how to swim. "We went to get on one boat when they had finally sounded the alarm, and the door would not open on that lifeboat," she told Curry. "Someone grabbed my hand and we went to the next boat."
Read the rest of the story on TODAY.com
'Lurching feeling'
Others told similar stories of confusion and panic as they returned home over the weekend to reunite with family and friends.
“It is surreal,” Alex Beach, 65, told the Albuquerque Journal. “I’m sitting here looking back on it, and I can’t believe it.”
Alex and her husband Arthur had just eaten dinner and were back in their cabin, reading and watching TV, when they heard a loud screeching sound and a "lurching feeling," recalled Arthur Beach.
"We've hit something," he told his wife, as items began flying around their 10th-deck cabin and the lights went out.
The couple opened their door, to let light in from the hallway. Meanwhile, an announcement came over the ship's loudspeakers in five languages, telling the passngers that there was a minor electrical problem and not to worry.
Andreas Solaro / AFP - Getty Images
The Costa Concordia ran aground Jan. 13 off the coast of Italy, resulting in the evacuation of thousands of passengers as the ship began heavily listing.
Except, as the Beaches recalled to the Albuquerque Journal, passengers were already beginning to panic. “People were screaming and crying, some of them with their life vests on, saying, ‘We’re leaving, we’re leaving,’” Alex Beach told the Journal.
Read the full story on the Alburqerque Journal
'Windows underwater'
Another passenger, Blake Miller of Austin, talked Monday with NBC's Lester Holt. "I honestly did not have a true understanding of, of, how bad it was until we were on the life boat and looked back and saw the first row of windows under water and people screaming that couldn't get on a life boat, still on the boat. And that's when we realized how much it was really tilting."
Steve Garcia, also of Austin, credited other passengers for assisting with the evacuation amid the confusion, according to a story by nbcdfw.com.
"The only thing that worked for us was the passengers," he said. It's amazing that none of us spoke the same language, but we knew how to take care of each other, but the crew couldn't figure that out."
Read the full story on nbcdfw.com
Honeymoon cruise trouble
Newlyweds Robert and Megan Mauri of Philadelphia had gone on the cruise to celebrate their honeymoon. They recalled how the ship's tilt made many of the life rafts useless. As helicopters rescued some people, others jumped overboard and swam.
"We knew we were in trouble when we were on the second deck and the toilet water was starting to ... the ship was titling so bad that the toilet water was flowing out, into the hallway" Robert Mauri told nbcphiladelphia.com.
"The crew didn't seem like they knew what they were doing," he said.
Read the full story on nbcphiladelphia.com
Lack of leadership
Georgia Ananias, one of four people from her family aboard the cruise ship, told TODAY that passengers were left to fend for themselves.
"There was no direction. There were no officers available," said Ananias, who is from Los Angeles. "Everybody was one man for themselves. People did not know how to do anything."
Her husband, Dean Ananias, described the moments after the ship turned on its side.
"We were actually walking on the outside walls on top of the ship," he told TODAY. "We walked along where the windows were and eventually, with help from some others, we had to crawl along."
They used ropes dangling outside the ship to lower themselves to safety, Dean Ananias said. The family said about five hours passed from the time they sensed something was wrong to the time they reached safety.
"Five hours of struggling while this ship is sinking, trying to go against gravity trying to pull ourselves up," said Georgia Ananias. "Trying to get away from breaking glass, bodies flying."
Read more of Ananias' story on nbclosangeles.com
Like the 'Titanic'
The experience aboard the sinking Costa Concordia was so terrifyling that Arlene Sanchez said her mother, Connie Barron, never plans to travel again.
"She told me it was indescribable, and she is never going to travel again in her life," she told nbcmiami.com. "She will never take a cruise. It was terrible. It was like the Titanic.”
Read the rest of the story on nbcmiami.com
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Again, not like it was anyone except the captain's fault, but not knowing how to swim (like Maria) and getting on board a cruise line is pure stupidity.
Having said that, this captain surely killed, as if he took a rock to their own heads, the people who died from this incident.
What is truly amazing is how few people actually died out of 4,000 passengers! Even though any death is terrible, the ability of the passenagers of different languages to be able to survive without the help of the crew is a testimony to the human capacity and adaptability to meet a crisis head on. The survivors are the true heros while we mourn the dead. But in the end, humanity can be proud of how they faced death, in most cases, and won even under the some of the most excruciating circumstances known to human kind. Hopefully when the time comes for all of humanity to face the global crises that may befall all of us in the years to come, we will be able to discover the same creative adaptability as these survivors.
I'll repeat what I wrote on the blog for one of the accompanying stories: When I first started cruising (long before it was cheap and popular - back in the days of assigned dining and required tuxes and evening dress for dinner), you cruised on real ships. With real crews. As a former Navy officer, I always enjoyed chatting with the ship's officers, most of whom were quite bright and capable, as were their crews.
You no longer board a ship - these new, gigantic vessels aren't really ships at all. They are gigantic, floating hotels. They are run like hotels. They are staffed like hotels. And you are checking into a hotel, not boarding a vessel. Out of a crew of 600 - 1,000, I'd be surprised if two dozen of them are real life "sailors". The rest are all "hospitality industry" employees. We customers demand that and the cruise lines are well aware that they are more likely to get in trouble for their food service than for anything the goes wrong with the ship, itself, and they staff accordingly (heck, for all I know, Capt. Schettino wasn't even the real guy in charge - he was just a charming figurehead the Costa company appointed to woo the passengers and the real captain was some shrivelled hunchback whom they kept out of sight).
Is it any surprise, then, when something goes wrong, that the crew is just as panicked and confused as the passengers? Would you expect, in an emergency, for your hotel maid to come around passing out lifejackets and lowering a liferaft from your hotel balcony for you? Then why would you expect some poorly paid, ill-trained Indonesian or Filipino steward or housekeeper onboard ship to do so?
Read over the history of recent cruise ship problems and you will find the same theme played out in all of them - the crew which appeared so smiling and competent, as you ran your "first day at sea safety drill", are going to be running around and screaming and commandeering liferafts the moment anything bad happens. This incident presents no surprises whatsoever. It's classic.
Now, go enjoy your cruise. This kind of stuff hardly ever happens and, even if all those missing turn up dead, the casualty rate will still be below 1/10th of one percent, which is a lot better than the "Titanic", and it was staffed by professionals...
You're utter fools if you believe this account. Do you think passengers have any idea how to navigate the ship in the dark, know how to launch lifeboats, and organize people? Think again. I worked 6 years as an officer on these cruiselines (same owner) and have already received accounts of people taking photos of other's misfortunes, trying to take lifejackets from children, and chaos only managed by the crew who managed to get 4000 people ashore, in the dark, in under 2 hours. Maybe next time passengers will think twice about skipping boat drill, screwing around during such drills, ignoring safety warnings given onboard, and drinking and eating more than one thought possible, rendering themselves useless in an emergency. As for crew running around, the instruction all crew operate on in emergencies is to return to their cabin, donning a lifejacket, changing shoes to something appropriate to man lifeboats, and proceeding to muster stations as directly as possible. Chances are good that's what they were trying to do. These people should be grateful they survived and thank the crew and officers who saved their lives by clearly getting them ashore.
I'd be interested in knowing, Canuck, how many "real ships officers" this ship had. Most of the ships I'm familiar with (outside of the Navy, where manning for war contingencies tends to create large crew complements) are pretty sparsely manned - perhaps as few as 3 or 4 Deck officers, as few as 1 to as many as 5 engineering officers, a purser 9 (if you count a "porkchop" as a "real officer"), and a head of security/Master at Arms (again, not necessarily a "sea officer"). That works out to as few as 4 or 5 "real ship's officers" besides the Captain. The rest of the ship's officers are actually hotel employees with no more experience of the sea than any maitre d'. Granted, some of these hotel "officers" may have ship related duties, but mostly they are "hospitality industry" employees, not sailors or seamen.
Which is the problem I have with cruising. When you pack 4,000+ people on a ship and then put their fates in the hands of a half dozen professional sailors, you are probably asking for problems, no matter how competent and conscientious those officers may be, however, nobody has really said how many such officers would man a vessel like this. Perhaps your experience can enlighten us. Thanks.
There was no boat drill.
And the ones who organized had been on boats proper BEFORE and HAD been through boat drills.
The organized ones were the experienced travelers, NOT this crew.
AND these drills should be conducted before ever leaving port.
AND the whole point of a cruise is to put yourself in the hands of competent crew WHILE you eat, get drunk and screw.
Some Canuck Captain,.. Ha.
Sorry, Viewer, but Canuck is right - regardless of the impression of any particular passengers, floundering around in a panic that night, SOMEONE in the ship's complement had to be doing their jobs or no lifeboats at all would have gotten launched. Modern ship's lifeboats are not something that even an "experienced cruise passenger" is going to be able to operate. That's why I asked how many officers there actually are onboard these things. If you have a handful (6 or fewer) deck officers trying to coordinate the salvation of 3,000-4,000 people, you are going to have a mess, no matter how hard those officers may be trying to do their job. This may come down to a "manning issue" - too few people to do the job, not a failure of those officers to perform.
Imagine yourself at a sports stadium packed with 4,000 fans when all the lights go out and water starts flowing into the arena via all the exits. Think you and 5 of your buddies are going to be adequate to coordinate the evacuation? Maybe the charges of cowardice and incompetence against the crew overstate things a bit.
Very few lifeboats were lowered, and the ones that were were done too late. The ones on the roll side could not BE lowered.
What these people are refering to is the efforts of the passengers to keep others calm.
A proper drill will show you how to launch a lifeboat even if there is no crew around, no matter how sophisticated it is.
That does NOT excuse the crew or the Captain.
Oh, psshaw, Viewer!
Go to www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_(shipboard) for pictures and discussions of the difficulties of launching a life boat on a cruise ship. I can guarantee you that NO passenger (even "seasoned cruisers") launched any such boats - oh, and all but two of the lifeboats on the sinking/sunken side were launched before launching became impossible. SO, I repeat, SOMEBODY from the crew onboard did their jobs.
By the same token, I don't want to take any credit away from the many passengers, who, left without adequate direction and instructions and tossed into a terrifying and life-threatening situation, rallied to the need and helped their fellow passengers. I don't think that we should deny them their credit based on the reports that many of the passengers acted in a less than sterling manner, pushing women and children out of the way and even taking lifejackets away from them for their own use.
My concern is - and remains - with cruise ship staffing. You are literally working with a tiny handful of "sea officers", backed by a very limited number of "real sailors". 98% of the staff on these cruise ships have NO special qualifications. They are waiters and waitresses and hotel maids and laundresses whose jobs on a ship are no different than the job they'd be doing at a hotel in Omaha... Most of the time that doesn't matter. When it does, however, it matters a lot. This was one of those times.
The only thing required to launch, are access keys.
In many systems this is automatic once the abandon ship alarm is activated.
I used to work with a company that built offshore oil rigs that have the same encapsulated boats.
When the alarm is sounded the hatches open, and instructions are given over a pre recorded message.
Most are timed for release and give warning before lowering.
NO way did any crew member have much to do about this evacuation unless he or she was pointing a loaded gun.
I do not doubt that there were crew who did help, and they should be honored.
But in an abandon ship, it is usually every man for himself.
Ask the chickensh!t Captain, he will tell you.
Oldfart and Canuck. You weren't there so shut up and go drink your prune juice. How dare you defend this operator, captain and crew. You are using this forum as your on soapbox and your so-called experience in the "good-ole days" means nothing here. The captain, if he really is one, steered off-course so a crew member could wave to someone on shore. Think about it for a minute (if you can still hold a thought for that amount of time). I'll say it again because you probably already forgot, "The captain, if he really is one, steered off-course so a crew member could wave to someone on shore". There is no defense here. The coward of a captain bailed on his passengers and crew. He deserves the harshest of all penalties, with one of those penalties being that he should be forced to read your inane posts.
"not knowing how to swim (like Maria) and getting on board a cruise line is pure stupidity"? Really? And I guess you shouldn't get on a plane if you can't fly? Come on. Instead of passing judgement, how about just sympathizing a little. These ladies, like all the surviviors, were very fortunate. All the best to them.
Yeah, no, try again.
Italy has a long tradition of upper-class males living with and being coddled by their mothers until they are well into their 30s or even 40s. Wanna bet this coward was raised as one of these mamma's boys?
Hey, you have an idiot for a captain and an untrained crew.
Don't blame the crew so much, blame the cruise line and the captain.
When they signed on, they never expected this BullSh!t to happen, (but they should have been trained).
I hope the captains and crews of all cruise ships will be better trained in the future. There were definitely two problems, the incompetent captain, who ran the ship aground, and refused to tell the coast guard, or give proper instructions to the crew. The second issue was the crew should have been better organized even without a proper captain to help the passengers with the lifeboats.
Just think about the accounts I read, that the "hotel like" staff disappeared the second after they ran aground. They were all headed to get life jackets and get off the ship it sounds like. But the passengers don't know what to do, especially with the idiot captain telling people it's a minor technical issue.
I'm not sure what I would have thought, after the big lurch and crunching noise, and then the captain coming on and telling people there's no big deal, don't do anything. Hopefully I'd have determined his statement was a lie sooner rather than later.
Just another sad commentary on the times we live in. Huge cruise ship companies that are no doubt making it on a narrow margin of profit hire at the lowest possible wages they can get away with. The very few at the top - CEOs and cronies - are no doubt extremely overpaid, and that leaves little for everyone else. I've never taken a cruise, I've never had any interest in one. So these hospitality staffers are probably well trained in their particular jobs, but very ill trained in emergency organization skills. It looks as if there was a cataclysmic lack of decent leadership on board. I am so happy that most of the passengers are safe, but for those lost - this is inexcusable.
oldefarte: I enjoyed reading your comments, as you have a good insight as to how the industry works. I do not disagree with anything that you have written. Thank you!