Costa Concordia Documentry

[GeeBee]

Great documentary on Prime Video called Costa Concordia Why She Sank

There is a lot of phone video of the ship and passengers after the collision. It was not until about 45 minutes afterward you saw a hint of PFDs being donned. The General Alarm was not sounded for over an hour. Don't know about you but if I am on a cruise ship and it suddenly comes to a halt so hard tables and dishes are thrown about and the lights go out, I'm getting my PFD and going to a muster station. The phone video show people wandering around asking what is going on, but not taking action themselves.

The other thing I noticed was the deep lack of CRM on the crew's part. The helmsman was Indonesian and had difficulty understanding commands. There was little planning and discussion about the sail by the island other than to plot a course, but nobody discussed the risks and mitigation strategies. It is clear the cruise line encouraged these activities but they got off free. The captain was roasted and he should be. He not only left his the ship and his passengers, he lied about how that occurred. To me, the lying was the worst part.

 

[boatbum]

I'll have to check this out given we take cruises. From a passenger list it is at least 3x the size of the largest boat we have traveled on, and usually 5x. Hopefully that leads to less confusion with less crew but I am thinking the leadership at all levels had to be complacent.

 

[PascalG]

Not much new despite the hype of the title claiming new info. Mostly the usual emotional passengers testimony and no technical info like ship draft, speed when it hit, not even a chart of the actual reef or explanation of the nav systems.

 

[GeeBee]

I agree it was lacking in the technical details, but the human factors was certainly well documented. I always am curious how people put themselves in such situations and how they react after disaster hits. We certainly could go into all the numbers, but the fact that it hit and it hit close into shore says someone had a "hold my beer" moment. We don't need the numbers because the result is clear. When I retired as I approached ATL, the tower offered me a low pass for the cameras. I declined and landed normally. Why? It was not briefed, it was not analyzed. The Captain of this vessel executed a maneuver with little planning and briefing of the crew. PPPPPP. It got there due to the 5ps and it becomes a disaster because the lack of proper crew coordination and resource management. If CRM and threat and error managment had been employed, he would have taken higher levels of precaution such as more look outs, chart analysis, conferring with locals. None of that happened. Every mariner in the world know the charts are not always 100% accurate, because terrain changes under water, and when operating a vessel as large as Concordia that close to shore outside of a marked waterway should have been his first clue to have advanced threat and error management in place. Indeed his first clue that all was not well was his own observation of white water, imagine if he had a look outs with binoculars calling that out before he noticed it. Collision would have been avoided. A Captain is nothing without a skilled and disciplined crew and this guy had neither because he relied upon his own ego.

 

[PascalG]

Yes CRM, or in this case BRM, seem to have been lacking but again the documentary really didn’t address that. Who was on the bridge before and after the accident, how did the damage control officers report to the bridge, who made decisions, etc

Detailing procedures on other cruise ships would have been interesting too. It just looks like costa crews had no training in that area.

As to briefing less hold my beer” moments, I think the best example was that infamous airbus crash in France years ago during a launch/promotional flight where the crew ended up crash landing in the woods at the end of the rwy. I m sure you re very familiar with that one.

 

[GeeBee]

Yes CRM, or in this case BRM, seem to have been lacking but again the documentary really didn’t address that. Who was on the bridge before and after the accident, how did the damage control officers report to the bridge, who made decisions, etc

Detailing procedures on other cruise ships would have been interesting too. It just looks like costa crews had no training in that area.

As to briefing less hold my beer” moments, I think the best example was that infamous airbus crash in France years ago during a launch/promotional flight where the crew ended up crash landing in the woods at the end of the rwy. I m sure you re very familiar with that one.

Actually very close to the same thing. Crew failed to brief the procedure and what briefing they did do, they failed to execute. With similar results.