EP12: Costa Concordia- How A Course Change Became Catastrophic

We break down the Costa Concordia disaster from the first off-course “salute” to the moment the ship lists and the evacuation turns into chaos. We keep coming back to one uncomfortable idea: luxury and routine can make people stop thinking until the situation is already out of control. 
• why Costa Concordia stands out as a modern cruise ship disaster 
• “cruise brain” and why people tune out real safety information 
• the timeline from impact to delayed distress call 
• how a listing ship makes lifeboats unusable fast 
• the captain leaving the bridge and the Coast Guard phone call 
• survival stories that show improvisation under pressure 
• the search, salvage, fuel removal, and what happened to missing victims 
• sentencing, scapegoat questions, and who else avoids prison time 
• new global regulations like mandatory pre-departure muster drills 
• mega cruise ships, evacuation limits, and what “too big” means 
• compensation figures for passengers, families, and crew 
If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, rate, and review, or don't. 

Sources: 

Shipwrecked: Nightmare at sea. (Netflix)

The Costa Concordia, why she sank. (Amazon Prime)

Do want to learn more about Cruise Line Terminology, alert calls, and fun cruise terminology? Check out our CruiseShipKiller Dictionary!

Transcript

Cold Open And The Core Question

Speaker 2 0:06

Relaxation, luxury, and absolutely nothing going wrong. But every year people disappear, accidents happen. And the official explanation somehow never gets simpler. This is cruise ship killer, a podcast where we examine real cruise ship deaths, disappearances, and mishaps. We're not here to accuse. We're here to ask, does any of this actually make sense? Welcome aboard.

Speaker 1 0:41

You may have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you pay for this. You get back on board and tell me how many passengers there are and what they need.

Speaker 2 0:49

It is dark in here. We can't see anything.

Speaker 1 0:52

Oh, it's dark. And so what? You want to go home? Get back on board, dammit. Vada a Bordo Cazzo!

Speaker 2 0:58

Click. So episode 12, Costa Concordia. That was some of the dialogue from the Coast Guard lead, right?

Speaker 1 1:10

And the captain.

Speaker 2 1:10

De Falco.

Speaker 1 1:11

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 1:12

And the captain. Schettino? Schettino? Schettino? How do you pronounce it? Schettino?

Speaker 1 1:20

I think Scatino.

Speaker 2 1:21

I'm only 4% Italian, so I can't quite pronounce that correctly. I'm zero. This episode is all about the Costa Concordia. If you have not heard about this, buckle up because this is going to be a fun show. We're going to talk about it. It's a tragedy. Tragedy all the way around, right?

Drink Word And Desert Storms

Speaker 2 1:40

But before we do that.

Speaker 1:42

The drink word of the day is list or tilting.

Speaker 2 1:51

So we live in the Sonoran Desert. It's monsoon season. And when there's a hint of rain. Now we've already had a couple monsoons. The frogs come out.

Speaker 1 2:01

Right.

unknown 2:02

Right?

Speaker 2 2:02

They come out of, we don't even know where they come out of, right? They just rise. And they start singing at night loud. They're loud for you, yeah? They're very loud and have you I mean, are you hearing a sound that's similar to this?

Speaker 1 2:17

No. No, they screach

Speaker 2 2:20

You haven't heard this kind of throttle noise from this wood object. Because I've been like hanging out close to the wall of your house late at night using my little frog device here to try to make it sound louder.

Speaker 1 2:38

Seriously. Good lord.

Speaker 2 2:41

For those of you that have no familiarity with the desert southwest in the in the summer, it's probably the best time to be here. Even though it's really blazingly hot. But the storms are really make you feel small.

Why Costa Concordia Still Matters

Speaker 2 2:54

And it actually is a good segway into this story with Costa Concordia. Because if you're on a ship that's this big and it suddenly starts tilting, you suddenly realize you're small. No matter how much you've had at the buffet, you're small. Like you're small. Like you realize, oh God, right? I mean, that's my takeaway.

Speaker 1 3:16

That's true. These ships are very large.

Speaker 2 3:18

This one in particular, like I was surprised that this ship was what did you tell me? The largest ship?

Speaker 1 3:25

At the time it was Europe's largest cruise ship, and it's about the equivalent to like the Carnival Splendor that's out right now.

Speaker 2 3:33

Yeah.

Speaker 1 3:34

But now, you know, they've got a lot more mega ships that are a lot bigger than that now.

Speaker 2 3:42

So what year was this? 2012? Mediterranean. Seven-day cruise. What day were they on in their voyage and their cruise? Their seven-day cruise when this accident happened.

Speaker 1 3:59

They were on day one, two hours out of port.

Speaker 2 4:03

Wow. So why are we talking about this for this episode?

Speaker 1 4:09

There's a documentary out right now on Netflix, but we also both watched one from Amazon.

Speaker 2 4:17

Yeah, 2021. And I thought that was a lot better. 2021, right? Yeah. Yeah, we both thought that was a lot better. The Netflix one was not that great. Not to poo-poo it. You gotta watch it. But I guess people have been commenting that that the Netflix one was more about kind of the fear that people had. I don't think they interviewed enough people, to be honest with you, but but the Amazon one, which was a 90-minute, two-part, 45-minute, right, each, that was much more detailed.

Speaker 1 4:47

I can say just from the comments and uh from one of my friends who's never been on a cruise, if you've never been on a cruise and you watch any of these, you're not probably gonna ever go on a cruise. She asked me, should I watch this? And I was like, hell no, because you'll never go on a cruise. If you've been on a cruise, you know how the whole thing works, you know how fun they can be.

Speaker 5:09

Right.

Speaker 1 5:09

These things don't occur often, but if you've never been and you watch any of these documentaries, I think you're out.

Speaker 2 5:20

But you do watch this. I've gone on a cruise, you've gone on a cruise. Everybody makes fun of me and my family that when I go to a hotel, I look at the back of the door what the escape route is. And they're like, why do you do that? And I'm like, I just have my plan on I know exactly what's gonna happen when things go south. Seems really bizarre because what's the likelihood of it going south, right? I bet you money out of the there were 3,000 passengers and a thousand crew, so it's a 4,000 passenger boat.

Speaker 1 5:48

Right.

Speaker 2 5:49

How many people do you think did what I do? How many think paid attention at the mustard drill? And I did say mustard. If you don't have the dictionary, go to the dictionary.

Speaker 1 5:58

I find that what you said about the minute you get on your in cruise brain vacation mode, but not a lot of people pay attention to that.

Speaker 2 6:06

That's a legit psychological condition. We've talked about that. Cruise head. And you're saying this happened in day with this happened at the very beginning of the cruise, so everybody's in this cruise brain.

Speaker 1 6:16

Two hours in.

Speaker 2 6:17

So no one looked at the back of the door or paid attention to the case.

Speaker 1 6:21

I don't think many people right, which is horrible.

Speaker 2 6:25

This is a to me, this is an amazing story because it does you have everybody that pays attention, whether you've been on a cruise ship or not, has to watch any of these documentaries and ask a fundamental question. It's like, what would I do? All the way up to the captain, because that's where things go real weird. Wrong. Weird is like not even the right word.

Speaker 1 6:49

Wrong, unbelieable

Speaker 2 6:52

I don't know what it is in Italian, but yeah, stupid stupido, whatever they say. It's just really

Cruise Brain

Speaker 2 6:58

crazy. All right, you want to run through the timeline? Because I know that's on the agenda is to run through the timeline. So everybody knows what the hell we're talking about. I'm sure everybody's probably on the Amazon right now and Netflix trying to figure out what show we're talking about.

Speaker 1 7:09

Yes.

The Timeline Up To Impact

Speaker 1 7:12

Okay, so the Concordia, it left Rome, and two hours later it struck a rocky reef off a coast of Giglio. Um, resulting in a chaotic and late evacuation, 32 deaths, and the captain abandoning the ship before all the passengers were off. So this was on a Friday the 13th in 2012. At 9:15, the captain decides he's gonna alter the route and go by Giglio Island to please some passengers, salute a retired ship captain from Giglio, and as a favor for a head waiter who was from there. This would be like your brother, the pilot, doing a Tom Cruise flyby and then crashing the plane somewhere.

Speaker 2 8:07

Since my brother is a pilot, I should ask him about that. Can we do a flyby over Phoenix? He's gonna be like, no.

Speaker 1 8:15

No, I know. He's fun, but he's not that fun. He's not gonna do a flyby.

Speaker 2 8:19

He's gonna be like, the Airbus is not that exciting.

Speaker 1 8:24

So there were also comments about how he was doing this to impress his 26-year-old Moldovan dancer girlfriend who was a guest of his, but not on the passenger list.

Speaker 2 8:37

Okay.

Speaker 1 8:38

Then at 9 40, the ship strikes a reef, resulting in a 165-foot gash, loses power, the three compartments under the ship fill with water in 10 minutes. If once you get past two compartments filling, you can't float anymore.

Speaker 2 8:57

Well, wait, let's put this in like like visual perspective, right? So the the ship is about, since we just finished the World Cup. Literally, we just finished the final. Everybody and their brother's been watching this, right? This would be like three football or soccer fielsd long, very wide ship, so huge ship, from about the shoreline all the way to the top, 17 stories. And this thing, it didn't hit a reef from what I it hit a rock. It hit a rock and it threw a gash that was 174 feet long in that side of the in the hole. So you're right. And then obviously it's just suckers just filling with water, right? Do they know that it was there are multiple chambers in there, right? So these things are designed to take on water.

Speaker 1 9:54

Right. If you get past two compartments, the ship will not float anymore.

Speaker 2 9:59

Right. You start to the it starts to throw out of balance. Right. Okay, all right. So go on.

Speaker 1 10:04

So all of this is going on, and I think the Coast Guard is noticing them, you know, that they're near this island. The Coast Guard calls them and says, Hey, are you in need of assistance or are you just hanging out? And the captain says, Yeah, we're just hanging out, but we've lost some power. So he tried the there's nothing to see here, folks. We'll call you if we need you.

Power Loss And Delayed Alarm

Speaker 1 10:30

So then at let's see, 10.40, authorities finally get the first notification that there's a disaster, not from the ship captain calling back, but from the police who receive a call from a panicked passenger's relative. So the Coast Guard starts initiating rescue operations with patrol boats and helicopters. And then at 1054, the abandoned ship call finally comes from the captain 69 minutes after impact. So he's like wasted more than an hour.

Speaker 2 11:05

So all right, so back up. So boat gets hit by the rock, power goes out. I remember that they go on to tell the passengers, because uh obviously you're eating dinner, you're doing whatever you want, and all of a sudden the boat takes this kind of jarring move, and you're like, what the hell's going on? The next thing you know, there's a flicker, there's no power, all that kind of stuff. They come on and tell the passengers nothing to worry about, we're fixing it, we're figuring out what's going on, right?

Speaker 1 11:34

Right.

Speaker 2 11:35

But what's happening is this thing is taking on water, they lose power, the engine room is reporting like this is catastrophic. They don't have control of the ship.

Speaker 1 11:49

Right. It's just drifting.

Speaker 2 11:51

Drifting. And they're how far away from this island are they? Like, people can see the island, from what I remember.

Speaker 1 11:58

They can.

Speaker 2 11:59

They can see it.

Speaker 1 12:00

I don't remember how many miles they are from it.

Speaker 2 12:03

If you saw the if you were on that boat and that happen, and that I said boat, I did it again. Drink, everybody drink. I think there should be a rule. Just drink when I say boat. Even though there's another word. Anyway. Oh, anyway. If you're on that ship, wouldn't you? So you hear this jar, power goes out. What are you thinking?

Speaker 1 12:25

Titanic, we've hit an iceberg

Speaker 2 12:26

No, you have not. No, you are not even thinking that far. You're looking out, going, well, there's the land right there. You have to be thinking, like, oh, well, obviously something's wrong. Like, you're not thinking much of it.

Speaker 1 12:37

Oh, because they're gonna come skip over to you and get you off in time because the land's right there?

Speaker 2 12:42

Well, and also they're coming on and saying, hey, the power's out and we're working on it. What are you doing? You're probably I know I'm I'm like, okay. I'm probably listening. I don't know when I'm calling bullshit. But right? You you wouldn't know. You're you're first off, you you're in cruise brain.

Speaker 1 13:01

I probably call it bullshit before you call it bullshit. Probably. But yes. I would be more nervous.

Speaker 2 13:07

And then you'd be like, Geoff I'm calling bullshit. Aren't you gonna? I'm like, no, I'm not calling bullshit yet. And so we'd have an argument in the hallway. Yeah. Oh, anyway, fine.

Lifeboat Chaos And A Preventable Death

Speaker 1 13:15

Alright, so 1115, the first lifeboat reaches Giglio. And I'm watching footage on these documentaries of people lining up to get in lifeboats, and it looks like the line at Best Buy the day after Thanksgiving. Men, women, children. I don't know what happened to women and children first.

Speaker 2 13:37

Oh, I see. There's no priority.

Speaker 1 13:38

There was no priority, just a big group. And so the youngest passenger on this ship is a five-year-old girl who died because she could not get into a lifeboat with her father. Which is totally wrong. I don't know where the you know, women and children first did not come into play, I guess. So at 1120, the ship is listing. The captain leaves the bridge and abandons the ship. And because of the listing, several of the lifeboats on that side become unusable. So now you have a lifeboat issue with probably losing a third of your lifeboats now.

The Captain Abandons The Ship

Speaker 1 14:21

And then that is when the Coast Guard commander, DeFalco, starts calling the bridge and doesn't get an answer. And so he tracks the captain down on his cell phone, and that is the conversation they had that we opened with, telling him you better get back on board. You got 300 people on there, and I need to know how to help them. And he refused. So then at midnight, the ship capsizes on a submerged reef, and the police chief is standing on another reef close to shore, and there's some passengers and crew. There was about a hundred to two hundred people who just decided to jump off the ship and swim for it, and so they were all kind of sitting on there, and he's looking, and then he sees the captain. And I don't know, you know those memes you see sometimes on Facebook? There's a fox in the middle of all the hounds, and he's just looking straight ahead like, I'm not here. I hope they don't notice me, right? Well, he sees the captain and he's looking at everybody, and everybody's clothes are wet except the captain's clothes are completely dry. So then he starts yelling at him, saying, you know, your clothes are dry. You got on a lifeboat? you need to get back on board. You you still have passengers on board. And he's like, I did not. I tripped and fell into the lifeboat. But yet there's footage showing him walking into a lifeboat. I thought that was just crazy. I tripped and fell into a light boat.

Speaker 2 15:56

It's the most insane thing.

Speaker 1 15:58

It is. And he's like, I'm he's got his phone and he's like, I'm directing and coordinating from here. And then then the police chief starts yelling about, hey, what kind of maps do you have for this? Where's your maps for the channel? And he's like, these reefs were not here last time. And the police chief is like, these reefs have always been here.

Speaker 2 16:20

Like, seriously. There's so much wrong with this, it's just crazy. Because the dial, the exchange back and forth between the police chief and the captain, from what I heard. And the and the captain and the Coast Guard head. I mean, the Coast Guard head, DeFalco, was furious. Basically saying, you know, get the F back on the on the on the ship. Like, what are you doing? And you know, his argument was his argument is absolutely 100% sound, which is we need to know how many people are there. We need to know what you've done. We you know what I mean? I mean, they just need to coordinate. So he is the the point of knowledge of what exactly is being done to respond from the ship side. And it just blows me away that this guy was completely checked out.

Leadership Collapse And Desperate Improvisation

Speaker 2 17:15

What blows me away even more, where's the second in command? Or the third in command. No, no. Doesn't somebody, I mean, come on, doesn't somebody say, I mean, we have that thing here, kinda. If the president goes off the rails, we've got people that can step in. We've got second in commands, thirds in command. I mean, they definitely have a hierarchy.

Speaker 1 17:34

Right.

Speaker 2 17:35

So it's like, wow, what a complete, complete collapse.

Speaker 1 17:39

He's so checked out that he brought his luggage with him.

Speaker 2 17:43

See, that's just that blows me away.

Speaker 1 17:45

Yeah, let me get my luggage and put it on the boat

Speaker 2 17:47

What the hell did he have in the luggage? He's smuggling rum.

Speaker 1 17:50

So He didn't have the drink package. I have to say, I hate cold water more than anyone, but I I would have jumped off and tried to swim for it too. I wouldn't have stayed on.

Speaker 2 18:01

See, if there's a CSK, if he was on that boat, CSK actually would have been pissed off too. He would have taken the side of everybody else and been like, I'm gonna go get the captain. I am gonna find the captain and kill the captain. And everyone would have been like, that's fine, kill the captain. Because he's just absolutely nuts. The thing that amazed me about the documentary was um the particularly the the Amazon one was um they actually called attention to the fact that when the audio was released about this back and forth between the chief of police of Giglio and the um Coast Guard, that many Italians were embarrassed, like this guy is one of us, yeah. And the others were obviously completely opposite. So they absolutely became heroes because they were saying what everybody else on the planet was saying, which is yeah, duh. You know, no, we're not like that, you know. It's just it's just crazy. But I still but I don't just only blame you can't blame the captain only, right?

Speaker 1 19:10

Right. You you have a bunch of first officers and everybody else who's supposed to take a you know accountability if he leaves.

Speaker 2 19:17

And did you get any names? I don't even know who these people were.

Speaker 1 19:20

I don't have any names.

Speaker 2 19:22

They slipped out. It's like they slipped out the back door, right? No one knows.

Speaker 1 19:27

And so the passengers that were still on there were struggling.

Swimming Jumping And Climbing To Survive

Speaker 1 19:32

Um some of them had pulled coffins out of the mortuary to use as flotation devices, but there were some that were stuck on the outside of the ship, 17 stories up, and the you know, one of the dancer ladies is saying, I can't even jump off of here. I'd be dead. I'd be hitting the water like concrete at 17 stories. And so she's the one who kind of was trying to climb up to get rescued and had her using her fingernails on the rails to get across and keep going up. And she actually was was worried about her parents because she said, My parents have already lost two kids, and if I die, this will just kill them. And so I cannot die. So she got rescued. Um, and then there was another lady who had to jump in with her husband and their toddler to swim for it, and she passed some lifeboats, and she's trying to hold her toddler up to a lady in a lifeboat, like, can you take my my child? Yeah, and the lady just shaking her head, no. That sounds like a scene from Titanic. Remember, they're all trying to get on, they're like, We have so much more room, and they're like, No, you're gonna capsize us, you know, and they they wouldn't let them on.

Speaker 2 20:49

That's nuts. Yeah, that just doesn't make sense. So, all right, if you're in that situation, because I know everybody's imagining, if I'm in that situation, what am I gonna do? Right? If you've never been on a cruise, you can't even imagine, right? You're kind of thinking, oh, I don't know. I I guess the closest thing to imagining would be okay, next time you go to a hotel, imagine it turning over or or tipping, you know, a whole 45 degrees, and now you have to get out. So that would be the equivalent of imagining how how are you gonna do that, right? And you don't have anybody telling you what to do, right?

Speaker 1 21:18

No, no one's directing.

Speaker 2 21:20

No, nobody's directing, nobody's right. So there is a complete collapse of leadership. So you're you're basically on your own. So what would you do in that situation? Like it gets to the point where you're like, wow, no one's saying anything. The mustard station might as well be the Ketchup station, doesn't matter anymore. Right? Doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, so that's out, that's out the window. Nothing that's not gonna work.

Speaker 1 21:44

You gotta do what you think you can do and get off yourself, save yourself.

Speaker 2 21:50

What would you do?

Speaker 1 21:51

I'd jump in in the water, right? I would jump in and swim for it.

Speaker 2 21:54

And I don't know how many people did.

Speaker 1 21:57

100 to 200.

Speaker 2 21:58

A lot did. I would. Done the same thing. Now that water was really cold. January. January. Right. So you had hypothermia, but but you know your adrenaline is just kicked into high gear. So you're you at least got a good shot at getting to but it was rocky. That coastline was rocky.

Speaker 1 22:16

That wasn't like I'm I'm just gonna swim onto the beach and it was, but a lot of people at least got to the rocks and got out and sat there. Yeah. Yeah. So the next morning there were still a hundred people missing, but now it's daylight, so the Coast Guard are sending divers inside the ship, and they got some more people out. They ended up evacuating like 4194 people. Um, and there were two people missing. And the captain got arrested the next day because they thought he was gonna be a flight risk, and rightly so. Probably has his passport and his luggage and gonna take it.

Speaker 2 22:59

He actually evacuated this ship in a shirt that said flight risk on the back. He actually had a t-shirt. Yeah. So I don't know what yeah, what the heck.

Speaker 1 23:08

So on January 31st, the search for the victims end. There's still two people missing. Both families were featured in that Netflix documentary and the Amazon documentary. This lady lost her mother. I think she was 17 at the time. They didn't find the mom until two years later. There was a diver in the water around the capsized wreckage because they're getting ready to move it, and they found her. The second is a waiter from India who wasn't found for three years, and he got found when they were dismantling the ship three years later. That's kind of really creepy.

Speaker 2 23:49

It is, and and his story was pretty touching because he did what clearly the captain just didn't have any fabric to be able to do, which was he helped save people.

Speaker 1 24:03

Yeah.

Speaker 2 24:03

So the guy sacrificed himself to do what he needed to do.

Speaker 1 24:08

Um okay.

Recovery Salvage And The Prison Sentence

Speaker 1 24:09

So then February 12th, 2012, the removal of 24 tons of fuel begins to avoid an environmental disaster on top of the original disaster.

Speaker 2 24:20

See, that's a miracle to me. I was surprised that they were able to prevent that.

Speaker 1 24:26

You would have thought it was been leaking this whole time.

Speaker 2 24:28

Oh, yeah, I would have thought it would this would have been a big catastrophe in so many different ways, yeah.

Speaker 1 24:34

Then in September of 2013, the salvage begins and the ship is set upright and on an underwater cradle to be taken to Genoa for to be dismantled. And then February 2015, the captain is sentenced to 16 years and one month in prison after a 19-month trial. He's convicted of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning the ship. That's where we get into is he a scapegoat because all the other first officers and people um had plea agreements and just got suspended, and none of them had to do prison time.

Speaker 2 25:13

And the ship, I mean the uh the company distanced themselves from him. Basically said he he made this decision to do this quote salute by Giglio Right. Go off course. Which apparently is something that they I don't know if it's common, but it happens.

Speaker 1 25:31

Right.

Speaker 2 25:33

You would think that if you were to do that, that the protocol would be I gotta tell the company that this is what we're going to do.

Speaker 1 25:39

Right.

Speaker 2 25:40

Right? Apparently that did not happen, according to the company. Right.

Speaker 1 25:46

Right.

Speaker 2 25:46

That he just did it.

Speaker 1 25:48

Right.

Speaker 2 25:48

So he he went on his own, he went rogue. They they actually use the term rogue, I think, right? He's a rogue captain. I don't know if that's necessarily all that fair.

Speaker 1 25:58

No.

Speaker 2 25:59

But then again, he is the captain.

Speaker 1 26:03

There are other captain of the ships that were on there saying , you know, it's not a one-man team. No. You have first officers and you're a team, and so you all need to be held accountable and felt that the other officers also needed some kind of prison time. I mean, maybe not 16 years, but something.

Speaker 2 26:21

If he let's just say if he if he had stayed on and done the right thing, like a captain should, should he have gone to prison? It was his call to make go off course. It was his he was in control of the ship. He had to pay attention. Forget the Moldovian dancer. No, I mean she's kind of a red herring, right? She's on the side. Yeah, you mean she yeah, oh, she's just like, oh my gosh, uh Schettino, you're great, you're great. This is fantastic. Look at that. We're so close to the island. Yeah. But he's responsible for steering all that.

Speaker 1 26:53

He is there's still manslaughter charges. So yes, he still had to have some prison time, I think.

Speaker 2 27:00

He still has to be held to account, but it wouldn't have been nearly as long the pain that he deserves for being spineless.

Speaker 1 27:09

Right. And even his wife, they're still married, by the way, is saying she felt he was a scapegoat. She, I guess she's doesn't care about the Maldovin dancer.

Speaker 2 27:22

All right. w e are really eating up time on this one. This one's a big story, though, because there's there's so much to this. First off, one thing I didn't know when I saw the pictures of this initially, my reaction was it looked like a toy, looked like something that tipped over in my bathtub as a kid. You know, I'm like, that can't be that big of a deal. But this is one of the largest ships at that time. This is huge. And then when you think of when you start looking at that picture and you start thinking, well, wait a minute. The fact that it tipped, you just annihilated half the rescue boats.

Speaker 1 28:01

Right.

Speaker 2 28:02

And you got 4,000 people.

Speaker 1 28:04

Right.

Speaker 2 28:05

What's the plan for that? What when that happens, what happens? So, I mean, I really was wondering, I was like, was there even enough to rescue these people? What if they were in the middle of nowhere? I mean, they had at least land that many of them swam to, right? You at least had hope.

Speaker 28:21

Right.

Speaker 2 28:21

But if you were in the middle of the ocean and that happened, what's gonna happen? So, what can you tell tell us about how did this change things? Because I know in in one of the documentaries they had somebody had mentioned, yeah, that at what point do you stop building such gigantic ships? Because it hasn't stopped, right? Right.

Speaker 1 28:38

There have been, they talked about that in here, like you need to stop building huge ships because you can't rescue everybody. And then since 2012, there have been 40 to 50 more mega ships built that are 30% bigger than the Concordia right now.

Speaker 2 28:57

So you here's what's interesting about the timeline 2012, you're talking 2013, so all this kind of stuff was coming out. At that same time, we're talking about all the stuff that we've talked about in the past. About when a passenger goes missing, the FBI is involved, you know, that whole cruise ship act. I mean, all this is happening at the exact same time. You got this big boat, right? And all this is happening. Yeah, I said boat drink. So, anyway, right? Yeah. I mean, it's it's amazing that all of this is coming to a head in in the 2010-2013 range. But yet, has anything changed?

New Global Rules After The Wreck

Speaker 1 29:33

Yes, so so because of this one, they had some new global regs. One of them is a mandatory pre-departure muster drill, which you said no one really listens to. Maybe they will now

Speaker 2 29:44

Might as well be Ketchup

Speaker 1 29:45

Restricted bridge access, so you can't bring your girlfriend in and have her nibbling on your ear while you're steering the ship. Strict passage planning, so no, we're going over here now.

Speaker 2 29:57

Oh, yeah, no, no. Let's go say hi to my mom.

Speaker 1 30:00

Right.

Speaker 2 30:00

Right.

Speaker 1 30:01

Additional life jackets, emergency power, and damaged stability. Oh, this was interesting. Tracking nationality so the search and rescue teams can contact local authorities.

Speaker 2 30:12

Huh.

Speaker 1 30:13

And rigorous crew training since there wasn't anybody directing.

Speaker 2 30:19

So if you're if you haven't gone on a cruise and you're planning to go on a cruise, the good news is that chances are you've got a better trained crew than when we were on a cruise.

Speaker 1 30:28

Yes, that's true. But then, you know, you bring up the lifeboat thing, and I'm kind of nervous about that now. I look that up, you know, do ships have enough lifeboats for people? And it says they carry a minimum combined capacity of 125% for all passengers and crew. Legally, the hard shell lifeboats only need to cover 75% of the people on board. The remaining 25 is made up of inflatable covered life rafts.

Speaker 2 31:00

Which primarily the crew is gonna get into.

Speaker 1 31:03

Right.

Speaker 2 31:04

So what's his name? Schettino got lucky that he got a hard shell boat.

Speaker 1 31:12

Right.

Speaker 2 31:12

And I can say boat that because that's a legit one because it's a little tiny thing.

Speaker 1 31:16

I can say boat.

Speaker 2 31:17

But he got lucky. He should have been in a raft.

Speaker 1 31:19

Yes, he should have been in a raft.

Speaker 2 31:21

Yeah, he should have been in the water just floating around, is what I think. If he's gonna jump ship.

Speaker 1 31:25

So when you talk about if you're in the middle of the ocean and there's not maybe not enough lifeboats.

Speaker 2 31:34

If it tilts.

Speaker 1 31:35

That's kind of scary.

Muster Drill Reality And Human Behavior

Speaker 2 31:38

Okay. Now everyone's gonna do what I do. Get to your hotel room, look at the back of the door, there's my escape plan. So go to the mustard drill. Hey, so if you miss a mustard drill, I distinctly remember this. They're checking your name off on a on a right? You're like, yep, Geoff you're here. Right bingo. If you don't, if you're not attending the mustard drill, I can't remember what's the what's the what's the ramification?

Speaker 1 32:01

They will not leave. You're holding up the whole ship. They're not supposed to leave until everybody's had it.

Speaker 2 32:07

Okay. Oh man. And and let's just say you're that guy that holds the ship up. Right. Do they make announcements? They should, but I I've not heard Geoff get to the get to your mustard, You're holding us up. I mean, that would be brilliant, righ? No, you should. Geoff in cabin number.

Speaker 1 32:26

They do. They do. They don't say you're holding everybody up, but yes, if they're looking for people, they start reading names. Please, please go to your muster station and they'll start just this kind of hammers home the importance of that.

Speaker 2 32:40

But this this mustard station thing only works if the whole crew is 100% behind doing it. Because clearly, in this instance, that didn't matter.

Speaker 1 32:52

You know, on the last two cruises I went on, I thought you were one of them because of Was I late? No, no. But because of COVID, she's laughing at me.

Speaker 2 33:02

She's like, no, he was late. I was late. Okay.

Speaker 1 33:04

Because of COVID, we didn't go physically. You sat in the room and watched it on the TV. Do you remember that? They started that after COVID.

Speaker 2 33:14

Oh, I don't oh no, I don't oh, I do remember that.

Speaker 1 33:17

You watch it on the TV and when you're done, they check you off. Now I could see people in there with the TV on, and you're what, talking, drinking, out on the deck, are you even watching it? So now that I'm not sure how well that works.

Speaker 2 33:30

Yeah. Part of the mustard drill should also be in the event that this all, you know, you know, shit goes to hell in a handbasket, women and children first. Like you have to say that? I guess you have to say that. I see, like I was when I was watching this and and there was no women and children first. I'm kind of thinking people are thinking, oh, it's just a blackout. I don't think they were told, like, this is like, hey, yo, we're gonna sink. This is a big deal. Like, let the five-year-old on. Let right because I think the majority of guys, I'm giving guys a lot of credit here. I think the majority of people, guys or it doesn't matter, would step aside going, yeah, no, no, let's get them on. I can deal with myself, right? I'll deal with the consequences. I think a lot of people would do that. Because the reaction to the captain, obviously, is we're gonna lynch him as soon as he as soon as we find him.

Speaker 1 34:19

Right.

Speaker 2 34:20

Right.

Speaker 1 34:21

I guess though, if you're thinking it's just to blackout, why not let the women and children go first? Because the men will be like, we'll just be the last ones off. We'll keep going on the drink package, and then you know, we'll be the last ones off.

Speaker 2 34:39

You would think. Yeah, this is a little, I know, I guess I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that my fellow man would not do that. Do you know? I think I think that's just my my problem right now. I'm having the opposite of this Schettino effect. I wonder if there's a term. Is there a Sheettino effect that says like basically the wimpiest captain on the planet?

Speaker 35:00

I that's what that means.

Speaker 2 35:01

This Schettino effect is like when you completely wimp out and run for the hills and then claim, no, I fell into the lifeboat.

Mega Ships And The Vegas At Sea Feel

Speaker 1 35:10

You uh I haven't heard that, but I have heard there's a clothing store in Italy that started selling t-shirts with Vada a bordo cazzo on it.

Speaker 2 35:22

What does that mean?

Speaker 1 35:23

The commander, the Coast Guard commander saying, get back on board, damn it. They were selling t-shirts that said that in Italian. I thought that was great.

Speaker 2 35:32

Oh, thank God. It is great. Yeah, I want one of those.

Speaker 1 35:38

I don't think there's a Schetinno t-shirt, though.

Speaker 2 35:41

Heck no.

Speaker 1 35:42

No.

Speaker 2 35:43

No. No. This has got to be a cocktail or something. It's like a non-alcoholic drink, though. It's nothing with spike or spice or any kind of kick to it because no, this guy is nothing. Man, oh man. It's terrible. It is terrible. So, so are they still building these mega ships?

Speaker 1 36:07

They are. They just keep going, and I have no desire to go on one of those, surprisingly. I saw one on a podcast that some travel agents do, and to me, it just looked like a three-ring circus. I felt like I was in Vegas. If and I'm not a fan of Vegas, but I just felt like I was in Vegas. You think that's what they're trying to do? Yes. Because the whole thing they're like, hey, if we can take all inclusive and Vegas and put it together, what would that look like? No, it's a gigantic ship. It's a three-ring circus to me, and uh too crowded, and I have no desire to ever go on one of those, and especially after finding out if you lose half your lifeboats and you got six thousand people on board, I'm out. No thanks.

Speaker 2 36:53

So here's the other thing that you gotta ask, right?

Compensation Numbers And Who Gets Paid

Speaker 2 36:56

So shit goes south on your ship, your contract, which we've talked about, you basically signed away like they're not liable for anything.

Speaker 1 37:06

Right.

Speaker 2 37:07

So what happened in this case? What did people get compensated? Because this just seems so grossly negligent, it's beyond comprehension.

Speaker 1 37:18

They did get compensated, which was surprising. so the cruise line said they paid out $96 million total. If you took the first offer, which was $14,400 for your lost baggage and psychological trauma. I think there was a third of the people that took that. And the other people were like, no. So then they added, all right, we'll give you that, plus a full refund of your cruise and travel-related expenses. And then most people said, okay.

Speaker 2 37:48

The second group. Mm-hmm. So the first group didn't get the hey, we're gonna refund? That wasn't part of the deal?

Speaker 1 37:53

No.

Speaker 2 37:53

Oh Lord. Okay. Anyway, okay, so the second group gets the refund. Those that all held out. Oh, good.

Speaker 1 37:59

Right.

Speaker 2 38:00

Then if you um I mean you paid for you only got one day. If that, you didn't get a day. Was the evacuation classified as an excursion? No, okay. Sorry. Oh no, she's choking. Sorry, I just killed Kathy. It should have been an excursion.

Speaker 1 38:22

Uh if you had a family member that died, they paid out $1.1 uh million per victim. And then if you were if you didn't accept anything and you sued them, that varied depending on what you claimed. So one passenger said, I now have PTSD, and so that person got $88,000. So you know the first group has to be saying, We all should have said we had PTSD. Too late.

Speaker 2 38:51

Well, yeah, I was just gonna say it's kind of obvious that you would.

Speaker 1 38:53

And then the crew, I always feel like the crew get the short end of the stick. Two months owed wages and then $2,900 for lost property. That's it. Seems unfair. I think they should be treated equal.

Speaker 2 39:11

The wage thing is out of context. I don't even know what does that mean? Like how much do they mean how that much do they how much were they really talking about? Is it like $2,900?

Speaker 1 39:19

I don't know.

Speaker 2 39:20

It's can't it's gotta be in the maybe a little higher than that, but you're right. No, they get the short end of the stick on that one.

Speaker 1 39:27

I think whether you're a passenger or a crew member, everybody gets treated the same. I mean it's like what oh, they're second-class citizens, so you guys get this, you know.

Speaker 2 39:42

So to me, so a total of 96 million 2012, 4,000 people. How many perished? 35?

Speaker 1 39:52

32.

Speaker 2 39:53

32. The wimpy captain ships, I think they got off easy.

Speaker 1 40:01

They did.

Speaker 2 40:02

I think they got off easy. So this is so now everybody else is still building bigger ships.

Speaker 40:08

Right.

Speaker 2 40:10

There are requirements for being able to evacuate passengers. Most of them can cover all the passengers, right? Right. In some way, shape, or form. But the $96 million penalty on the costa, not enough to scare these other guys away.

Speaker 1 40:31

Right.

Speaker 2 40:33

There was no punitive nature to this. This is all in Italian courts.

Speaker 1 40:39

I think so. And then I wonder, is it because it's a European cruise ship? I was wondering that too. These other ones that we see, nobody's getting a lot of money

Speaker 2 40:48

If this was a US, if this happened if this is all US, if this has happened like in the in the Gulf of Mexico, sorry, the Gulf of America. If this has happened in the Gulf of America, right? It's not $96 million. It's like five times that, if that. Right? Don't you think? Wouldn't you agree? Just because it's just so gross. It's just nuts. Crazy.

Speaker 1 41:16

I tell you what I hope they didn't do is offer them a free cruise on on the other on the on another Costa boat. We're gonna give you a free cruise on a different Costa. People would be like, we're not sailing with you ever again.

Speaker 2 41:34

You know, it's a good question. Like, I'd be curious to know if anyone out there has was on the Costa and then went on another cruise.

Speaker 1 41:43

On the Costa cruise?

Speaker 2 41:44

No, just on any other cruise.

Speaker 1 41:46

Oh.

Speaker 2 41:46

I mean, I know if I was in their shoes, hopefully I'd get over it by then. I'm now on the next cruise. And people are around the mustard station griping about the fact that we have to be there. I'm probably gonna be like, oh no, no. You want to be here. Yeah. What we need to be doing is testing the person that's telling us we have to be here to make sure that they're gonna be here when all shit goes right. You're starting to ask really targeted questions like, can I trust you?

Speaker 1 42:10

Yeah, what's your badge number?

Speaker 2 42:12

Right. Right.

Speaker 1 42:13

Give us your cell phone in case you don't show up so we can call you.

Speaker 2 42:17

Right. Exactly, exactly. That's what I'm asking. That's what I'd be asking. I'd be really probing. I'm like, how confident are you in the captain? Can I meet the captain? Can I interview the captain? I'm gonna give the captain a test. You know, hey captain, if you're in this situation, would you do this or this? You know? Just like, okay, great. No, okay, I'm gonna get off at the next stop. So I'm looking forward to comments on this one. We can keep talking about this one. This one is interesting because there are a ton of boats, ships.

How Big Is Too Big

Speaker 2 42:51

I just want people to drink.

Speaker 1 42:52

I don't think we need the words.

Speaker 2 42:53

There are a ton of ships that are so large. And I when when somebody in the I think it was the Amazon documentary where they had said, um, you know, what is too big. Too big.

Speaker 1 43:06

They're already at that point.

Speaker 2 43:08

I'm like, that's a great question. At what point do they determine it's too big? Right? The only thing you can think of is, well, something has to happen. Am I right?

Speaker 1 43:22

Yes.

Speaker 2 43:23

Something has to happen. Something bad has to happen. That's the only thing I can think of.

Speaker 1 43:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:31

So I don't know. I think it's a little Russian roulette that they're planning. One rogue wave.

Speaker 1 43:38

Yeah.

Speaker 2 43:39

Tips that sucker over. That's half the lifeboats gone.

Speaker 1 43:44

Right. And so some of those passengers said they they have been on cruises, but they'll never go on a a large ship again. And I like the medium sized ships. They're refurbishing all the time. I'm like, why can't you build new Medium sized ships.

Speaker 2 44:02

So okay, let's ask this then. Because from their standpoint, they're like, well, there's fit I can get 2,000 people and pay each pay 2,000 bucks, I'm gonna make more money. You're telling me I you want uh only a thousand people, okay. Would you pay an extra thousand bucks? I'm I'm gonna say I would. If it if it meant that I'm gonna get a better experience and I feel more comfortable, I'm game On the medium side, I'm not gonna rule out I'm not gonna rule it out. Right?

Speaker 1 44:32

Right.

Speaker 2 44:32

So for you to say, oh no, we're just gonna build bigger ships because you only want to pay more bucks, that's not necessarily true.

Speaker 1 44:39

No, I'm saying I want them to build more medium-sized ships. Yeah, no, the smaller ones.

Speaker 2 44:44

And what I'm saying, would you pay more for that?

Speaker 1 44:46

Oh.

Speaker 2 44:47

Because I I'm trying to make more money. I'm the ship guy. I'm the ship guys.

Speaker 1 44:51

Did you get a job with a cruise line now?

Speaker 2 44:53

Not yet. Okay. Anyway, so but I I'm in their shoes, right? I need to make more money. So the more rooms I have, the more, right, all that kind of stuff. Well, that like And I I do need to hire more bacon police. That's in the dictionary. But different discussion.

Speaker 1 45:07

Like you said though, you know, they just keep building these, and so there's gonna be something huge happening on one of these. Yes. There's gonna be a wake-up call, and then maybe they'll stop.

Speaker 2 45:19

And right now, we we have a lot of fights. We have a quite honestly, the bigger you build the ship, the more people you have on that little island, that's floating city, the more crap that will happen.

Speaker 1 45:33

Right.

Speaker 2 45:33

Right? Now, if you're CSK, you're like, oh man, we do we want to continue to build bigger ships. If I'm CSK, I'm like, build bigger ships.

Speaker 1 45:43

Yeah.

Speaker 2 45:44

And more entertainers. Because I can blend in. Anyway. Right? Yes. So it's it's a CSK heaven if they build bigger ships. And that just translates to more crazy crap that'll happen. That doesn't mean stick your luggage on the balcony.

Speaker 1 46:02

Right.

Speaker 2 46:03

We're still opposed to that. We are. Yeah. If anything, it's a duffel bag, something that crushes when you step on it. Anyway.

Next Topic Tease And Sign Off

Speaker 2 46:10

So next time, next show.

Speaker 1 46:13

We want to talk about CSK in relation to maybe taking himself off the ship and maybe taking out passengers on excursions. Because there's been quite a few of those this year. Yes.

Speaker 2 46:31

Yes. And if you're CSK, you're just like, yeah, that happened, but we left. I have a day at sea.

Speaker 1 46:41

Harder to get caught if you're off and then you're walking back on and escaping to the next port.

Speaker 2 46:47

Yeah, I don't know what happened to Sandy Silverstein back there on the island, but we're at sea. Yeah, no, I mean you're right. So so we're gonna talk about that. And there's a whole contract stuff, we talked about that before, too. So we're gonna we'll touch on that. All right, cool.

Speaker 1 47:03

All right.

Speaker 2 47:03

All right. Anchors Away.

Speaker 1 47:06

Anchors Away.

Speaker 2 47:07

So I broke a sweat on this one. All right. That's it for this episode of Cruise Ship Killer. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, rate, and review, or don't. But statistically, the people who disappeared never do either. CSK is hosted by Kathy Pearce and Geoff Smith, produced by Kristen Smith and David Pearce. Research by our cruise line incident researcher Paige log line. Additional editing and sound design by Cal Deckhand. Sources for today's episode are linked in the show notes because shockingly, we did not make all of this up.