Video from the bridge of the Concordia

[Sybarite]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16995552

Showing the general panic.

 

[doug748]

Well. A media persons view of a sort of panic.

I must say I have seen more panic in Italy. I think people are allowed to be a bit short and iterative, having ploughed a ship onto rocks.

 

[nimbusgb]

Actually the BBC article says 'general confusion' it's the stupid commentator that says panic.

 

[haydude]

Actually the BBC article says 'general confusion' it's the stupid commentator that says panic.

I watched the complete video shown last night on Rete 4. At no point there is any panic, nor any other emotion shown by anyone in the cockpit, only towards the end voices are raised a bit to call and confirm for "Allarme Generale" which is repeated several times. In fact the usual guests invited for yet another public media trial on Schettino and Costa where "astonished" that nobody was showing any panic (the Italian public do expect to see commotion and emotion running high in such circumstances to stress the seriousness of the situation). Again, the usual incompetent guests were scraping the bottom of the barrel to find any criticism. A lady, who clearly couldn't possibly know how to row a boat, even suggested a different use of the anchors.

The summary:

Schettino is in communication with engineering and on the phone with Costa technical support.
Towards the beginning of the video we hear the VHF conversation with CG when they report a blackout. During that conversation the Captain can be heard on the phone. So there is no actual "order to lie to the CG" as it has been speculated. In the cockpit clearly they know about the grounding but they do not know the extent of the damage yet.

Throughout the video we hear him asking and discussing about the status of the compartments several times. The status is not clear to the Captain as he keeps asking for information that appears to be coming piecemeal from engineering. He asks repeatedly for a report on where the water is coming from. He seems reassured that the watertight doors have been closed. Speculations are done around the actual number of compartments flooded. We hear Schettino talking on the phone about two possible flooded compartments. He asks for a tow and for boats to help disembark the passengers. He says that they are drifting towards the island, and discuss that once closer he will drop the anchor to stop the vessel there and facilitate the evacuation. At one point he says "there is a flat calm..", like to say that he does not expect problems for the evacuation.
This is when someone on the bridge informs him that passengers are already trying to get on the life rafts. At which point he answers with a Neapolitan idiom: vabbuo', which means "acknowledged, but there is nothing I can do about it right now".
A few more minutes and from engineering now they say clearly that water keeps coming in and that has reached level 1. At that point Schettino gives the following orders clearly:
- evacuate engineering, get everyone out of there
- ensure that all watertight doors are closed
- ensure that nobody is left behind through the evacuation.

He reports the situation on the phone, and one minute later he orders "Allarme Generale" that is the part of the video shown by the BBC and when the abandon ship alarm is sounded.

If Schettino were in the UK he would have been praised for his calm and his professional handling of the situation (after the grounding).

Beside, there was no girl in the cockpit. It was acknowledged that the story with the Moldavan woman was a media speculation.
It appears that the luggage in the Captain's cabin was a media fabrication. Clearly it helped selling papers and filling TV adverts prime time slots for some time. On Italy's TV there has been one talk show in prime time every night for the first week. The second week one every two nights. Now they run about one a week. Last night the "trial" on Schettino was also about the "astonishing" delay in giving the alarm with pseudo-experts saying that he should have given the order to abandon ship immediately after they touched the rock.

 

[Kukri]

Thank you very much for a very helpful post.

May I repeat it in another forum (which is mostly professional seamen)?

 

[idpnd]

At that point Schettino gives the following orders clearly:
- ensure that nobody is left behind through the evacuation.

He certainly did his level best to ensure he wasn't left behind Doesn't exactly help Italian stereotypes either

 

[haydude]

Thank you very much for a very helpful post.

May I repeat it in another forum (which is mostly professional seamen)?

Please do

 

[Kukri]

Thank you, I have done so.

 

[haydude]

Original video (partial)

I found a partial copy of the original video on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hK-JI4dJ7IM

Here is my translation of the subtitles. We can hear voices, but not the actual persons. It looks like there are communications issues with engineering. Only 10% of the crew were Italian, passengers reported that at the muster stations they could not communicate with crew neither in Italian nor English.

Schettino, talking on the phone (white subtitle on video):
C: Two compartments
C: the fore and aft engine compartments
they are one, two, three, four, five and six.

C: of generators and electric motors
C: in practice there is a breach, I believe
C: the director [engineering] cannot confirm just yet
C: however he can see the water
C: I closed every watertight door

Yellow (other voice on the bridge)
O: They say there is a Tango India at lifeboat no. 3,
O: by lifeboat no. 3

Captain still on the phone:
C: They are... they are ...
C: yeah but, we are verifying all of them, right now
C: we are verifying all of them, now
C: I think that shortly yes, because I want to well understand
C: because the director says that if we have only these two compartments
C: with two compartments we can stay afloat
C: there are no problems
C: also because flooding has stopped
C: now they cannot start the service engine
C: we are drifting towards land

Talking to crew:
C: what is the depth here?
O2: more than 100m
C: we have to verify if we can make it with the chains' length we have
C: Let's verify with the depth sounder first if we can make it

Now the CG VHF call can be heard in background

C: Please tell the director if he please could flood to starboard

A new voice:
O3: Is there anything I can do Captain? Is everything alright?
C: It is alright

Captain to the crew:
C: Let's wait until we drift more
C: in shallow water and then we drop the anchor
C: at least we can turn on the spot
C: yes, yes, now

Now voice from the radio

VR: zone seven dry, zone seven dry
O: so you confirm generators one, two and three only?

Different conversation:
C: I confirm because the director does not understand what I am saying
O: At this point in time it is still the main aft engine and generators one, two and three, therefore ...

To a crew memeber:
C: Do we have four, five and six?

O: See if you can find the director and ask about four, five and six please ...

VR: Four, five and six, acknowledged


The youtube video interrupts here. There is more, if anyone can find it. The BBC video is towards the end, several minutes later.

 

[Kukri]

Thanks for that, too.

What I am not seeing or hearing is any sort of panic or incompetence, just a professonal evalution of the options available.

 

[haydude]

I have to add that Schettino speaks with a thick Neapolitan accent and often slips into the idiom. There is a lot of prejudice and lots of stereotypes in Italy about Neapolitans. and the South. Of all the UK stereotypes about Italians 80% refer in fact to Neapolitans and the South, 20% to Romans. No matter if what he says or he does is right or wrong, the rest of Italy has prejudged him only because of where he is from. Most like in the UK they do with Italians.

 

[RichardS]

No matter if what he says or he does is right or wrong, the rest of Italy has prejudged him only because of where he is from.

The undisputed facts are:

Schettino was the Captain.

The ship hit a well-marked reef very close to land.

20 people died.

Whether he has been prejudged or not, there is surely no way back from that.

Richard

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

The undisputed facts are:

Schettino was the Captain.

The ship hit a well-marked reef very close to land.

20 people died.

I don't think haydude, or anyone else, is unware of those facts.

Thanks for the tanslations, heydude, and for news of debunkings of some media fiction that I wasn't aware of.

 

[JayBee]

Thanks to haydude for shining a considerable amount of light on these unhappy events.

 

[haydude]

Thanks for the tanslations, heydude, and for news of debunkings of some media fiction that I wasn't aware of.

Too often I see distorted or fabricated media reports of some situations about which I either already know, or I took the interest to investigate independently. Too often the media reports I see and read are based more on emotional judgement and sensationalism than facts.

Too often I found the BBC too, merely echoing factious reports from foreign media, rather than actual facts.

And I wonder ... what about the news I hear about situations that I do not know?

 

[Seajet]

haydude,

couldn't agree more; on the rare occasions when something is in the news which I know the real story about, the reporting is always, every time, wrong in some way, which leads me to be suspicious of everything else.

Re Neapolitans, that may well answer something I've always wondered; how the hell did a switched on outfit like the Roman Empire end up with the Italians of today ?!

 

[haydude]

Re Neapolitans, that may well answer something I've always wondered; how the hell did a switched on outfit like the Roman Empire end up with the Italians of today ?!

There are more differences in culture and attitude in 50Km of Italy than in 1000Km of Britain. It is really difficult to characterize Italians because of these differences. See Capello, not quite the charmy Italian you would expect ... he is from the North, no smiles no charm, no politics, no nonsense.

Naples has been for centuries under the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily (including Calabria and Sicily). This was under the Borboni Spanish family for centuries since 1300, in practical term Spain.

To make a long story short, Spain always had a parasitic attitude towards its colonies, taking away without returning anything. So the population developed an anti-state culture where the state is the enemy to fight and cheat. That culture I am afraid has remained endemic with the population to our days. After all Italy as a unified country is only 150 years old. Spain was there for 500 years before.

To continue with some history, it is typical the sentence from Il Gattopardo (The Leopard) written by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa with a Sicilian background: "Everything must change, so that nothing really changes", referring to the unification of Italy. Those populations had seen several foreign ruling Princes and Kings for centuries and managed to build their own layer of governance shielded by external influence, to the point that it didn't really matter who the ruler of the time was, the important was to "embrace" him/them to continue to live as they always had. A state within the state (that eventually when cornered by the state in the post-war Republican era degenerated in various forms of mafia). That is why Garibaldi "conquered" the southern part of the Italian peninsula without a great deal of fighting (and against the wishes of the King of Piedmont, who did not want him to). The population there did not fight a war that wasn't theirs to defend a foreign colonial ruler who wasn't their own. The same attitude dragged through the fascist era (yet another foreign ruler) and second world war, and every time the population embraced who came next ... because anyway they got used to live with and cheat the ruler of the time. Italy was not really unified in 1860 as everyone believe. That happened only on paper. Until the Television era Italy did not even have a common language. It was not the unification under the Kingdom of Piedmont and neither the post-war Republic who united Italy. What rather started the unification process was Television in the 1960s. Yes because Television began to introduce a common language in every Italian Bar Caffe' first and Home later. But Italy is still far from having a united culture, that will take at least another 4 or 5 generations from now.

So when you talk and stereotype about "Italians" you should really consider, which part of Italy they are really from, because you could be miles off and offensive.

The BBC often shows images of Venice with a Neapolitan mandolin song (yes mandolin=Naples) in the background. The wrong association is frowned upon by Italians who believe that the BBC is superficial and ignorant.

 

[toad_oftoadhall]

Too often I see distorted or fabricated media reports of some situations about which I either already know, or I took the interest to investigate independently. Too often the media reports I see and read are based more on emotional judgement and sensationalism than facts.

Too often I found the BBC too, merely echoing factious reports from foreign media, rather than actual facts.

And I wonder ... what about the news I hear about situations that I do not know?

+1 Larger size to indicate jsut how much I agree.

 

[Seajet]

haydude,

thanks for the info, it's always good to know the history behind things.

 

[Erik C]

Smit has started removing the oil.