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The Costa Concordia Disaster: How Human Error Made It Worse

By: Becky Little

Updated: August 10, 2023 | Original: June 23, 2021

Many famous naval disasters happen far out at sea, but on January 13, 2012, the Costa Concordia wrecked just off the coast of an Italian island in relatively shallow water. The avoidable disaster killed 32 people and seriously injured many others, and left investigators wondering: Why was the luxury cruise ship sailing so close to the shore in the first place?

During the ensuing trial, prosecutors came up with a tabloid-ready explanation : The married ship captain had sailed it so close to the island to impress a much younger Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair.

Whether or not Captain Francesco Schettino was trying to impress his girlfriend is debatable. (Schettino insisted the ship sailed close to shore to salute other mariners and give passengers a good view.) But whatever the reason for getting too close, the Italian courts found the captain, four crew members and one official from the ship’s company, Costa Crociere (part of Carnival Corporation), to be at fault for causing the disaster and preventing a safe evacuation. The wreck was not the fault of unexpected weather or ship malfunction—it was a disaster caused entirely by a series of human errors.

“At any time when you have an incident similar to Concordia, there is never…a single causal factor,” says Brad Schoenwald, a senior marine inspector at the United States Coast Guard. “It is generally a sequence of events, things that line up in a bad way that ultimately create that incident.”

Wrecking Near the Shore

The Concordia was supposed to take passengers on a seven-day Italian cruise from Civitavecchia to Savona. But when it deviated from its planned path to sail closer to the island of Giglio, the ship struck a reef known as the Scole Rocks. The impact damaged the ship, allowing water to seep in and putting the 4,229 people on board in danger.

Sailing close to shore to give passengers a nice view or salute other sailors is known as a “sail-by,” and it’s unclear how often cruise ships perform these maneuvers. Some consider them to be dangerous deviations from planned routes. In its investigative report on the 2012 disaster, Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructures and Transports found that the Concordia “was sailing too close to the coastline, in a poorly lit shore area…at an unsafe distance at night time and at high speed (15.5 kts).”

In his trial, Captain Schettino blamed the shipwreck on Helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin, who he claimed reacted incorrectly to his order; and argued that if the helmsman had reacted correctly and quickly, the ship wouldn’t have wrecked. However, an Italian naval admiral testified in court that even though the helmsman was late in executing the captain’s orders, “the crash would’ve happened anyway.” (The helmsman was one of the four crew members convicted in court for contributing to the disaster.)

A Questionable Evacuation

Evidence introduced in Schettino’s trial suggests that the safety of his passengers and crew wasn’t his number one priority as he assessed the damage to the Concordia. The impact and water leakage caused an electrical blackout on the ship, and a recorded phone call with Costa Crociere’s crisis coordinator, Roberto Ferrarini, shows he tried to downplay and cover up his actions by saying the blackout was what actually caused the accident.

“I have made a mess and practically the whole ship is flooding,” Schettino told Ferrarini while the ship was sinking. “What should I say to the media?… To the port authorities I have said that we had…a blackout.” (Ferrarini was later convicted for contributing to the disaster by delaying rescue operations.)

Schettino also didn’t immediately alert the Italian Search and Rescue Authority about the accident. The impact on the Scole Rocks occurred at about 9:45 p.m. local time, and the first person to contact rescue officials about the ship was someone on the shore, according to the investigative report. Search and Rescue contacted the ship a few minutes after 10:00 p.m., but Schettino didn’t tell them what had happened for about 20 more minutes.

A little more than an hour after impact, the crew began to evacuate the ship. But the report noted that some passengers testified that they didn’t hear the alarm to proceed to the lifeboats. Evacuation was made even more chaotic by the ship listing so far to starboard, making walking inside very difficult and lowering the lifeboats on one side, near to impossible. Making things worse, the crew had dropped the anchor incorrectly, causing the ship to flop over even more dramatically.

Through the confusion, the captain somehow made it into a lifeboat before everyone else had made it off. A coast guard member angrily told him on the phone to “Get back on board, damn it!” —a recorded sound bite that turned into a T-shirt slogan in Italy.

Schettino argued that he fell into a lifeboat because of how the ship was listing to one side, but this argument proved unconvincing. In 2015, a court found Schettino guilty of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, abandoning ship before passengers and crew were evacuated and lying to authorities about the disaster. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison. In addition to Schettino, Ferrarini and Rusli Bin, the other people who received convictions for their role in the disaster were Cabin Service Director Manrico Giampedroni, First Officer Ciro Ambrosio and Third Officer Silvia Coronica.

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'We all suffer from PTSD': 10 years after the Costa Concordia cruise disaster, memories remain

GIGLIO, Italy — Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio. But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.

The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The blackout after the ship's engine room flooded and its generators failed. The final mad scramble to evacuate the listing liner and then the extraordinary generosity of Giglio islanders who offered shoes, sweatshirts and shelter until the sun rose and passengers were ferried to the mainland.

Italy on Thursday is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration that will end with a candlelit vigil near the moment the ship hit the reef: 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2012. The events will honor the 32 people who died that night, the 4,200 survivors, but also the residents of Giglio, who took in passengers and crew and then lived with the Concordia's wrecked carcass off their shore for another two years until it was righted and hauled away for scrap.

► CDC travel guidance: CDC warns 'avoid cruise travel' after more than 5,000 COVID cases in two weeks amid omicron

“For us islanders, when we remember some event, we always refer to whether it was before or after the Concordia,” said Matteo Coppa, who was 23 and fishing on the jetty when the darkened Concordia listed toward shore and then collapsed onto its side in the water.

“I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats.

The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month  warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises, regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection.

► 'We found out while we were flying': Last-minute cruise cancellations leave travelers scrambling

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'We all suffer from PTSD'

For Concordia survivor Georgia Ananias, the COVID-19 infections are just the latest evidence that passenger safety still isn’t a top priority for the cruise ship industry. Passengers aboard the Concordia were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat after the captain steered the ship close too shore in a stunt. He then delayed an evacuation order until it was too late, with lifeboats unable to lower because the ship was listing too heavily.

“I always said this will not define me, but you have no choice," Ananias said in an interview from her home in Los Angeles, Calif. “We all suffer from PTSD. We had a lot of guilt that we survived and 32 other people died.”

Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated.

Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of U.S.-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered. But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case.

“I think people need to be aware that when you go on a cruise, that if there is a problem, you will not have the justice that you may be used to in the country in which you are living,” said Ananias, who went onto become a top official in the International Cruise Victims association, an advocacy group that lobbies to improve safety aboard ships and increase transparency and accountability in the industry.

Costa didn’t respond to emails seeking comment on the anniversary.

► Royal Caribbean cancels sailings: Pushes back restart on several ships over COVID

'We did something incredible'

Cruise Lines International Association, the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, stressed in a statement to The Associated Press that passenger and crew safety was the industry's top priority, and that cruising remains one of the safest vacation experiences available.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victims of the Concordia tragedy and their families on this sad anniversary," CLIA said. It said it has worked over the past 10 years with the International Maritime Organization and the maritime industry to “drive a safety culture that is based on continuous improvement."

For Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli, the memories of that night run the gamut: the horror of seeing the capsized ship, the scramble to coordinate rescue services on shore, the recovery of the first bodies and then the pride that islanders rose to the occasion to tend to the survivors.

► Cruising during COVID-19: Cancellation, refund policies vary by cruise line

Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. But the night of the disaster, a Friday the 13th, remains seared in his memory.

“It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said.

It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. “But then we realized that on that night, in just a few hours, we did something incredible.”

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10 years later, Costa Concordia survivors share their stories from doomed cruise ship

Ten years after the deadly Costa Concordia cruise line disaster in Italy, survivors still vividly remember scenes of chaos they say were like something straight out of the movie "Titanic."

NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing.

"I think it’s the panic, the feeling of panic, is what’s carried through over 10 years," Ian Donoff, who was on the cruise with his wife Janice for their honeymoon, told Cobiella. "And it’s just as strong now."

More than 4,000 passengers and crew were on board when the ship crashed into rocks in the dark in the Mediterranean Sea, sending seawater rushing into the vessel as people scrambled for their lives.

The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner.

Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink.

"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them."

The lifeboats wouldn't drop down because the ship was tilted on its side, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on the side of the ship for hours in the cold. People were left to clamber down a rope ladder over a distance equivalent to 11 stories.

"Everybody was rushing for the lifeboats," Nate Lukes said. "I felt like (my daughters) were going to get trampled, and putting my arms around them and just holding them together and letting the sea of people go by us."

Schettino was convicted of multiple manslaughter as well as abandoning ship after leaving before all the passengers had reached safety. He is now serving a 16-year prison sentence .

It took nearly two years for the damaged ship to be raised from its side before it was towed away to be scrapped.

The calamity caused changes in the cruise industry like carrying more lifejackets and holding emergency drills before leaving port.

A decade after that harrowing night, the survivors are grateful to have made it out alive. None of the survivors who spoke with Cobiella have been on a cruise since that day.

"I said that if we survive this, then our marriage will have to survive forever," Ian Donoff said.

Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here! ) that brings the day's news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and a daily delight right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else. 

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Costa Concordia: Italian tragedy that reflected state of a nation

Drama that unfolded with cruise ship disaster captivated Italy and stood as a metaphor for nation’s political and economic ills

The Costa Concordia disaster was more than a tragedy in Italy. It was a national drama with an eccentric cast of characters – a reckless villain, his secret lover and a hard-done-by hero – that has riveted the country for three years. The hulking mass of the capsized 115,000-tonne cruise ship, which for 900 days lay seemingly unmovable and partly submerged in the Mediterranean, became a metaphor for the political and economic ills of an entire nation.

On Wednesday, just as Italy’s moribund economy is beginning to show signs of recovery, a court in Grosseto, Tuscany, issued the verdict that families of the victims and survivors of the ill-fated voyage have been waiting for since the ship sank hundreds of metres from shore in January 2012, killing 32 people.

Francesco Schettino, the vessel’s captain whose brazen maritime manoeuvre caused the disaster, was found guilty of manslaughter . He now faces 16 years in jail.

In the final days of a trial, which began in July 2013 and included more than 69 hearings, attorneys for Schettino described him as a scapegoat who had been vilified but deserved to be treated like a hero. While they acknowledged that the captain bore some responsibility in the accident, they insisted that his maritime instincts helped save most of the 4,000 passengers and crew on board, thanks to his decision to delay the evacuation order long enough so that the ship was close to shore before it was abandoned.

Schettino’s attorneys also pinned blame on the vessel’s helmsman – they claimed he misunderstood the captain’s orders – and the failure of the ship’s emergency generators, which prevented the watertight doors from sealing properly. “In a crew of 1,000 people is only one responsible?” said Domenico Pepe, his attorney. But that version of events did not withstand the scrutiny of the court.

The 3,299 passengers who boarded the Costa Concordia on 13 January in the Italian port city of Civitavecchia for their seven-day cruise around the Mediterranean had much to enjoy. There were 1,500 cabins, one of the largest fitness centres at sea, a Turkish bath and solarium, a poolside movie theatre on the main pool deck, and 13 bars, including one devoted to cognac.

The ship’s captain also had reason to feel chipper. The married commander, now 54, was accompanied by his lover, Domnica Cemortan, a classically trained dancer from Moldova.

That night, after dining with Cemortan, Schettino invited her to the bridge of the cruise liner, where he took command of the vessel.

What Schettino did next – and the reasons he did it – would become a central issue in the case against him.

Just as the ship was making its way north-west along the coastline, Schettino called for the vessel to be steered close to Giglio as a way to “salute” the island.

Cruise ships had sailed close to Giglio before. But this time, there was a deadly miscalculation. Just 15 minutes after Schettino had given the coordinates to his helmsman, at 9:45 pm, the Costa Concordia rammed into rocks, creating a massive 50-metre gash in the ship’s hull.

Prosecutors would later argue that Schettino’s brash move was an attempt to impress his girlfriend, an allegation he has denied.

“I didn’t do it as a favour for her,” he told the court in Grosseto.

Instead, he said he did it as a favour to the ship’s head waiter, who was a native of Giglio, and to give his passengers a beautiful view of the island.

The vessel immediately started to take in water and tilt. It lost power and the engine room began to flood. But passengers on the decks above did not initially have reason to be afraid.

Even as the crew began to frantically assess the damage and start the emergency diesel generator, Schettino ordered them to tell passengers that the ship had simply suffered an electrical outage and that everything was under control. Some reassured passengers stayed in their cabins and later lost their lives. The same erroneous information was given to the harbour master at Civitavecchia.

“I did that to calm the passengers down, I feared that otherwise there would be panic,” Schettino said in his defence at trial.

The Costa Concordia began to drift and, investigators later explained, list as a result of water in the damaged hull. By 10.15pm, the Italian coastguard began getting reports of trouble on board directly from the passengers, but Schettino still did not react.

Inside, panic reigned. Claudia Poliani, a hairdresser from Rome who survived the disaster, would later describe the chaos in court testimony.

“From the happiness and wonder of being on a cruise, we passengers became panic stricken and fell over. It was dark and no one helped us … no one told us what to do. We found lifejackets ourselves,” she said.

Another survivor, Rosanna Abbinante, told the court she feared that she would “die like a rat”.

Ultimately, it took more than an hour for Schettino to give the order to abandon ship. By that point, the vessel was already tilted at a 30-degree angle, complicating some of the rescue effort. About 20 minutes later, even as hundreds of passengers continued to await rescue, Schettino abandoned his post and left his second in command in charge of the evacuation. Twelve minutes later, the latter also abandoned his post, with about 300 passengers still on board.

That moment in the crisis was immortalised by a recorded radio exchange between Schettino, who was in a lifeboat by then, and Gregorio de Falco, a coastguard captain who became a national hero for his emphatic order that the captain “Get back on board, for fuck’s sake”.

“You need to tell me if there are children, women or people in need of assistance,” an exasperated De Falco shouted. “Listen Schettino … you saved yourself from the sea, but … I am going to make you pay for this.”

De Falco became such a hero that, when it emerged more than a year later that he had been transferred out of operational service into a desk job, his apparent mistreatment created a new spate of soul-searching in Italy. Some suggested the country did not know how to reward people who showed good character.

The salvage of the Costa Concordia was the most expensive such operation in history, with an estimated cost of $1.2bn. It was also risky. The operation, led by a wisecracking South African named Nick Sloane, involved first moving the capsized vessel into an upright position, and then slowly shifting it into deeper water. In such an unprecedented operation, environmental contamination was a constant threat, with tonnes of rotting food, passenger belongings and other items still located on the vessel.

Ultimately, the massive ship’s final journey to Genoa took four days.

In the aftermath of the disaster, legal claims mounted against the owner of the ship, Costa Cruises. They included lawsuits by the region of Tuscany and a €189m suit by the island of Giglio, which claimed that the accident and the presence of the downed vessel hurt tourism and the local economy.

“This region is known and appreciated around the world for figures such as Leonardo, Galileo, Giotto, Michelangelo and Brunelleschi, but after the catastrophe of Concordia, it became famous for Schettino and his vulgarity,” said Enrico Rossi, the governor of Tuscany, who testified in the trial against the commander.

As the Costa Concordia made its final journey out of the port of Giglio, some survivors and families of victims looked on as a final farewell.

Martine Muller and her husband were given the cruise as a birthday gift from her children. She told the Guardian at the time how she was frantically asking everyone she knew whether they had news from her husband, while she waited at the port. Then the bodies began to arrive.

“And I said, well, my husband’s in there. And he was. He was the first person recovered,” she said.

The youngest victim of the disaster was a five-year-old girl named Dayana Arlotti, who drowned with her father after they were told there was no space in a lifeboat.

The final victim was not found until November 2014. As workers began to break apart the ship in Genoa, and they discovered the body of Russel Rebello, an Indian waiter.

The process of scrapping the ship is expected to take two years.

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• Francesco Schettino
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10 years later, Costa Concordia disaster is still vivid for survivors

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Ten years have passed since the Costa Concordia cruise ship slammed into a reef and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio . But for the passengers on board and the residents who welcomed them ashore, the memories of that harrowing, freezing night remain vividly etched into their minds.

The dinner plates that flew off the tables when the rocks first gashed the hull. The blackout after the ship’s engine room flooded and its generators failed. The final mad scramble to evacuate the listing liner and then the extraordinary generosity of Giglio islanders who offered shoes, sweatshirts and shelter until the sun rose and passengers were ferried to the mainland.

Italy on Thursday is marking the 10th anniversary of the Concordia disaster with a daylong commemoration that will end with a candlelit vigil near the moment the ship hit the reef: 9:45 p.m. on Jan. 13, 2012. The events will honor the 32 people who died that night, the 4,200 survivors, but also the residents of Giglio, who took in passengers and crew and then lived with the Concordia’s wrecked carcass off their shore for another two years until it was righted and hauled away for scrap.

“For us islanders, when we remember some event, we always refer to whether it was before or after the Concordia,” said Matteo Coppa, who was 23 and fishing on the jetty when the darkened Concordia listed toward shore and then collapsed onto its side in the water.

“I imagine it like a nail stuck to the wall that marks that date, as a before and after,” he said, recounting how he joined the rescue effort that night, helping pull ashore the dazed, injured and freezing passengers from lifeboats.

The sad anniversary comes as the cruise industry, shut down in much of the world for months because of the coronavirus pandemic, is once again in the spotlight because of COVID-19 outbreaks that threaten passenger safety. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control last month warned people across-the-board not to go on cruises , regardless of their vaccination status, because of the risks of infection.

A dozen passengers on cruise ship test positive for coronavirus

The passengers, whose infections were found through random testing, were asymptomatic or had mild symptoms, according to the Port of San Francisco.

Jan. 7, 2022

For Concordia survivor Georgia Ananias, the COVID-19 infections are just the latest evidence that passenger safety still isn’t a top priority for the cruise ship industry. Passengers aboard the Concordia were largely left on their own to find life jackets and a functioning lifeboat after the captain steered the ship close too shore in a stunt. He then delayed an evacuation order until it was too late, with lifeboats unable to lower because the ship was listing too heavily.

“I always said this will not define me, but you have no choice,” Ananias said in an interview from her home in Los Angeles. “We all suffer from PTSD. We had a lot of guilt that we survived and 32 other people died.”

Prosecutors blamed the delayed evacuation order and conflicting instructions given by crew for the chaos that ensued as passengers scrambled to get off the ship. The captain, Francesco Schettino, is serving a 16-year prison sentence for manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning a ship before all the passengers and crew had evacuated.

Ananias and her family declined Costa’s initial $14,500 compensation offered to each passenger and sued Costa, a unit of U.S.-based Carnival Corp., to try to cover the cost of their medical bills and therapy for the post-traumatic stress they have suffered. But after eight years in the U.S. and then Italian court system, they lost their case.

“I think people need to be aware that when you go on a cruise, that if there is a problem, you will not have the justice that you may be used to in the country in which you are living,” said Ananias, who went onto become a top official in the International Cruise Victims association, an advocacy group that lobbies to improve safety aboard ships and increase transparency and accountability in the industry.

Costa didn’t respond to emails seeking comment on the anniversary.

Cruise Lines International Assn., the world’s largest cruise industry trade association, stressed in a statement to the Associated Press that passenger and crew safety were the industry’s top priority, and that cruising remains one of the safest vacation experiences available.

“Our thoughts continue to be with the victims of the Concordia tragedy and their families on this sad anniversary,” CLIA said. It said it has worked over the past 10 years with the International Maritime Organization and the maritime industry to “drive a safety culture that is based on continuous improvement.”

For Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli, the memories of that night run the gamut: the horror of seeing the capsized ship, the scramble to coordinate rescue services on shore, the recovery of the first bodies and then the pride that islanders rose to the occasion to tend to the survivors.

Ortelli was later on hand when, in September 2013, the 115,000-ton, 1,000-foot long cruise ship was righted vertical off its seabed graveyard in an extraordinary feat of engineering. But the night of the disaster, a Friday the 13th, remains seared in his memory.

“It was a night that, in addition to being a tragedy, had a beautiful side because the response of the people was a spontaneous gesture that was appreciated around the world,” Ortelli said.

It seemed the natural thing to do at the time. “But then we realized that on that night, in just a few hours, we did something incredible.”

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Human Error Suspected as Hope Fades in Korean Ferry Sinking

Relatives of missing passengers from the sunken Sewol ferry waited for new information on Thursday at a gymnasium on Jindo Island in South Korea.

Rescuers search for passengers aboard a ferry sinking off South Korea’s southern coast.

Family members of passengers missing on the overturned ferry wept on at the port in Jindo.

Personal items belonging to students who were on the sinking ferry sit inside an empty classroom of Danwon High School in Ansan, South Korea.

A blue search light cast by a South Korean Coast Guard helicopter shows a sunken ferry.

Kim Jeong-geun, left, and Kang In-hwan, second from right, who both survived the sinking, wait to be discharged from Mokpo Hankook Hospital in Mokpo, South Korea.

Students at Danwon High School hold letters for students of the school who are among the missing passengers.

Relatives wait on a pier in Jindo as the frantic search for nearly 300 people, most of them schoolchildren, extended into a second day.

By Choe Sang-Hun ,  Su-Hyun Lee and Jiha Ham

• April 17, 2014

JINDO, South Korea — The captain was among the first to flee. Only a couple of the 44 life rafts aboard were deployed. The hundreds of passengers were instructed over the intercom to “stay inside and wait” as the ship leaned to one side and began to sink, dragging scores of students down with it.

“I repeatedly told people to calm themselves and stay where they were for an hour,” Kang Hae-seong, the communications officer on the South Korean ferry that sank on Wednesday , said from his hospital bed. He added that he could not recall taking part in any evacuation drills for the ship, and that when a real emergency came, “I didn’t have time to look at the manual for evacuation.”

It took two and a half hours for the ferry, the Sewol, to capsize and become submerged in the blue-gray waters off the southwestern tip of South Korea. Yet in that time, only 179 of the 475 people believed to have been on board were rescued. By Thursday evening, the confirmed death toll was 25.

By Friday, the vessel was completely submerged. But rescue divers, after two days of futile attempts, succeeded in swimming into the ship, though it was unclear how far they were able to enter. Rescuers were using high-pressure hoses to pump oxygen inside the ship, in the hope that some of the 271 people still missing, most of them students, might have survived in air pockets inside the overturned vessel.

As those efforts continued, evidence was growing that human error contributed to the accident, one of South Korea’s worst disasters in recent decades.

Kim Su-hyun, a provincial coast guard chief, told reporters on Thursday that the ship’s captain, Lee Jun-seok, stood accused of violating his responsibilities by abandoning the ferry ahead of most of his passengers. Coast guard officials who questioned Mr. Lee on Thursday said they were reviewing possible criminal charges, while the police said they were investigating whether he had escaped aboard one of the few life rafts used.

On Friday, Park Jae-uk, a senior investigator, said that Mr. Lee was not on the bridge at the time of the accident and left control of the ship to his third mate. “We are investigating where exactly he was at the time,” Mr. Park added.

Mr. Lee made a brief appearance before reporters on Thursday. “I can’t lift my face before the passengers and family members of those missing,” he said. But he provided little clarity on what led the 6,825-ton Sewol to lean so far to its side before sinking, and why so many aboard had been unable to escape.

For some maritime experts, the captain’s decision to abandon the ship and the crew’s emergency performance seemed to echo problems in the wreck of the Costa Concordia, an Italian cruise ship that ran aground in 2012, killing 32 people.

James T. Shirley Jr., an accident investigator in Newtown, Pa., said that in the two and a half hours it took the ship to sink, the crew “certainly had enough time to get most of the people off.”

“I don’t understand why the crew would be instructing passengers to stay inside the ship,” Mr. Shirley said. “I would think that if nothing else, they would be getting them outside with life jackets on so if it sank, they could at least get into the cold water with their jackets.”

Capt. William H. Doherty, a maritime safety expert at Nexus Consulting Group who commanded Navy and merchant ships, said there was “clearly a breakdown in safety training” on the South Korean ferry, a failure he said could be attributed to its officers and to Korean regulators.

“When they issued a safety certification for the ship, they had to certify that the crew was trained,” Captain Doherty said, noting the communications officer’s admission that he had not taken part in an evacuation drill. “You have to satisfy yourself that this crew is trained in all emergency situations.”

For the 325 students from Danwon High School who made up the bulk of the passengers, it was a trip they had been eagerly awaiting, a last chance for fun before a grueling year of studying for South Korea’s university entrance exam. Soon after the ferry left the port of Incheon on Tuesday night bound for the resort island of Jeju, they celebrated by launching fireworks from the deck.

According to survivors, the students were having a morning break after breakfast on Wednesday, roaming through the floors and snapping pictures on the deck, when the ship began tilting.

When the situation became critical, survivors said, many students were still on the third floor, where the cafeteria and game rooms were.

“I don’t remember that there was any safety instruction before we boarded the ship,” said Kim Su-bin, 16, a Danwon student who survived by climbing out of the sinking ship and jumping into the water. “Life jackets were on the fourth floor where the sleeping cabins were, but those who were on the third floor at the time had no life jackets.”

Investigators said the Sewol appeared to have made a sharp turn to the left around the time it began to tilt. It had been sailing slightly off its usual course, they said. It was unclear why such a turn was tried in waters known for their strong currents, or why the turn had caused the ship to lean.

Inside the ferry, chaos unfolded, survivors said, as the walls and floor seemed to exchange positions. Bottles and dishes fell. The ship’s twisting stairways became almost impossible to negotiate. Passengers were tossed to one side. Trays and soup bowls overturned, said Song Ji-cheol, a college student who worked part-time in the cafeteria.

“All of a sudden, we were submerged,” he said. “I tried to hold on to the tables, but they were moving around, too.”

At some point, survivors said, the lights went out.

“When the ship began tilting, there was a thudding noise, and I thought it was the noise made by students bumping into the walls,” Han Hee-min said on Thursday in a hospital in Ansan, the city south of Seoul where Danwon High School is. “I had a life jacket, so I floated. Some friends grabbed my leg, and I don’t know what happened to them.”

Grainy video footage taken with a smartphone and sent to a relative showed frightened passengers huddled in a corner as a voice on the ship’s intercom urged people to “stay inside and wait because the cabins are safer.” Gwon Ji-hyuck, 16, said he had heard that broadcast as well.

Han Sang-hyuk, 16, blamed the crew’s instructions for the high number of missing people, saying that those who stayed in their rooms or were caught in small alleyways between corridors would not have been able to escape.

The communications officer, Mr. Kang, 32, said that he and another crew member had been forced to make a quick decision. They thought that if passengers fled in a panicked rush, it could make matters worse, he said.

Shin Seong-hee, a Danwon student, was among those who heeded the advice. In a text message she sent to her father, she said the crew had told her that “it was more dangerous to move.”

Her father texted back, “I know the rescuers are coming but why don’t you try to come outside?”

“I can’t because the ship is tilting too much,” she said, in a text displayed by her sister. Ms. Shin has not been heard from since.

Some survivors gave accounts of professionalism and self-sacrifice by crew members. Kim Su-bin, the Danwon student who climbed out and jumped into the water, thanked Park Ji-young, a crew member who was found dead on Wednesday, for calming students and staying behind without a life jacket after helping students escape.

“Bring my child back alive!” some parents yelled on Thursday when President Park Geun-hye visited a gymnasium that local officials had turned into a shelter for grieving families. Ms. Park promised “all available resources” for the rescue efforts, and “a thorough investigation and stern punishment for those responsible.”

An editorial in the country’s leading conservative daily newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, which has been mostly supportive of Ms. Park’s government, denounced it for “floundering.”

“Above all, the people must have felt deeply that South Korea is a country that doesn’t value human lives,” it said. “Hundreds of passengers sank with the ship, but its captain and most of its crew came out alive.”

An earlier version of this article misspelled the name of the high school where most of the passengers were from. It is Danwon High School, not Dawon.

How we handle corrections

Choe Sang-Hun and Su-Hyun Lee reported from Jindo, and Jiha Ham from Ansan, South Korea. Keith Bradsher contributed reporting from Hong Kong, and Christopher Drew from New York.

The Worst Cruise Ship Disasters

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A cruise is supposed to be a week of rest, relaxation, and adventure, but for the people on the cruises on this list, it was a nightmare. This list is full of the worst cruise ship disasters in history, from disease outbreaks, to power outages, to shipwrecks.  

This list will make you think twice about going on that cruise to the Caribbean. Disasters like these are, statistically, not that common. But still, you would not want to be stuck on any of these unfortunate maritime adventures.

Viking Sky: Lost Power In Dangerous Waters Off The Coast Of Norway

March 14, 2019, the Viking Sky set sail off the coast of Norway with more than 890 passengers on board. For unknown reasons, the ship lost power in particularly dangerous waters off the Norwegian coast called Hustadvika. An evacuation team began airlifting passengers to safety via helicopter. The ship rocked in the waves and high winds, causing glass to shatter, heavy objects to fall and slide, and cabins to flood. 

The ship was stranded for 24 hours before it regained power and was tugged back to shore. Twenty people were injured, everyone's trips were refunded, and the rest of the cruise was canceled. 

Titanic: Hit An Iceberg

Though Titanic wasn't technically a cruise ship, its demise is the worst maritime mishap in history. The ship, which was supposed to be unsinkable, hit an iceberg and went under. About 1,500 people perished.

Costa Concordia: Ran Aground

S. S. Eastland: Tipped Over At Port

Seabourn spirits: bombarded by pirates.

In 2005, Seabourn Spirits was bombarded off the coast of Somalia by two boats of pirates . The ship's captain was able to outrun them, and thankfully only one person  was injured. The ship made it to port to repair the damage from grenades.

Royal Pacific: Collided With Fishing Trawler

In 1992, the Royal Pacific collided with a Taiwanese fishing trawler due to poor visibility in the middle of the night. The collision caused the cruise ship to sink, and 30 of the 530 passengers perished. 

Star Princess: Fire On Ship

In 2006, a fire broke out on the Star Princess while it was on its way to Jamaica. Three hundred rooms were damaged, 13 people had to be treated for smoke inhalation, and one person suffered a coronary because of the smoke. The cause of the fire was a discarded cigarette.

MTS Oceanos: Capsized Due To Negligence

The MTS Oceanos was carrying 571 passengers on a short cruise from East London to Durban, South Africa. The ship had been neglected and badly needed repairs, but it sailed anyway. It capsized because of a hole in the bulkhead. The captain abandoned ship without even bothering to send a distress call, but thankfully an entertainer named Moss Hills put out an SOS and successfully evacuated everyone on board. 

Carnival Triumph: No Working Toilets

Pacific Sun: Harsh Storm

Louis Majesty: Rogue Waves

Celebrity Mercury: Norovirus Outbreak

Carnival Splendor: Lost Power

Explorer of the Seas: Record Number Of Sick People

M.s. black watch: legionnaires disease.

Norwegian Dawn: Cabins Flooded

In April 2005, a rogue 70-foot wave hit the Norwegian Dawn , smashing windows and flooding 62 cabins. The ship encountered stormy weather on its way back to New York City from the Bahamas. About 300 passengers chose to get off early, in Charleston.

In the middle of the ocean, no one can hear you scream.

Watch CBS News

Cruise ship stranded in 2019 could have been "one of the worst disasters at sea," officials say

By Kerry Breen

March 20, 2024 / 9:30 AM EDT / CBS News

A cruise ship that lost power during a storm off the coast of Norway and nearly ran aground in 2019 avoided becoming "one of the worst disasters at sea in modern times," according to a new report looking into the blackout . 

The Viking Sky was carrying 1,374 passengers when it lost power and became stranded in a notoriously rough stretch of water in the Norwegian Sea. The ship came close to crashing into Norway's rocky coast, and hundreds of people were evacuated over the course of several hours. 

The blackout meant the ship could not move forward or be steered, according to the report from the Norwegian Safety Investigation Authority. The accident was caused by insufficient lubricating oil in all of the operating diesel generators' lubricating oil sump tanks, the agency said, which combined with rough waters meant the ship could not operate. 

The investigation found that one of the vessel's four diesel generators was "unavailable" when it left port, the agency said, meaning that the cruise ship was not in compliance with safety standards and should have never sailed. The design of the sump tank on the working generators was also "non-compliant with applicable regulations," the investigation found. 

The agency's investigation "identified operational, technical, and organisational safety issues that in different ways contributed to the blackout" and called for more than a dozen safety recommendations. 

Once at sea, the agency said one of the biggest problems was that the ship's crew had never practiced the protocol for how to recover from a full blackout without a standby generator. This meant that engineers "were not practised in managing" the situation.

"The situation was stressful, the control system was complex, and a specific sequence of actions was needed. Insufficient training likely contributed to why the blackout recovery was time consuming," the agency said. 

Several of the safety recommendations focused on ensuring that various shipyards, ship managers and other organizations that oversaw the Viking Sky review and strengthen processes to ensure that materials are compliant with safety regulations, and to ensure that no other vessels are sailing with faulty machinery. Other safety recommendations suggested that new technology be developed to better measure lubricating oil "to ensure safe operation" of large vessels, and that the ship management company and cruise line operator review their engine room alarm system to identify and implement potential improvements. 

• Cruise Ship

Kerry Breen is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. A graduate of New York University's Arthur L. Carter School of Journalism, she previously worked at NBC News' TODAY Digital. She covers current events, breaking news and issues including substance use.

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River Danube cruise ship crashed after it was 'suddenly no longer able to maneuver,' 17 passengers injured

• A cruise ship crashed into a concrete wall along the River Danube in Austria on Friday.
• A police statement said, "the ship was suddenly no longer able to maneuver."
• 11 people were hospitalized and another 6 suffered less serious injuries.

A Bulgarian cruise ship carrying over 140 passengers crashed into a concrete wall along the River Danube in Austria.

The incident occurred late on March 29 in the northern Austrian town of Aschach an der Donau, local police said Saturday.

Eleven people were injured and taken to hospital as a result of the crash. Six others suffered less serious injuries that did not require hospital treatment.

The ship had set off from Passau, a German city on the Austrian border, but further down the river when leaving the lock chamber, "the ship was suddenly no longer able to maneuver," and its right bow and left aft crashed into the lock walls, the statement read.

The second-in-command of the ship, who had been at the helm during the crash, "pressed the emergency switch, whereupon the electronics started up again." He was then able to steer the ship out of the lock.

The ship was later docked at the quay wall and emergency services were notified.

Related stories

The exact cause of the temporary loss of steering is unclear. The ship was able to continue its journey toward Linz, Austria.

An Austrian police statement indicated the collision was linked to a failure of the ship's electronics.

After the ship crashed, " The second captain of the ship, who was operating the helm at the time, immediately pressed the emergency switch, whereupon the electronics started again and he was able to steer the ship out of the lock," the police statement said.

It added: "After checking the ship it turned out that the electronics worked again after the emergency switch was reset, which is why the ship could continue its journey."

Earlier this week, a container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, collapsing a section of the 1.6-mile-long structure and killing six construction workers.

Citing the container ship's recovered data recorder, officials said the power went out on the Dali for just one minute and three seconds as it approached the bridge, Sky News reported, but that was enough for the collision to become unavoidable.

In 2023, in the worst disaster on the Danube in more than half a century, a cruise boat hit and sank a smaller boat , killing 25 South Korean tourists and two crew. The captain was sentenced to five years in prison in Hungary for his role in the accident.

The River Danube is Europe's second-largest river in Europe. It flows through Central and Southeastern Europe, from the Black Forest south into the Black Sea. Cruise ships on the river attract huge numbers of tourists every year.

Watch: One of Europe's deadliest shipwrecks leaves hundreds missing

• Main content

Behind the Baltimore bridge collapse is a familiar story of a corporation cutting corners

The dali disaster is what profit-driven economics looks like, by bob hennelly.

This article originally appeared on Work-Bites

On March 26, the day after the commemoration of the 113th anniversary of the Triangle factory fire that killed 146 mostly female immigrant garment workers in lower Manhattan — a crew of a half-dozen immigrant men in a non-union paving crew fell 185 feet to their deaths from Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key bridge after it was rammed by the Dali, a rudderless massive cargo ship that was trying to leave the port without a tug escort.

Police were able to close the bridge to traffic just before the catastrophic collision took place after the powerless and adrift Singaporean-flagged Dali got out a mayday call at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday.

The alert, however, did not come fast enough to save members of the road crew who were doing dangerous construction work on the vital span while Baltimore slept. Like so many immigrants before them, the half-dozen workers’ sudden and violent death highlighted the precarity of their lives in a nation that both relies on — and reviles them.  

Fifty-six of the 4,700 containers aboard the Dali contained hazardous materials, a top Coast Guard official told reporters at a White House briefing Wednesday. Officials said there is currently “no risk to the public.”

The non-union highway crew from Maryland-based Brawner Builders were immigrants who hailed from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico. The corporate media is describing the catastrophic event as a kind of freak accident. Immigrant rights and labor union activists, however, see it as the logical consequence of a brutal global trade regime that cuts corners to maximize profits — one that puts workers and the public at risk, while enabling officials and regulators to cheer from the sidelines.

On Wednesday, Maryland State Police recovered the bodies of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera inside a pick-up truck submerged 50 feet beneath the Patapsco River. The Patapsco flows directly underneath the 1.6 mile Francis Scott Key span, built a half-century ago. With four workers still unaccounted for, officials shifted from rescue and recovery mode — to a salvage operation essential to opening the Port of Baltimore for business. 

In the immediate aftermath, one worker was miraculously rescued uninjured from the water, while another worker was pulled from the frigid waters severely injured. Work-Bites reached out to Brawner Building for a comment but has not gotten a response. Jeffrey Pritzker, the company’s vice president, told CBS News the company is “doing everything possible to support the families and to counsel the families and to be with the families.”

A GoFundMe campaign has been set up by the Latino Racial Justice Circle, the news outlet reported.

How Labor Views the Disaster

Donna Edwards, president of the Maryland State & DC AFL-CIO, which represents 340,000 union members, tells Work-Bites the state confederation is deeply concerned about the fate of the Brawner Building non-union crew. 

“This is very dangerous work — there was an SOS. Did they even know what was happening?” Edwards asks. “They shut down the bridge so that some people did not get on who would have died in the collapse. What warning did the workers get? It’s opened all of our eyes to how quickly this can happen. In a manner of seconds that whole bridge came down.”

Patrick Moran is the president of AFSCME Council 3, which represents over 40,000 public sector workers in Maryland. He says the tragedy has prompted “a lot of unanswered questions” about maritime and construction sector occupational safety.

“Very little of the state work [like the bridge paving] that’s contracted out is union — it’s been a problem for the last decade or more,” Moran tells Work-Bites. “We all know that union jobs are statistically safer jobs. We know that union jobs are more economically secure jobs, and we know that on union jobs the workers are trained more proficiently. But when it comes to the [Maryland] Department of Transportation or General Services, they just look for the bottom line — and that’s it. Worker safety is just not in their matrix.”

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George Escobar is the chief of programs with Casa, a national non-profit that advocates for immigrant rights and has 155,000 members in 46 states. Two of the Brawner paving crew were members. 

“This really underlines the overall story of our immigrant community that doesn’t get told often,” Escobar told MSNBC. “Yet again, we are the immigrant workforce being in the forefront of really helping this country to run and operate properly, while at the same time being disproportionately impacted by the failed investments in struggling infrastructure, healthcare and housing. Just the other month in Baltimore, we had another tragedy where three immigrants lost their lives in a fire inside a building that was in very poor condition.”

Kevin Brown, N.J. Area Director at SEIU Local 32BJ, says that when a disaster like the Baltimore bridge collapse happens — union representation means accountability for the workers and their surviving family members.

“Collective bargaining and immigrant rights go hand-in-hand,” Brown says. “Workers need to be able to work and immigrant workers need to receive fair wages with benefits.”

32BJ SEIU is the largest building service workers union in the nation and has been very successful organizing in immigrant communities across 11 states and Washington D.C. 

The Dali, built in 2014, is a 1,000-foot floating behemoth that can hold 10,000 shipping containers and is operated by just a 22-member crew. The ship had been inspected last year in Chile when a broken pressure gauge was replaced. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, it passed an inspection in September. Reuters reported the ship was involved in an accident back in 2016 when it was trying to leave Antwerp and its hull was sufficiently damaged to “impair its seaworthiness.” 

Roland “Rex” Rexha is the secretary-treasurer of the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association. Established in 1875, it’s the oldest maritime trade union in the U.S., representing licensed deck and engine officers. Rexha tells Work-Bites the Dali disaster highlights the downside of not having ships escorted by tug boats until they are out on the open sea away from critical infrastructure — as well as the risks created by building larger and larger vessels while using automation as justification for reducing crew size, and the wide variance between U.S. maritime safety standards and the rest of the world. 

“As for having tug assistance when they are going under a bridge, these are changes of policy where we defer to what the mandatory policies are of the individual port; what they deem is the safest way to operate,” Rexha says. “I think in all ports there’s going to be a revisiting of how we operate and what’s the safest way to move vessels out into safe water. When you are talking about a large cruise ship or a cargo ship like this one, if they are out of the harbor and they lose power they are not going to hit anything, they are in the middle of the ocean. But as they are operating in local waters that’s where you have to be really diligent.”

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Glenn Corbett is an associate professor of fire science and public management at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. 

“In the overall scheme of things,” he says, “it would have been a bargain to have tug boats escort that ship as opposed to having to spend billions to replace this bridge, avoid the loss of life and the major hit to that region’s economy.”

Cost-Cutting Automation Strikes Again

What’s been happening around the world as cargo ships have gotten bigger and technology advanced, Rexha points out, is they have all gone to minimum crewing.

“So, that where in the past you had ten officers per department, you have half that,” he says. “At that point, everything becomes more difficult when there is an issue, which is most likely going to happen when you are trying to maneuver the ship. That’s the most dangerous part of any transit for any ship. That’s when there’s the potential hazard — that’s where there’s the potential for a real tragedy.”

It is possible, however, to regain control of a ship that’s lost power through switching to manual control. But to do that, according to Rexha, you need sufficient crew strength.

“But you can’t do that with just two people, especially if you are running around to try and get the lights back on,” he adds. “If you look at the issues of East Palestine, the issues of Boeing, and now this maritime disaster — our transportation system is under attack and its corporate greed every step of the way that led to these issues. People are [now] opening their eyes and asking, do I feel safe driving over a bridge knowing there’s a vessel going underneath it. Do I feel safe with a train coming into the city carrying all these chemicals? Do I feel safe on a plane while there’s a company cutting corners on how they build these things?”

In the aftermath of the Dali disaster, it isn’t just labor raising red flags about the pre-existing conditions of America’s corporate-dominated maritime sector where ports actually compete with each other for business.

“This bridge was built in the 1970s, and the vessels now are much larger with much heavier capacities, so I think we need to revisit that and we expect that the investigation will help us to know how to rebuild this bridge in the most effective way going forward with the replacement bridge,” Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD) told MSNBC. “Let’s build a bridge that provides maximum safety.”

Cardin also told the news outlet that the families of the lost workers needed to be compensated for their loss, and that there also needs to be compensation for the workers and the businesses that will feel the brunt of the indefinite port closure. “Those responsible have to be held accountable,” he said.

According to Corbett, the meticulous review that’s being done of the disaster by both the National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Coast Guard will take months, if not years to conclude. He reasons that with the glaring vulnerabilities this disaster has exposed — the nation now requires the creation of a  Disaster Review Board , which “within 90 days can come up with a basic report…so that the stuff that’s become apparent can inform the additional research that’s needed, or the rules and laws that have to be changed.”

Bob Hennelly has written and reported for the Village Voice, Pacifica Radio, WNYC, CBS MoneyWatch and other outlets. His book, "Stuck Nation: Can the United States Change Course on Our History of Choosing Profits Over People?" was published in 2021 by Democracy@Work. He is now a reporter for the Chief-Leader, covering public unions and the civil service in New York City. Follow him on Twitter: @stucknation

Related Topics ------------------------------------------

Related articles.

“9-1-1” boss breaks down the deadly cruise ship disaster finale — and what didn't make the final cut

The ABC first-responder drama's co-creator and showrunner, Tim Minear, also teases what's to come in season 7.

After three hours of pirates, explosions, and lots of water , 9-1-1 fans finally know who survived the epic, three-part season 7 premiere .

"It all happened really fast," co-creator and showrunner Tim Minear tells Entertainment Weekly of completing the cruise ship disaster episodes. "It was very difficult, and you always have that moment where you're just like, 'Am I going to be able to pull this off?'"

It may have felt quick, but getting Bobby ( Peter Krause ) and Athena ( Angela Bassett ) out of that sinking vessel actually took months of filming... and none of it on an actual cruise ship. As the series moves forward on dry land (though on one very wet driveway, with the Bachelor crossover coming next week ), we asked Minear to break down the deadly three-epsiode event, reveal what ideas never made it to air, and tease what's to come in the rest of season 7.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: This was a big undertaking...

TIM MINEAR: Shooting Bobby and Athena on a honeymoon cruise was more challenging than many things I've done on this show in the last seven seasons. We never got an actual cruise ship, so we had to shoot in hotels and on different types of vessels, and then [use] special effects and CGI. But just the idea of that surprised me. I thought that would be easy: You'd rent a cruise ship, you'd shoot on it for three days, you'd get a lot of stuff on the decks. But it just didn't turn out that way. It was very difficult to get a cruise ship. No cruise line wanted to be associated with a capsized ship, which I guess I can understand.

Well it all made for a very dramatic three episodes. So many massive sets, so much rising water.

The water's not actually rising, the set is sinking! The set was built on a gimbal inside a water tank. We would slowly lower the set into the tank, and it gives the effect that the water's rising around them. And the casino set.... The lowering of the table with Norman [played by Daniel Roebuck] on it, that was complicated to write, and it was very complicated to shoot. But that's Peter up there. Peter is climbing across those ropes up there — that delighted me.

The other thing that absolutely delighted me was that Angela Bassett was game for anything. She went into that water. When the bomb goes off in episode 2, and she goes flying against that wall, she actually did it! There's a stunt woman in there too, but Angela, she was game for anything.

Was there anything you wanted to do with this disaster that you weren't able to?

There was one scene that I did have to cut, that I was sad to cut. It was when Wes [played by Denzel Johnson] opens the door and that fireball comes out. Originally in the script, they still continued in that direction, and when they looked into that room, it was an upside down restaurant and the water was on fire. And so it's like, "How do we get to the other side of the restaurant and stop the gas that is feeding this fire?" And in the scene, in the script, Lola [played by Romy Rosemont] actually dives under the fire and swims under the water to turn it off. It was very Shelley Winters [in The Poseidon Adventure .]

Time and money just prohibited that from happening, so I made a little bit more of Wes' death. And then did give Lola an opportunity to retrieve the flare gun later in the episode, so she still got to go underwater. But that was a moment that I was sad to lose. And I know Romy was too, but she still got a little bit of action there at the end.

So now that Bobby and Athena are rescued, what can you tease about the rest of the season?

I just finished locking episode 4 and I was like, "Hmm, there's no natural disasters. Things aren't blowing up all over the place." But there is the Bachelor crossover, so we have that to look forward to. And now we get to spend a little time breathing with the 118 and dig into their personal stories a little bit more. Yeah, I don't know how much I should spoil.... Definitely a beloved character will be returning in episode 4, I can put it that way....

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

9-1-1 airs Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT on ABC.

Sign up for  Entertainment Weekly 's free daily newsletter   to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.

Related content:

• Why  9-1-1  boss 'wasn't really interested' in Buck dating death doula Natalia — and what's to come in season 7
• 9-1-1 's Oliver Stark and Ryan Guzman on Buck and Eddie's 'open, sensitive, and vulnerable' season 7 dynamic
• Inside the epic  9-1-1  season 7 premiere: The shipwreck, the romances, the drama

Read the original article on Entertainment Weekly .

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17 reported hurt after river cruise ship hits a concrete passageway on the Danube in Austria

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Seventeen passengers were hurt when a Bulgarian river cruise ship lost steering and hit the sides of a lock on the Danube in Austria, the apa news agency reported Saturday. Eleven of the injured were taken to hospitals.

The ship with 142 passengers aboard, most of them from Germany, temporarily lost power to its electronics system and became unsteerable as it passed through narrow locks at 9:45 p.m. Friday, apa reported.

The ship’s power was restored but not before the bow and stern struck the concrete sides of the lock passage near the town of Aschach, a few miles upriver from Linz.

The ship sustained minor damage and continued to its next port. The cause of the loss of electrical power was under investigation.

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March 26, 2024 - Baltimore Key Bridge collapses after ship collision

By Helen Regan , Kathleen Magramo , Antoinette Radford, Alisha Ebrahimji , Maureen Chowdhury , Rachel Ramirez , Elise Hammond , Aditi Sangal , Tori B. Powell , Piper Hudspeth Blackburn and Kathleen Magramo , CNN

Ship that collided with Baltimore bridge was chartered by Danish shipping company Maersk 

From CNN's Alex Stambaugh in Hong Kong

The container ship that collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore on Tuesday was chartered by Maersk and carrying their customers' cargo, the Danish shipping company told CNN.

"We are horrified by what has happened in Baltimore, and our thoughts are with all of those affected," The company said in its statement.

The company, which has a full name of A.P. Moller - Maersk, said no company crew and personnel were onboard the vessel. It said the ship, DALI, is operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group. 

"We are closely following the investigations conducted by authorities and Synergy, and we will do our utmost to keep our customers informed," the statement said. 

CNN is attempting to contact the owner and managers of the ship, including Synergy.

FBI Baltimore on the scene at the Key Bridge

FBI Baltimore personnel are on the scene at the Francis Scott Key Bridge, they have said in a post on X.

The agency said it was working "side by side with our local, state and federal partners."

Baltimore fire emergency chief says 2 people saved from water after Key Bridge collapse

From CNN's Antoinette Radford

The Baltimore Fire Department Chief James Wallace says authorities rescued two people from the water this morning, one without injury and the other who has been transferred to hospital in a serious condition.

Authorities are continuing their search for upwards of seven people, Wallace says. But, he says that number could change as it is a "very large incident." Earlier on Tuesday, an official said as many as 20 people could be in the water.

Wallace added that the crew remains on board the ship, and are communicating with the US Coast Guard. He added that emergency services are looking into reports that there were workers on the bridge at the time of the incident.

Speaking at the press conference, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott also described the incident as an “unthinkable tragedy,” and offered his prayers for all those affected, as well as his thanks to first responders.

Authorities share updates on Baltimore bridge collapse

Authorities are holding a news conference on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore after it was struck by a large ship.

Divers and search and rescue teams are searching for people in the Patapsco River after several vehicles are believed to have fallen into the water, including one as large as a tractor-trailer, said Kevin Cartwright, director of communications of the Baltimore City Fire Department.

Divers urgently search for anyone who may be in water

From CNN’s Derek Van Dam

The water at the scene of the collapsed bridge is about 48°F (9°C) making rescue operations all the more urgent for anyone who may potentially be in the water, CNN’s Derek Van Dam says.

“Water temperature of roughly 50 doesn't sound all that cold, but indeed that type of water temperature can be deadly.”

“Water drains body heat about four times faster than cold air actually can,” he said on CNN’s This Morning program.

Van Dam said there is a one to three-hour window at which the body could sustain temperatures that cold. But, he said underwater divers immediately got into the water to start a search and rescue operation, “that is why it is so incredibly crucial.”

Earlier, Kevin Cartwright, director of communications of the Baltimore City Fire Department, told CNN temperatures around the port at 1:30 a.m. ET felt to be around 30 °F (-1°C).

Maryland governor declares state of emergency

From CNN's Melissa Alonso

Maryland Governor Wes Moore has declared a state of emergency following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

"We are thankful for the brave men and women who are carrying out efforts to rescue those involved and pray for everyone’s safety," the governor's statement said.

Reports of vehicles in the water after Baltimore bridge collapse, US Coast Guard confirms

The US Coast Guard (USCG) is responding to the Francis Scott Key Bridge emergency after receiving a report that a container ship hit it at 1:27 a.m. ET "and it subsequently collapsed," according to a public affairs officer Kimberly Reaves of the Coast Guard's 5th District.

There are reports of vehicles in the water, according to Reaves, who says the Coast Guard has deployed "multiple" response units for a search and rescue mission.

"Coast Guard units on scene include small boats from Station Annapolis and Station Curtis Bay and a helicopter from Air Station Atlantic City," the statement read.

Reaves said that multiple state and local agencies are assisting, and it is unclear if there are any casualties.

US Secretary of Transportation spoke to Maryland governor and Baltimore mayor after bridge collapse

From CNN's Colin McCullough 

US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg spoke to Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Baltimore Mayor Brandon M. Scott following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, according to a post from the secretary on  X . 

Buttigieg said that “rescue efforts remain underway and drivers in the Baltimore area should follow local responder guidance on detours and response.”

US Coast Guard says container ship, the DALI, hit Baltimore bridge

From CNN's Gianluca Mezzofiore and Alex Stambaugh 

The vessel that hit Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was a container ship, the DALI, according to public affairs officer Kimberly Reaves of the US Coast Guard's 5th District.

A container ship named DALI "hit the Francis Scott Key bridge" at 1:27 a.m. ET "and it subsequently collapsed," Reaves said in a statement.

Maritime tracking website MarineTraffic showed that the Singapore-flagged ship stopped in Baltimore, where it was departing with a destination of Colombo, Sri Lanka. The website showed the ship stopped around 1:30 a.m. ET and was surrounded by first response boats.

At about 1:30 a.m., local agencies reported receiving 911 calls that a large ship traveling outbound from Baltimore had struck a column on the bridge, Kevin Cartwright, spokesperson for the Baltimore Fire Department told AP. 

The ship is around 300 meters (984 feet) long with a width of around 48 meters (157 feet), according to MarineTraffic data.

CNN is attempting to contact the owner and managers of the ship.

This post has been updated to add comments from the Coast Guard.

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