Costa Concordia - Last 18 minutes

[Submariner!]

The following link takes you to a reconstruction of the last 18 minutes which led up to the grounding;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16742405

The source for this footage is from www.qps.nl where they have indicated that thier hypothosis is based on AIS data.

 

[VicS]

The following link takes you to a reconstruction of the last 18 minutes which led up to the grounding;

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16742405

The source for this footage is from www.qps.nl where they have indicated that thier hypothosis is based on AIS data.

Been posted in various guises several times. The clearest version, especially if you view it full screen from youtube, is probably



but there is one with an added narration at http://gcaptain.com/gcaptains-john-konrad-narrates-the-final-maneuvers-of-the-costa-concordia-video/

.

 

[haydude]

They are all SPECULATIONS filling the gaps of incomplete AIS data.

The ACTUAL BLACK BOX DATA will be read in court in MARCH. Up to that time speculation, without actually clarifying that is speculation, is unprofessional misinformation.

 

[VicS]

They are all SPECULATIONS filling the gaps of incomplete AIS data.

The ACTUAL BLACK BOX DATA will be read in court in MARCH. Up to that time speculation, without actually clarifying that is speculation, is unprofessional misinformation.

The implication from QPS was that this was reconstructed from actual data transmitted from the ships AIS.

I dont remember seeing the rider about interpolation last time I looked their website!

 

[onesea]

They are all SPECULATIONS filling the gaps of incomplete AIS data.

The ACTUAL BLACK BOX DATA will be read in court in MARCH. Up to that time speculation, without actually clarifying that is speculation, is unprofessional misinformation.

Some good information there, but what's the point of the bit in blue?
Is it not better some one brings information to the for discussion and learns a little.

Not every one is a professional, not that being professional means allot.

Thanks for the dates for black box, having seen the same information regurgitated I had stopped reading the big thread.

 

[Submariner!]

The implication from QPS was that this was reconstructed from actual data transmitted from the ships AIS.

I dont remember seeing the rider about interpolation last time I looked their website!

QPS states on their website that its based on AIS (which we all know has gaps)

 

[jon711]

Can a ship even with bow and stern thrusters go so far, for so long sideways???

That track just looks wrong...

Jon

 

[Submariner!]

Can a ship even with bow and stern thrusters go so far, for so long sideways???

That track just looks wrong...

Jon

Agreed, that was my thoughts. Not sure what the wind was doing that night. I know that there is no tide in the med, but thier are curents in places, but no idea which direction they run or how strong in that area.

 

[Kukri]

The thrusters cannot have been used, because the engine room was flooded and the ship was relying on her emergency generator(s). Not only are the emergency generator(s) not powerful enough to run a thruster, they are not even wired to the thrusters, and even if they were, no seaman would risk tripping the emergency generator(s) and plunging the ship into darkness in the middle of an evacuation.

The wind was NE'ly F3 (referred to by Captain Schettino as a "gregale"). I think that the ship turned into the wind, and came to a stop; at that point her bows blew off to starboard, pivoting on the stopped fixed pitch propellers and the greatly increased draft aft due to flooding of the engine room (and adjacent spaces, see below). She then lay across the wind and, continung to flood, and having about the same windage fore and aft, blew ashore sideways.

Her rudders seem to be to starboard, as she lies, but that might be slow leakage of hydraulic oil in the days since the grounding.

 

[Kukri]

This is what I think happened:

Before sailing:

The ship embarks passengers at more than one port so some passengers had not had a boat drill. That is allowed for in SOLAS. The voyage date recorder ("VDR" - the "black box") was reportedly, according to Captain Schettino in need of attention and had been reported as such - that does happen- but we don't know if the whole thing was u/s or just a couple of sensor inputs.

The AIS data:

It is well to be cautious in interpolating between the recorded positions. However it does tell us something.

As the ship approached the point where she routinely altered course to close Giglio, there was another vessel overtaking her on her port side, so she allowed that vessel to draw ahead before altering course. This meant that the COSTA CONCORDIA approached the island on a broader bearing than she had usually done. The effect was that the alter course position, and perhaps also the amount of helm applied, should have been changed. This may not have been, or been made, sufficiently apparent to Captain Schettino by the two officers already on the bridge as he entered the wheelhouse and took the con.

After impact, which lasted just over 4 seconds at 15 knots, the ship's engine room, containing her six Wartsila prime movers and their alternators, must have flooded very fast, so that she lost all power. Fortunately, although, as a Class 1 passenger ship, the engine room would have been manned, the engine room staff on watch were probably all in the control room, and seem to have escaped.

Between the initial grounding and the capsize:

As a passenger ship, her emergency generator(s) must give power to the steering engines as well as providing lighting, etc., but the emergency power circuit would not include the thrusters. Slowing down, and flooding aft, the ship turned, or was turned, to starboard and she lost all way and stopped in the eye of the North-Easterly F3 wind, which blew the bows off to starboard, with the ship pivoting on the stopped fixed pitch props and the increasing draft aft. She then drifted, lying across the wind, until she reached pretty much the position where she is now. Both anchors were dropped, obviously when the foredeck was still tenable and embarcation of the passengers into the boats began. This was sucessful; if 99% of the passengers and crew of an aircraft walk away from a crash landing, we call that a sucess.The officers and crew deserve great credit for this.

Suggestions by passengers that they did not see the officers are not surprising, the officers have other things to do, such as keeping the lights on and summoning help, and those members of the hotel staff who have been trained and who have lifeboat certificates (a specified number) supervise and carry out the embarcation into the boats. In a plane which crsh lands, would you wait for the Captain and co-pilot to show you to the emergency exits or would you do what the cabin staff tell you to do?

(Power is not required either to drop an anchor or to lower a lifeboat.)

It should be noted that all but three of the boats got away.

The flooding:

As the ship contimued to flood, she developed an angle of loll, reported as initially to port, then to starboard. Given her very high sides and shoal (8.3m) draft, the cause of the heel may have been the wind, coupled with loss of stability due to free surface. She continued to flood, espescially, aft - the photos of the embarcation show her drawing roughly six metres more aft than forward. By the time the last of the starboard boats were leaving the ship the edge of the boat deck was almost immersed aft, but the mooring deck aft was one deck below the boat deck.

I would expect the mooring deck to have had weathertight, not watertight, doors to the accomodation, it being comfortably above the waterline, and one wonders how well they had been dogged, whether indeed they were closed at all and how much head of water they would resist. Similarly there are two rows of small windows below the boat deck and one wonders if these had deadlights and if they were all closed. One also wonders if all the watertight doors below the waterline, which for sure were closed from the bridge after the first grounding, operated correctly. They rather often do not. For instance, if water were lapping over the sill(s,) debris from the flooding engine room might have been lying on the sill,so the door would not close correctly.

The capsize and second grounding:

Very soon after the boats got away, the ship capsized to starboard. It may be that, due to the increase in draft aft, which is evident in the pictures, she had grounded on her aft skeg and this may have added a capsizing lever due to continuing flooding. The emergency generator(s) would cut out as the heel exceeded 20 degrees. She would roll quickly until she assumed a new stable position, flat on her side, as shown in the helicopter infra-red videos of the crew disembarking. She would float in that position, downflooding rapidly through the passageways, stairwells and windows until she settled in the position that she is in now.

This could have been the moment when Captain Schettino left the vessel; he may have assumed everyone was off and with his wheelhouse at 90 degrees I cannot see what he could usefully have done by staying in it.

The aftermath:

Costa found themselves with ten 747 loads of people shivering on a little island in the middle of the night . They handled the care and repatriation of all these people very well, I think.

 

[Bilgediver]

The implication from QPS was that this was reconstructed from actual data transmitted from the ships AIS.

I dont remember seeing the rider about interpolation last time I looked their website!

It is rather odd that they seem to have come up with a rather convoluted course covering the 30 minute gap in transmissions. I accept that the sytems used ashore for AIS reception and associated servers are provided in large by enthusiastic amateurs who get the gear FOC for providing info from their area. The 30 minute gap could have been either the ais being switched off or the receiving station being shielded from the ship if it as poorly positioned on the other side of the island . Some of the traces show the rescue boats coming so if there was a dead spot then their traces should also disappear when off the harbour????? The true record will be in the black box.

I feel that most of the turning moment may have been the effect of wind and two anchors. As others have said it seems the machinery spaces or at least one was flooded. There may have been at least two separate spaces on such a large ship. If both spaces were flooded then there would be no thruster power and the rudders would be of no use unless there was some power to one or other of the screws due to availability of some alternators.

The Costa Concordia is of similar design to the Carnival Splenour and she has 6 alternators split between two engine rooms but suffered total power failure after a crankcase explosion or some other fault in one engineroom.

SHe was towed home while the passengers enjoyed carry out meals courtesy the US Navy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Splendor

 

[Kukri]

According to the long established weekly shipping industry magazine "Fairplay":

http://www.fairplay.co.uk/ThisWeek.aspx

the fault in the VDR was trivial and all the data is available.

As a Class 1 passenger ship, the Costa Concordia's emergency generator should have provided power to the steering engines, but that would be of limted use without either power to the main propulsion system or a tug!

I am assuming that all six main generators were lost, because were that not so the ship might have done something different!

 

[Hoolie]

This is what I think happened:

... ... ... ...

The aftermath:

Costa found themselves with ten 747 loads of people shivering on a little island in the middle of the night . They handled the care and repatriation of all these people very well, I think.

Agreed. The scale of the rescue is not generally appreciated.
Very impressive performance by the crew, captain possibly excepted.

 

[glashen]

The full story remains to be told, but one fact remains apparently undisputed, that it was at least 50 minutes before a mayday was declared that given the known facts is surely inexcusable.

 

[maxi77]

The full story remains to be told, but one fact remains apparently undisputed, that it was at least 50 minutes before a mayday was declared that given the known facts is surely inexcusable.

But was that the Master or company policy?

 

[Metabarca]

The only detail I've picked up recently is that the third officer is from the village next door to us, and a friend of friends. It would appear that she swam ashore around 1 am and borrowed a passenger's phone to call her brother and say she was ok.

 

[glashen]

But was that the Master or company policy?

Have I missed something or is the ship's master not the one in charge and therefore responsible, whatever his bosses were saying.

 

[haydude]

This is what I think happened:
The voyage data recorder ("VDR" - the "black box") was reportedly, according to Captain Schettino in need of attention and had been reported as such - that does happen- but we don't know if the whole thing was u/s or just a couple of sensor inputs.

We do: the Black box was verified and in good health having both navigational and cockpit sound recording. We will have to wait until March before this data is read in court. Perhaps more before it can be released to the public.
Clearly Schettino is not a geek when it comes to electronics because he gave order to run the internal CC TV backup to save the data before leaving the cockpit, which did not work, and he thought that the black box was affected too, but it wasn't.
The CC TV hard drive was later recovered from the cockpit (and they did not tell us if it was in the dry or submersed section). We now know that the Black Box includes also the cockpit environmental audio recordings (not video).

The AIS data:

It is well to be cautious in interpolating between the recorded positions. However it does tell us something.

There is too much speculation on the interpolation and the course once near the Island. The ship is 300 metres long and we do not know where the AIS antenna is positioned. The video speculates ridicolously both on the antenna position (on the BOW???) and the STERN SWING. The latter in particular makes a great deal of speculations on distances below 300m for a ship 300m long.

and stopped in the eye of the North-Easterly F3 wind, which blew the bows off to starboard,

I am not sure about the NE F3 wind. If that were the case one should see some signs on the water. But the water in the very first pictures when the ship is listing by only 10-20 degrees show the water completely flat.

Suggestions by passengers that they did not see the officers are not surprising, the officers have other things to do, such as keeping the lights on and summoning help, and those members of the hotel staff who have been trained and who have lifeboat certificates (a specified number) supervise and carry out the embarcation into the boats. In a plane which crsh lands, would you wait for the Captain and co-pilot to show you to the emergency exits or would you do what the cabin staff tell you to do?

Correct, that was clarified.

 

[maxi77]

Have I missed something or is the ship's master not the one in charge and therefore responsible, whatever his bosses were saying.

Even so he would not be the last who defered to the owners in a crisis, the Torrey Canyon being one I was involved with.

Employability does depend on your employers opinion, so it is not surperising masters do defer

 

[tudorsailor]

The full story remains to be told, but one fact remains apparently undisputed, that it was at least 50 minutes before a mayday was declared that given the known facts is surely inexcusable.

If one declares a MayDay including abandon ship, does this affect ownership or salvage rights? Someone told me this week-end that once the captain orders abandon ship, the ship becomes the property of the harbour master. Seems bizarre to me but if there is some truth in this, then could this explain the delay in ordering abandon ship?

TudorSailor