Costa Concordia Taken Apart For Scrap Five Years After Tragedy Struck

Costa Concordia Taken Apart For Scrap Five Years After Tragedy Struck

Costa Concordia Lounge

The Costa Concordia has finally been dismantled for scrap five years after it tragically sank, killing 32 people.

The ship hit an underwater rock in January 2012 and capsized in Isola del Giglio, near Tuscany.

The vessel had been carrying 4,252 people and 32 of these tragically drowned when the ship sank. The captain of the ship Francesco Schettino was then sentenced to 16 tears in jail for manslaughter. He had caused outrage as he fled the ship before all of the passengers had escaped safely.

His sentence was increased due to the fact he had given false information to the port authorities. The ship had hit the rocks because he was steering the ship too close to shore in order to impress a friend.

The disaster was the worst maritime incident for Italy since the Second World War.

Captain Schettino later appealed his sentence and claimed that Costa was itself to blame, but this was rejected in court.

The wreck of the ship was removed from the sea last year and has now finally been turned into scrap metal in the port of Genoa.

It’s been said that roughly 70 per cent of the 144,500 tonne wreckage will be recycled during these efforts. It will cost up to £1.2 billion to salvage and scrap the ship meaning that it is one of the most expensive maritime wrecks in history.

Since the disaster, cruise lines have worked to make safety procedures clearer and 73% of guests now think cruising is safer

Costa Concordia almost Ready for Final Voyage

Costa Concordia

The massive hulk of the Costa Concordia is nearly ready to be towed away from the Italian island where it struck a rock and capsized two-and-a-half years ago, killing 32 people, officials said on Sunday.

The rusting prow of the once-gleaming white luxury liner was due to emerge fully from the water for the first time on Sunday, and the ship should be ready to tow on Monday, but the departure has been pushed back a day due to forecasts of rough seas.

The 114,500-tonne Concordia has been slowly lifted from the sea floor since Monday, when salvagers began pumping air into 30 large metal boxes, or sponsons, attached around the hull.

The air has forced water out of the sponsons, lifting the cruise liner 7.5 metres off the undersea platform where it had been resting, Franco Porcellacchia, the engineer in charge of the salvage, said. There are 6.3 metres to go, he added.

A convoy of 14 vessels, led by the tug boat Blizzard, will then tow the Concordia to a port near Genoa, where it will be broken up for scrap, completing one of the biggest maritime salvage operations in history.

The president of the French Concordia survivors group Anne Decre, who is on the island of Giglio, told Reuters on Sunday that the departure of the ship will be an important symbolic moment for those who were aboard the night of the shipwreck.

"It gives us the opportunity to try and collect ourselves and move forward," she said, adding that the liner will take the same route to Genoa it should have taken more than two years ago to complete its ill-fated cruise.

"We hope that we will also be able to return to our route."

The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, is on trial on charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck as he sailed too close to shore to "salute" the port, and abandoning ship. He is fighting the charges.

Paying for the disaster, including breaking up the vessel and repairing the damage to Giglio, is likely to cost the ship's owner and operator Costa Crociere, a unit of Carnival Corp , more than 1.5 billion euros ($20.30 billion), the company's chief executive has said.

The cruise liner will be demolished and scrapped in a port near Genoa a consortium including oil services company Saipem and Genoa-based companies Mariotti and San Giorgio. ($1 = 0.7391 Euros)

Costa Concordia to be re-floated in two weeks

By Phil Davies 

The wreck of the Costa Concordia is due to be refloated in the next two weeks in the latest stage of the most expensive ship recovery operation in history.

The salvage could involve a semi-submersible boat effectively carrying the ship from its resting place off the Italian island of Giglio to Genoa to be dismantled.

Costs to insurers have spiralled to almost £1.2 billion because wrecks are usually cut into pieces and carried away. But Italian authorities have decided that such a move would risk an environmentally sensitive stretch of coastline so the ship is being removed in one piece.

Captain Rahul Kanna, a ship insurance specialist at insurer Allianz told the Mail in Sunday: “The primary reason for the cost is the method of removal. It sets a very dangerous precedent.”

Costa Concordia hit rocks in January 2012 killing 32 people.

The ship was turned upright last September after salvage contractors reinforced the seabed beneath it.

Modern shipping is creating the possibility for much bigger losses as ships grow in size and start to use remote Arctic shipping lanes, insurers are warning.

“Any losses in the Arctic would be a logistic nightmare to arrange rescue and salvage,” Kenna was reported as saying.

Concordia captain to return to wreck

By Phil Davies

The captain of the doomed Costa Concordia is due to return to the wreck today (Thursday).

Judges in the city of Grosseto agreed to a request by lawyers for Francesco Schettino, who demanded that he takes part in a survey of the ship.

The request came as a team of lawyers and experts were due to inspect an emergency power unit on the 11th deck of the Concordia, which allegedly did not work on the night of the shipwreck in January 2012.

It will be his first time back on the ship since it hit rocks off the island of Giglio in January 2012 and capsized, killing 32 people.

The visit is part of an investigation at Schettino's trial, where he is accused of manslaughter and abandoning ship. He denies the charges. If found guilty he could face up to 20 years in prison.

Schettino is due to board along with inspectors, but will not be allowed to interfere with their investigation. He would be allowed onto the ship "as a defendant, not a consultant", said Judge Giovanni Puliatti.

The captain has been accused of leaving the vessel before all 4,229 people on board had been evacuated. But he denies abandoning the ship after it hit a reef near the island.

He maintains he managed to steer the stricken vessel closer to shore so it did not sink in deep water where hundreds might have drowned.

An Italian court convicted five others of manslaughter last July.

They had all successfully entered plea bargains, while Schettino's request for a plea bargain was denied by the prosecution.

Concordia was set upright in an unprecedented salvage operation known as parbuckling in September.

Diver working on Costa Concordia dies in accident

A diver is reported to have died while working on the shipwrecked Costa Concordia after apparently gashing his leg on an underwater metal sheet.

Italy's civil protection agency, which is leading the removal of the Concordia from the Tuscan coast, said the diver was Spanish.

Tuscany's La Nazione newspaper said the diver had been working on preparations to attach huge tanks on to sides of the Concordia, to float the ship off its false seabed and tow it to a port for eventual dismantling.

The newspaper reported he gashed his leg on an underwater metal sheet and was then unable to get free.

It said he bled heavily before a diver colleague was able to bring him to the surface. He was reportedly conscious upon surfacing but later died, according to Sky News.

He is the first diver to die in the line of work on salvaging the Concordia ever since it hit a reef off the island of Giglio in January 2012, killing 32 passengers and crew.

The Concordia was righted in preparation for removal during a 19-hour engineering feat last autumn, in which a system of pulleys wrenched 115,000-ton cruise ship from its side to vertical.

Costa Concordia re floating scheduled to happen in June

By Tom Stieghorst

Italian authorities and Costa Cruises executives held a briefing in Italy updating the progress on re floating the Costa Concordia.

The update comes a few days before the second anniversary of the partial sinking of the Costa ship.

Engineers pulled the Concordia upright last fall and are preparing to refloat the ship before towing it to port to be scrapped.

Project managers are targeting June to move the wreck from Giglio Island to an as-yet-unknown destination. Prior to that, they will attach another 19 sponsons to the hull.

The plan calls for sponsons to be fastened to the ship in April. Then water will be pumped out of the tank-like sponsons, providing buoyancy to raise the ship off its fabricated platform about 30 meters below the surface to a depth of about 18.5 meters. 

A total of 2042.5 cubic meters of fuel and 240 cubic meters of sewage were removed from the ship last March, along with 240 tons of material from the seabed, according to the project briefing materials.

Authorities initially contacted 30 salvage companies and are in the process of picking one. The field has been winnowed to companies from Italy, France, Norway, the U.K. and Turkey, with final selection expected in early March.

The project has a $30 million option to retain the Dockwise Vanguard, the world’s largest semi-submersible vessel, as an alternative for transporting Concordia.

About 60% of the direct spending on the recovery (about 261 million euros) has benefited Italy, with another 21% of the benefits flowing to the U.S., 12% to the U.K., 3.8% to the Netherlands and 2.6% to Germany, the project said.

It estimated the overall impact on Italy’s GDP at 540 million euros.