Jump to content
  • We'd love for you to participate.

    Create an account

    Ask questions, share experiences and connect.

    Register a new account

    Sign in

    Already have an account? Sign in here.

    Sign In Now

Costa fined $1.3 million for Costa Concordia shipwreck. This enough? You decide!

Rate this topic


Jason

Recommended Posts

ROME — A judge in Tuscany fined Italian cruise line Costa Crociere SpA 1 million euros ($1.3 million) Wednesday for the 2012 shipwreck of the Concordia cruise ship that killed 32 people.

Costa had asked for a plea bargain deal to respond to the administrative sanctions, which under Italian law are for companies whose employees commit crimes. Judge Valeria Montesarchio of the Grosseto tribunal accepted the plea after a hearing.

Costa, a division of Miami-based Carnival Corp., has sought to blame the disaster entirely on Capt. Francesco Schettino, who took the cruise ship off course and rammed it into a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio on Jan. 13, 2012. The stunt left a 70-meter (230-foot) gash in the hull, causing the liner to take on water and capsize.

Grosseto prosecutors are seeking indictments for Schettino and five other people on charges including manslaughter. A preliminary, closed-door hearing is scheduled for Monday but it's not clear if the judge will make a decision then on whether to order a trial. Among the five are the helmsman, two other officials who were on the bridge during the grounding and the Costa official on land who was managing the crisis.

Schettino is accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning the vessel before all the passengers had been evacuated. Passengers have recounted a harrowing evacuation; By the time the captain ordered passengers to evacuate, the ship was listing so far to one side that many lifeboats couldn't be lowered.

Schettino has depicted himself as a hero, claiming it was his deft steering after the collision that allowed the ship to move closer to the port and helped to save lives. He also maintained the reef was not marked on the ship's navigational charts.

Sailors in the area, however, say the reef is a well-known tourist attraction in the pristine waters off Giglio.

The ship, meanwhile, remains on its side in Giglio's port; efforts to right it and tow it away are under way.

Source: Associated Press

For more cruise news & articles go to http://www.cruisecrazies.com/index.html

Re-posted on CruiseCrazies.com - Cruise News, Articles, Forums, Packing List, Ship Tracker, and more

http://www.cruisecrazies.com

Click here to view the article

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm not sure if I think the settlement is enough but then many times I do not agree with negotiated settlements in court cases. I will admit that I am looking forward to when they show them trying to upright the ship.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...