Even this soon after the shipwreck, it is clear that new safety measures are needed on all cruise ships in the areas of the chain of command, presence of a safety officer, modern sonar and radar warnings, sobriety of key crew, new design of lifeboat lowering, and auxiliary life rafts and ladders.
A couple of caveats: I am not a captain, and the results of the investigation will take some time to come out. However, just making minimal corrections for the specific chain of events that led to this shipwreck will ignore the larger safety problems unveiled in the whole scenario, and the many extra safety precautions that could be put in place in modern times.
When the Captain decided to go off course near a rocky island, the first mate should have overruled this decision, and assumed command of the vessel. Had he not acted, the second mate should have done so. Once off course, the Costa management and the Coast Guard should have been immediately notified. While we don’t know if the Captain had been drinking, it is reckless for any of the essential crew to drink even when off duty, or for anyone on board to be serving them even any beers or wine. The Exxon Valdez should have settled this question once and for all. Among the 1,000 crew, there should also have been a safety officer whose sole job is to keep safety checks, to know how all the lifeboat equipment should be used in any type of emergency, and to have ship wide communication with him at all times, and to supervise any emergencies.
With modern GPS systems, the course should be continually broadcast to the Costa management and the Coast Guard, as well as the Italian port authorities. I can even follow my iPad and iPhone4S with GPS from a remote iPad or iPhone.
Since autos can be bought with collision detection warnings, there should have been such warnings on their sonar and radar, going both to the ship and to the management and Coast Guard.
Historically, most ship wrecks have been striking rocks or reefs, often blown there by storm winds and waves, or in fog. Hence, capsized ships are common in shipwrecks. Yet the lifeboats on the cruise ships are really unprepared for such an occurrence. The ones over the water were tilting or swinging and unstable. The ones on the upper side of the overturned ship could not be launched. It seems like the lifeboat design is made only for practice drills, and not for realistic wrecks. In the interim to a universally imposed safe design, extra inflatable life-rafts to hold all of the passengers should be in place on each side of the vessel, along with sufficient safe rope ladders. This shipwreck was in many ways lucky that it did not occur on a rocky coastline, in a storm, in fog, in freezing water, or far from help. The other thing that I don’t understand is why life-vests are only available in cabins, and that inflatable ones are not available where the lifeboats are. Requiring people to return to their cabins to pick up life-vests seems absurd.
I will probably be modifying this as the investigation proceeds, but I think the general ideas here would greatly improve safety and instill confidence in passengers of cruise ships.
