Costa Concordia

Article 13

Loss of right to limit liability

1. The carrier shall not be entitled to the benefit of the limits of liability prescribed in Articles 7 and 8 and paragraph 1 of Article 10, if it is proved that the damage resulted from an act or omission of the carrier done with the intent to cause such damage, or recklessly and with knowledge that such damage would probably result.

2. The servant or agent of the carrier or of the performing carrier shall not be entitled to the benefit of those limits if it is proved that the damage resulted from an act or omission of that servant or agent done with the intent to cause such damage, or recklessly and with knowledge that such damage would probably result.

This was interesting...A moment by moment track of the grounding of the Costa Concordia...
*
With commentary...
*
http://gcaptain.com/gcaptains-john-konrad-narrates-the-final-maneuvers-of-the-costa-concordia-video/?37941

Thanks. Interesting link.

*

Mike

Palm Coast Fl

Very informative. Thanks for posting this. Shows pretty clearly how a fairly simple early error in judgement can be escalated into a real disaster.* Years ago in a 737 systems class at Boeing we spent a whole evening dissecting the final accident report on the Air Florida plane that went into the Potomac River in Washington, DC.* Same sort of thing in a way--- an early error in judgement combined with a simple "minor mistake" ended up putting the plane in the river.

*


-- Edited by Marin on Friday 20th of January 2012 09:03:41 PM

Is that the 737 that hit the bridge in the early 80's? I thought it went down due to icing.
Not as bad as the VARIG flight that had its pilot input a heading of "027" instead of "270" into the IFR / autopilot.. then flew north into the amazon until they ran out of fuel (and lost track of time listening to a soccer game on the radio...). All were lost, sad to say.

7tiger7 wrote:
Is that the 737 that hit the bridge in the early 80's? I thought it went down due to icing.

Click to expand...

Yes, but not the way you would think.* The accident was 100 percent pilot screw up.* Had they not made the "little" mistake they made, the plane would have taken off and flown away just fine.* As it was, their mistake snowballed (litterally) into a series of events that led to the plane hitting the bridge and going into the river.

7tiger7 wrote:
Is that the 737 that hit the bridge in the early 80's? I thought it went down due to icing.
Not as bad as the VARIG flight that had its pilot input a heading of "027" instead of "270" into the IFR / autopilot.. then flew north into the amazon until they ran out of fuel (and lost track of time listening to a soccer game on the radio...). All were lost, sad to say.

Click to expand...

*The Air Florida flight that went down in the Potomac started with icing on a engine probe that lead to the crew thinking they had X power when they only had x-alot of power.* Then a COMPLEX set of policy and crew coordination led to that crash...my 1st Coast Guard boss still has his ticket for that flight that he missed due to a late running meeting!

But it was not a simple mistake or one or two factors...it was a long line of issues that human factors classes in aviation safety use as an example a lot.

I'll be interested in the FINAL report of the cruise ship disaster.

psneeld wrote:
*The Air Florida flight that went down in the Potomac started with icing on a engine probe that lead to the crew thinking they had X power when they only had x-alot of power.*

Click to expand...

*It wasn't quite that simple and the mistake that started the whole thing going was made by the flight crew while they were still at the gate.

Marin wrote: It wasn't quite that simple ...

Click to expand...

It never is. The sad part is that all they had to do was push the throttles forward and fly away.

It is kind of like AF 447, all they had to do was fly out of a stall.

But, it wasn't that simple ... it never is and not many people really understand that.

Indeed. My father worked for VARIG Brazilian Airlines for 30+ years (management, not as a pilot), but every time one of their planes went down, he had to travel to the crash site to manage the airlines side of the investigation, etc. We used to have the NTSB final reports around the house. Quite interesting reads.
What's sad is how often a serious of seemingly small, inconsequential mistakes (which taken alone would have little effect on the plane) sometimes add up to bring a plane down (ie, a ground crew in Chile, I believe, who used silver duct tape to block a pitot tube while cleaning the plane - but then forgot to remove it, and the pilot didn't spot it on walk around at night, as the tape was silver - instead of a contrasting color to the plane - and the plane went down in the Pacific, if I recall correctly).

Anyway - back to Concordia - who here thinks (and yes, this is PURE speculation) that had the Captain acted as he should of (responsibly) and taken command of the ship and evacuation as soon as she had struck the rocks, there would have been zero casualties?

7tiger7 wrote:
who here thinks (and yes, this is PURE speculation) that had the Captain acted as he should of (responsibly) and taken command of the ship and evacuation as soon as she had struck the rocks, there would have been zero casualties?

Click to expand...

With that many people on board, on a ship going down onto its side, at night, no lights, I'm surprised there weren't a lot more casualties.* Had the captain responded immediately to the collision the evacuation might have been more orderly and there certainly would have been a bit more time.* But I don't know that given the conditions and the confusion on an individual level it's even statistically possible to have zero casualties in a case like this.

And of course, if the captain had been capable of commanding in an emergency with the kind of authority and determination required, he never would have permitted the ship to get into that situation in the first place.

What I find really astounding if it's true is that the captain was steering the ship visually.* With all the electronic aids avaialble-- GPS, radar, plotters, depth sounders, possibly even forward-looking sonar although I don't know if this sort of thing is put on cruise ships alhtough you can get it for your 36' cruiser--- it's amazing to me that he decided to drive the ship visually at night close in to shore.


-- Edited by Marin on Saturday 21st of January 2012 12:50:25 PM

I thought he was at dinner when the ship struck the rocks?

I heard--- perhaps on that link with the AIS track analysis-- that the ship was being steered visually. I assumed it was by the captain since he's the one who wanted to show the passengers the town and so deviated from the ship's normal route. But perhaps it was being steered by someone else. I also read that this particular captain had a history of--- and readily stated that he liked to--- "deviate" from established procedures to do something that he wanted to do.

So I guess he was technically a.... wait for it... a deviant.

I don't know typo

I don't know typically how many people are on the bridge but it would be interesting if anyone expressed concern about the shallow water. In some cultures it is not exceptable behavior to question a superior.

timjet wrote:
I don't know typically how many people are on the bridge but it would be interesting if anyone expressed concern about the shallow water. In some cultures it is not exceptable behavior to question a superior.

Click to expand...

I dunno--- if the bridge crew were Italian I can easily imagine them arguing over all manner of things as the ship sailed on its merry way toward the rocks.

But you are right about the cultural thing.* One of the biggest challenges in my business has been trying to "break" the imbedded rule in many Asian cultures that the captain, skipper, pilot, commander, "guy in charge," is not to be questioned by an underling under any circumstances.* This has led to several well-publicized aircraft accidents over the years.

It's one advantage of automation and is partly why modern jetliners have so much of it, although the real solution (until we get fully automated air travel) is to "re-program" the crews of airplanes, ships, etc. to work together to solve problems or avoid dangerous situations.* But it's not easy going against a few hundred years of cultural habits.

timjet wrote:
I don't know typically how many people are on the bridge but it would be interesting if anyone expressed concern about the shallow water. In some cultures it is not exceptable behavior to question a superior.

Click to expand...

*From the graphic the news showed yesterday on television, it appeared that the depth went from almost two hundred feet to almost nothing in only a hundred and fifty feet or so.

Got this from another site

The current plight of the Costa Concordia reminds me of a comment made by Churchill.

After his retirement he was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian cruise liner and some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should chose an Italian ship.

There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship said Churchill.

First their cuisine is unsurpassed. Second their service is superb. And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first.

When leaving Rome on Alitallia to make a connection in Paris, the Italians were a fashionable 2 hours late leaving the gate. *That threw us very late in Paris. *The Italians had lost our luggage, and we had to make a claim before departure. *This caused us to miss our connection in Paris. *Just cost us a $400.00 night in a hotel and a few expensive meals. *However, the Italians made up for their ineffiency with total indifference.*

You might ask what this has to do with the Costa Concordia incident. *Nothing. *I just see that things have not changed.

It's difficult for me to comprehend with 4 or 5 officers on the bridge a navigation error so ..... well erroneous.
I doubt the captain was at the helm so I'm sure any investigation will have to determine what the other officers were doing.

In our culture the captain is ultimately responsible, but that does not relieve others who have responsibility from disciplinary action if they knew or should have known something was wrong.

It's hard for me to understand why this happened. I suspect that the culture on the bridge was one of not questioning authority and the Captain maintained that culture with intimidation. If so, it was just a matter of time before an accident happened with this Captain. Again I don't know how many officers were on the bridge, but to our knowledge no one said anything. Thats incredible. Did everyone on the bridge have his head up his a$$? or even worse were they afraid to say anything.

Based on the actions of the Captain after the accident I suspect the culture as I described is not too far off.



-- Edited by timjet on Saturday 21st of January 2012 07:34:52 PM


-- Edited by timjet on Saturday 21st of January 2012 07:36:50 PM

timjet wrote:
*

It's hard for me to understand why this happened. I suspect that the culture on the bridge was one of not questioning authority and the Captain maintained that culture with intimidation. If so, it was just a matter of time before an accident happened with this Captain. Again I don't know how many officers were on the bridge, but to our knowledge no one said anything. Thats incredible. Did everyone on the bridge have his head up his a$$? or even worse were they afraid to say anything.

*

Click to expand...

*Tim, this is anecdotal as I have not made a study of this. *I have, however, been aboard a few Italian and Greek ships. *On one of the Greek ships I had occasion for a long discussion with the captain, and saw him interacting with his crew.

My observation is that those guys are the top of the food chain and the cock of the walk. *Nobody crosses them. *I even saw one insult the president of a company that had a large group of his top producers on the cruise. *I would not consider that as very good business. *I have not observed this with Scandanavian captains.*

If the captain wanted to take that ship to Rome, I don't think they would question him.

timjet wrote:I suspect that the culture on the bridge was one of not questioning authority and the Captain maintained that culture with intimidation.

Click to expand...

From what we have observed working in Italy with various airlines over the years, nobody has any problem questioning authority.* At least not in the airline world.* Don't know about ships.*

But in our experience, not only does everyone---from the lowest tug driver to the most senior pilot--- have no qualms about making an issue out of anything they like, but they all seem to relish doing this, usually with intensity on the part of all parties.*

The problem we experienced was that they discuss things FAR too long and to no real benefit.* In our experience they will drop everything for the opportuity to "talk" about stuff.* In many cases this made us late for what we were trying to do.* We'd be hustling along on the airport only to find that our airline and airport escorts had all stopped some distance behind us and were discussing--- again--- what it was we were going to do even though it was crystal clear what was going on.

A big joke out of WWII was that Mussolini's single greatest accomplishment as prime minister of Italy was getting the country's trains to run on time.* I always figured this was just a way of degrading the man, but after working there a few times I can see what a remarkable achievement that was, if he really was able to do it.

While it's impossible to know what really happened unless one was on board the Costa Concordia at the time, and even then nobody probably has the big picture, I rather doubt that things would have been any less confusing and chaotic if the captain had remained on board.* For all we know, his departure may have made the situation better.* I would not be at all surprised if this was the case. One less person to "discuss" everything and issue confilcting opinions and commands that would have served only to slow things down.

The only other culture I have experienced directly that does this same thing---- talk a situation to death--- is China.* The saving grace in China is that they DO have a cultural characteristic of respecting high authority, and eventually someone with it will step in and say "This is what's going to happen."** I found on our most recent project there that often that "higher authority" turned out to be me, once I got over trying to be polite.

Not so in Italy, where rank and authority are, in my observation, no insulation at all against underlings telling you you're full of sh*t.

I'll have to ask Rick if ships like the Costa Concordia have voice recorders on the bridge like the voice recorders on commercial transports that continuously record the last 30 minutes of sounds.* If they do, it would be very interesting to hear what was going on during that last half hour of the recorder's operation.


-- Edited by Marin on Saturday 21st of January 2012 08:02:19 PM

[the master of that ship is in deep doo-doo]*



-- Edited by Egregious on Saturday 21st of January 2012 08:22:18 PM


-- Edited by Egregious on Saturday 21st of January 2012 08:24:39 PM

It's very off topic, but since it's been brought up -

I was caught in traffic just a few hundred feet from the 14th street bridge when the Air Florida flight hit the bridge. I saw it and I'll never forget it.

I watched Lenny Skutnik jump into the river from the opposite bank and rescue the crew member.

The pilot of the US Park Police Helicopter did an amazing job getting the few survivors to shore.
*
There are heros among us. Everywhere, everyday. It just takes an emergency for them to rise to the top.

Long time ago.

Mike
Palm Coast FL.

This vessel did have a black box, so that will indeed be interesting...if we ever get to hear about it that is...the company will try hard to bury it, or keep it as confidential as possible, I bet.

Fox news reported this morning that Costa offered all the passengers on that boat a 30% discount on their next cruise. Are you FN kidding me?

This is pretty revealing *. *. *. *if it's true.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/23/costa-concordia-captain-distracted-guests

The same sort of thing--- the captain distracted by talking to and showing off in front of a visitor he'd invited to the bridge--- put the Washington State ferry Elwha onto the rocks in tiny Grindstone Harbor on Orcas Island back in the 80s when he deviated from the ferry's normal course to show his visitor what her house looked like when viewed from the water.

My wife and I had lunch today with a friend who's husband is a cruise line captain. He says that the cruise lines know to within a few meters where their ships are at any particular time. No black box is required, just a supena for their records. this info can't be lost or hidden.
John