Costa Concordia

[billyruffn]

There's a great reconstruction of the grounding of the Costa Concordia using AIS data at vimeo.

Reconstruction of the Costa Concordia Tragedy, Narration by John Konrad from gCaptain.com on Vimeo.

Great commentary by the USGC Master that put it together as well.

[ericra]

There is a big gap in the AIS data so part of this reconstruction must be guesswork. Until the black box data become available we won't know exactly what happened. And apparently the black box was malfunctioning as well.

[steel]

So he is going along at 15 kt and then turns to avoid the rocky shore much too late and swipes the stern on the rocks which is that big gash on port which you can see in the pictures. He immediately loses propulsion and non essential electrical power. He tries to go in to port by turning to port but realizes he can't slow down so he turns to starboard instead and goes out to sea where he comes to a stop. With the ship turned around he then uses the bow thruster to bring the ship back up to the rocky shore where she is now.

Since the shore is on the ship's starboard, and she has a gash on port she should list to port (away from the shore) . But she listed to starboard. That means that she is being supported on port side, which must mean there are a lot of jagged rocks. Can half a ship of that size be supported by some sharp points on rocks?

So could it be that bringing her up on the rocks is what finished her by putting more holes in the hull? Whatever happened from that first huge gash should have happened quickly. But she didn't sink quickly from that. So she probably wouldn't have sunk at all. She made it to where she is now with only a small list. He could have brought her close to the port with the bow thruster and then dropped anchor. The ship could have then been towed away for repairs.

The captain said he saved so many lives by navigating the ship up on the rocks. All he did was cause her to sink and create a list which prevented the lifeboats from being properly deployed. The passengers could have gotten in the lifeboats just fine at a safe distance away from the island.

[rgscpat]

Given the inconsistencies and issues with the captain's statements and behavior, there may be some discrepancies between what the captain said and what the captain did -- and whether those things were done by others on board or without any action on the captain's part. For all we know, the ship's inertia and currents may have had more to do with where the ship wound up than the captain's actions. By now, I'd think hope the real AIS data ought to be known to investigators.

[steel]

Well from the pictures we saw she still had a lot of lights on so she wasn't completely dead in the water.

I don't see why they couldn't have put the anchors down.

For plane crashes it takes years for black box data and the investigation to be released to the public. They just don't like the public to always know what's going on.

[islandskipper23]

Thanks for sharing this

[CalebD]

One maritime lawyers take on all of this:
2012 Nightmare:Allision of M/V Delta Mariner