NARRATOR: Disaster at sea...
as terrifying as it is rare
for millions of people on today's ocean cruises.
Yet two tragedies 100 years apart
remind us that accidents do happen.
A century ago, the state-of-the- art passenger ship Titanic
hit an iceberg.
More than 1,500 people died.
In 2012, the cruise ship Costa Concordia sank
at the cost of 32 lives.
Statistics show that cruises are reasonably safe.
But with ships now carrying thousands of people,
might another catastrophe be looming?
NOVA examines cruise ship construction, design,
and how captains are trained,
all to understand "Why Ships Sink."
Right now on NOVA.
Major funding for NOVA is provided by the following...
NARRATOR: More than ten million Americans set sail
on cruise ship vacations each year.
This worldwide $33 billion industry has grown fast,
as have the ships.
Some of the ships have 6,500 passengers aboard
and 2,000 crew members,
more people than my hometown.
NARRATOR: As this industry and its ships reach for the skies,
is enough attention being paid to passenger safety?
Industry official statistics,
citing just 16 deaths in the five years up to 2010,
suggest cruising is safe.
But since then, the tragic deaths
on the sunken Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia
raise new concerns.
Disasters are rare, but is the risk growing?
Potentially, with huge loss of life
like the most iconic sea disaster of all time,
the 1912 sinking of Titanic,
almost exactly 100 years before Concordia.
The catastrophes, a century apart,
reveal astonishing similarities.
That raises the question:
are the massive technological advances of the past 100 years
enough to guarantee our safety at sea?
Such maritime accidents highlight important issues
in ship construction,
design, and the training of captains and crews.
So, are modern cruise ships tough enough to withstand
the dangers of the sea?
MICHAEL BRUNO: We will never be able to build a ship
large or small,
to withstand an impact with a rock
or likely with an impact with an iceberg for that matter.
NARRATOR: Are cruise ships now too large to be safe?
And is it too easy to ignore
their complex navigation systems?
You're able to get navigational warnings,
you're able to monitor other traffic,
you're able to see how close you want to get
to points of danger.
NARRATOR: And do crews have the training to handle dangerous situations?
The majority of the employees on the ship
are designed to sell food and alcohol.
You have only very few true professional mariners.
NARRATOR: Costa Concordia was owned by a subsidiary
of the U.S. Carnival Corporation.
It had a luxurious cinema and spa, five restaurants,
13 bars, four swimming pools.
Everything a honeymoon couple could have wanted.
This was pretty much something we both dreamed of.
It was a beautiful ship.
Just the food, the sights, the sounds,
you know, everything, just the culture itself,
just a change of pace and just really looking forward
to just enjoying ourselves on our honeymoon.
NARRATOR: There had been no safety drill for the passengers
who'd boarded that day.
International regulations allow the obligatory lifeboat muster
to be delayed for up to 24 hours after leaving port.
Safety was, like, the last thing we were thinking of, you know.
"Where's our life jacket?" you know.
We didn't think anything like that.
What can go wrong on your honeymoon?
NARRATOR: Friday, January 13, 2012.
With 4,200 souls on board,
the Concordia had just left port near Rome.
Approaching the island of Giglio,
the vessel diverted from its prescribed route,
apparently to perform a sail-by just off the coast.
Many passengers were at dinner.
Others were watching a magic show when everything stopped.
We heard a very unusual kind of grinding sound.
(metallic grinding)
Like almost like fingers on a chalkboard type of thing.
Plates were moving, silverware was jingling,
glasses were jingling.
MARIO LOFARO: The music stopped.
The magician literally ran off the stage.
The lights went out.
MEGAN MAURI: We all just kind of
looked at each other, like, "What is that?"
NARRATOR: At 16 knots, nearly 20 miles per hour,
the 114,000-ton ship had hit rock.
32 people would perish, and the world would ask why.
That same question was asked 100 years ago
after the maiden voyage of another giant ship--
the Titanic.
The men, women and children on board,
just like the passengers on Concordia,
were also sailing into a nightmare.
Four days out from England, heading to New York,
an iceberg split open its hull.
It sank within hours.
More than 1,500 people drowned or died of hypothermia.
The ghost of Titanic still seems to haunt
its shipyard birthplace in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Here, thousands of laborers built Titanic
for the American-owned White Star Shipping Line.
PAUL LOUDEN-BROWN: She is the 747 of her day.
She's designed as a giant people carrier.
NARRATOR: Nearly 900 feet long and 100 feet wide,
Titanic was then the biggest man-made object to move
on the face of the planet.
(ship horn blaring)
Computer graphics can bring her first and final voyage
back to life.
The ship's journey was two-thirds complete
by late evening on April 14, 1912.
Despite reports of icebergs,
Captain Edward Smith maintains speed
to stay on schedule.
11:40 p.m., ship's time.
Titanic was approximately 400 miles southeast
of Newfoundland.
A 45,000-ton ship heading towards a massive iceberg.
This giant iceberg was a rogue.
It had broken away from the pack.
By the time the two lookouts in the crow's nest had seen it
and reported it to the bridge, it was too late.
NARRATOR: The Concordia and Titanic disasters
bear remarkable parallels.
Both cruised at speed into large underwater obstacles.
Both hulls were ripped open below the waterline,
piercing so many watertight compartments
that they could not stay afloat.
Could the quality of the steel used in their construction
have been at fault?
The answer is being sought here
at the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo.
Michael Strange conducts what's called a Charpy impact test
on two samples of steel--
one similar to that from Titanic's era,
the other a modern-day sample.
We install a specimen into the machine
that has a very special shape with a small groove in it,
which focuses the energy into one location.
The head is released, crashing into the specimen.
NARRATOR: The test measures how high the pendulum swings
after it smashes through the steel bar.
The higher the swing,
the less energy has been used by the pendulum
to break the sample and the weaker the steel.
The tests reveal that modern-day steel
is seven times more resistant to impact than was Titanic's.
This fits with earlier studies
showing Titanic's steel contained more sulfur
and phosphorous than modern materials.
These impurities can accumulate between the crystal layers
of the metal and weaken its structure.
But the strength of a metal also depends
on how much it stretches and deforms to absorb energy.
Make sure we're nice and tight.
NARRATOR: Strange stretches sample bars
to their breaking point.
A stronger metal will stretch further before it breaks.
We can see in the bottom third
it's starting to narrow a little bit.
And it's just about reached its failure point.
(metal snaps sharply)
It's a little bit hard to tell,
but it is quite a bit longer than it was when it originated.
If you look in the area of my fingers here,
you'll see that it actually has reduced in diameter,
and that area is called necking.
That's where the forces and stresses are the highest
right before failure.
NARRATOR: In this case,
the sample that fails to cope with the strain and snaps first
is the Titanic era steel.
Its quality suffered because the importance
of controlling temperature during the smelting process
was not well understood.
In comparison to some of the older materials,
for instance, the material used in the Titanic,
they don't have the ability to absorb near as much energy
as current steels do.
NARRATOR: Unsurprisingly,
the metal of modern ships is more suited to surviving at sea
than Titanic's.
A more significant problem
was the way Titanic's steel plates were connected.
After hitting the iceberg,
Titanic stayed afloat for less than three hours.
Iron rivets held the steel plates of her hull together
at the bow and stern.
They were her weakest link.
LOUDEN-BROWN: In Titanic,
there'd be approximately three million rivets.
This is an iron rivet recovered from the sea bed
from the Titanic.
But this is actually the head of the rivet.
This is the tail of the rivet.
So this is inside the hull and this is outside the hull.
NARRATOR: Riveting was a backbreaking job.
Men were paid by how many rivets they drove in a day.
They were known as the hard men of the shipyard.
Titanic's rivets were heated, then hammered through holes
in two plates of steel.
Cooling and contracting,
the rivets pulled the hull plates tightly together
into a watertight seal.
LOUDEN-BROWN: So you have a steel ship,
but it's constructed using iron rivets.
Unfortunately, the rivets themselves are by nature weaker
than the plates which they are attaching.
And the head has been literally ripped off
the top of this rivet.
NARRATOR: As the iceberg bent and buckled each plate,
the rivets popped out,
unzipping seams along a 300-foot section of hull.
LOUDEN-BROWN: The iron rivets just haven't been strong enough to withstand
the immense pressure of the iceberg striking.
NARRATOR: By contrast, Concordia's modern hull had nrivets at all.
Sections were welded together.
Below the surface, divers are finding solid rock,
polished or cracked apart by the force of the collision.
They've also come across an amazing piece of evidence...
This twisted ribbon of solid, inches-thick steel
stripped from Concordia's hull
as though opened up by the key of a giant sardine can.
The conclusion is unmistakable.
Modern steel may be strong,
but nothing can withstand the crushing impact
of a 100,000-ton cruise ship on an immovable granite outcrop.
BRUNO: You have to remember the weight of this vessel
and the momentum.
So even a very slow movement
of an object this size just produces enormous forces
perfectly able to just strip the metal apart and shear it off
like it's a piece of paper.
We will never be able to design a ship, large or small,
to withstand an impact with a rock,
or with an iceberg, for that matter.
NARRATOR: The designers of the Titanic did try.
Internal compartments with watertight doors
were supposed to contain any flooding in her hull.
But the bulkheads between those compartments
did not reach all the way up to the deck above.
LOUDEN-BROWN: Ultimately this meant that the water would flow
over the top of one bulkhead, over the top of another.
And it was inevitable that the Titanic would sink.
It was just a question of time.
NARRATOR: Bulkhead design has since been improved.
In modern ships, they reach right to the top.
BRUNO: All vessels have
watertight compartments.
This is a technology, a design feature,
that dates back to the Titanic.
NARRATOR: Titanic and Concordia had another
safety feature in common.
They had protective double bottoms,
an extra watertight layer of steel above the keel.
If the bottom of the ship is damaged,
water still won't enter the inner hull.
But both Titanic and Concordia were struck
above their double bottoms.
Here, their only protection was a single layer of steel.
The double hull isn't around the entire skin of the ship.
It's usually just in the bottom area of the ship
so that if a breach of the hull occurs above that,
then you would have open flow of water coming into the vessel.
NARRATOR: The consequences were fatal for both ships.
Concordia took on water and listed heavily.
Only being beached near the shore
saved her from sinking outright.
Titanic, tragically, sank in the open ocean.
In the 100 years between these two accidents,
the lessons of the Titanic disaster were applied to ships
such as oil tankers.
Their double-thickness hulls now reach right up to the waterline.
But only some modern cruise ships have adopted this design.
It's clear that you have an added degree of safety
with a double hull.
NARRATOR: But full double hulls add expense.
COMEAU: There would be cost limitations involved with that.
Also it may be a reduction in the amount of cargo
the vessel could carry in a commercial sense.
NARRATOR: The Cruise Lines International Association represents 25 lines.
They and other major cruise companies
declined to be interviewed about any of the issues
raised in this program,
including the design of the latest generation
of cruise ships.
This is a controversial area, and not all experts agree,
but some industry figures question
where these giant ships are headed.
ALLAN GRAVESON: These ships now are being built
in such a way that they are inherently unstable.
It is a design issue.
NARRATOR: The first, and most obvious, design development
of recent years has been the ever-increasing height
of the ships.
The tallest now in service reach more than 230 feet
above the waterline-- a 20-story building at sea.
In strong winds, a high-sided ship acts like a giant sail,
a concept illustrated by the collision between two ships
off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico, in 2009.
MAN: Wow, we're really close to these people, man.
Look at that-- whoa, he's going to hit!
Passengers on board the 88,000-ton cruise ship
Carnival Legend took these shots as a 55 mile-per-hour wind
sent the vessel veering out of control.
MAN: We're gonna hit, we're gonna hit, we're gonna hit.
(people screaming)
NARRATOR: Even her directional steering thrusters could not prevent her
from colliding with the cruise ship Enchantment of the Seas.
MAN: We've hit, we've hit.
NARRATOR: In continuing high winds,
e ships clashed for more than 20 minutes.
It was a dangerous situation with costly damage.
But there was no breach of the ships' hulls
and no one was injured.
The towering height of these ships
also raises the issue of stability.
At the University of Michigan,
Steve Zalek studies how ships float and why they sink.
This 360 foot-long tank
holds three-quarters of a million gallons of water.
On accurate models, Zalek adjusts the weight distribution
to mimic ships of all shapes and sizes.
The fundamental concept between how any boat floats,
large or small, is the relationship
between its center of mass, it's gravity,
and the buoyancy of the volume of water that it displaces.
They have to be in balance in order for the boat to float.
NARRATOR: A ship's center of gravity is the point through which
all of its weight appears to be concentrated.
The upward force making it float
acts as if directed through its center of buoyancy,
at the heart of the submerged part of the hull.
When the center of gravity is generally lower,
the ship is generally considered a little more stable.
NARRATOR: Zalek adjusts the weights to more closely resemble
the higher center of gravity of a cruise ship.
ZALEK: By placing the same amount of weight on the ship,
but moving a large amount of it to a higher position
so that we've raised the center of gravity,
we've changed the roll characteristics.
NARRATOR: A lower center of gravity makes a ship more stable.
The downside is that it rocks more rapidly from side to side,
especially in rough seas.
So cruise ship operators prefer a higher center of gravity.
The ship rolls more slowly,
making passengers more comfortable,
and fewer get seasick.
ZALEK: Now that ship with the higher center of gravity
is going to have a more gentle, swaying roll,
but that ship is not quite as stable,
even though it may have better characteristics
for people to ride on.
NARRATOR: The reason why the ship is less stable
is that a higher center of gravity also makes the ship roll
further from side to side.
In extreme conditions,
some experts believe this makes ships less safe.
The ship should be designed
so that when the wheel is put hard over
in either direction
the vessel should not heel more than 10 degrees.
In reality, some of these vessels are heeling
to 20 degrees or even more.
NARRATOR: In April 2010, 60 passengers on the Carnival Ecstasy
were injured when the ship heeled sharply
as it made a rapid turn to avoid a buoy
off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula.
Such violent maneuvers should normally be avoidable
with modern navigation aids.
But 100 years ago,
the ill-fated Titanic had nothing but the eyes
of its two lookouts to warn of hazards ahead.
On a calm, moonless night,
with no whitewater breaking,
they failed to see an iceberg
until it was barely half a mile away.
Modern ships have far more than a lookout's eyes to guide them.
After five years as a master mariner,
Rick Comeau now runs this simulator in Rhode Island.
This virtual bridge can conjure up every possible danger.
Hey, Tom, if you could, turn the rain off and add fog.
NARRATOR: It also has a full navigation facility.
COMEAU: This is the electronic charting system,
very similar to the one that was being used
onboard the Concordia.
You're able to get charted depths,
you're able to get navigational warnings,
you're able to monitor other traffic,
you're able to see
how close you want to get to points of danger.
It really does allow us to have a bird's-eye view
of where we are and how close dangers are.
NARRATOR: But the state-of-the-art technology
on modern cruise ships is only as good
as the captain and crew who use it.
So you can have seemingly well- designed and constructed ships
with the best technology,
but if you don't have experienced mariners at the helm
they can find themselves in great trouble.
Ultimately we cannot design against human error.
NARRATOR: How do human mistakes sink ships?
Costa Concordia's accident is still under investigation
by Italian authorities,
with human error as the prime suspect.
My first reaction on seeing the Concordia run aground was,
"What was that ship doing so close to the rocks
in such shallow water?"
NARRATOR: The captain was 51-year-old Francesco Schettino.
He joined the Costa line in 2002 and took command
of the half-billion dollar Costa Concordia
just four years later.
Like all cruise ship captains,
he also acted as the ship's chief of public relations
and host.
Good evening, enjoy your cruise.
NARRATOR: Nobody has yet been able to explain
why he allowed his ship to hit a rock
that is marked on navigation charts.
WALKER: They have pre-programmed
navigational routes that are embedded in their computers,
so that you can chart a safe passage,
and if the ship for any reason departs from that safe itinerary
alarms should go off.
NARRATOR: Schettino has reportedly told the Italian authorities
that he was navigating by sight only, in the dark.
Tracking data shows that he diverted from his route
to perform a sail-by close to the island of Giglio.
This is part of their entertainment.
This is part of the drama and flair of modern-day cruising.
NARRATOR: For the Costa Concordia, it proved to be a fatal decision.
9:40 p.m.
The ship was heading towards rocks at the edge of the island.
By the time Schettino realized the danger,
the Concordia was just 1,000 feet from shore--
too late to turn.
The ship strk rock.
This was not the only mistake that evening,
and certainly not the only example of human error
imperiling lives at sea.
In 1991, a tropical storm threatened
the cruise ship Oceanos off the coast of South Africa.
The emergency shows just how a captain and crew's behavior
can compromise safety.
Some of the nearly 600 passengers
were being entertained by guitarist Moss Hills
and his wife, Tracy.
None of them realized a serious problem was developing
belowdecks.
Most ships have small openings below their waterline,
to pump water in and out.
In the battering from the waves,
a crucial valve had failed.
Oceanos was taking on water.
Suddenly we seemed to hit extra-big waves
and you could hear these really loud crashes
as these waves hit the side of the ship
and we lost all the power and the lights went off.
Below deck, seawater had reached the generator room,
knocking out all power.
HILLS: It started to be sort of 15, 20 minutes,
no lights, no announcements
and the ship really started to lurch heavily onto one side now.
It wasn't even returning to an even keel.
NARRATOR: Water was collecting in the bowels of the ship,
pulling the vessel to one side.
TRACY HILLS: There were no alarms,
no warning signals or anything that anything had gone wrong.
In fact, it was just nothing from anybody.
We saw some of the crew starting to get little bags,
sort of duffle bags, and rucksacks and...
and running up the stairs back up to the topside of the ship.
And we thought, well, you know,
"There's something very bad going on here."
NARRATOR: Disturbed by the crew's actions, Moss went to investigate.
I wanted to go down below and see exactly what was happening.
NARRATOR: Carrying a camcorder and recording everything,
Moss realized they were in big trouble.
HILLS:
When I suddenly saw all that water, that was a huge shock.
NARRATOR: The failed valve was now letting water
course through every pipe in the ship's plumbing system.
Traditional watertight bulkheads couldn't stop the water;
the pipes passed right through them.
The seawater exploded out of toilets and sinks
all over the ship.
Oceanos was flooding from the inside out.
In despair, Moss raced to the bridge.
HILLS: I went up to the bridge area and it was completely abandoned.
It looked in a bit of disarray.
There were binoculars lying around and sliding around,
and charts had fallen to the floor
and it's just not a sight that you expect to see.
NARRATOR: The missing captain was later discovered
smoking a cigarette under the stairs.
Many of the crew had fled in a lifeboat.
Still no announcements, still no officers to be seen anywhere,
and we started to realize we were in charge.
NARRATOR: Moss grabbed the ship's radio.
I'd said mayday and he said,
"Right, well, you know, what is your mayday?"
And I said, you know, "We're the cruise ship Oceanos.
We're sinking."
"What rank are you?"
I said, "Well, I'm not actually a rank, I'm a guitarist."
And he said, "Well, what are you doing on the bridge?"
I said, "Well, there's nobody else here."
And he said, "Where's the captain and the officers?"
I said, "I don't know, we don't know where they are."
NARRATOR: Moss and the other passengers waited nervously for help.
Eventually, more than a dozen
South African navy helicopters arrived.
HILLS: We could see them flying in,
and that was an enormous sense of relief.
It was almost like a movie.
NARRATOR: Arriving on deck, a navy rescuer brought bad news.
He said, "We can see from up above
"when we're looking at the ship, it's definitely going to sink.
"It's a lot more serious than you think.
We're not even sure we can get everybody off."
NARRATOR: Aware that they were running out of time,
Moss helped the rescuers lift passengers to safety.
So I went through a very fast training period with him
on how to work the harnesses and how to give signals
to the helicopter pilots.
NARRATOR: After helping everyone else to escape,
it was Moss and his wife's turn to be saved.
HILLS: He yanked us in and we looked down
and we realized just how close to the water we were
and how terribly close to sinking that ship was.
NARRATOR: The Oceanos had now taken on too much water.
As the ship fell onto her side,
water rushed to her bow, dragging her under.
In the aftermath of the sinking,
there was an unusual defense from the captain,
who claimed he had given an abandon-ship order.
NARRATOR: Captain Avranas was convicted of neglecting his duties.
But there may be an explanation for this kind of inaction.
Ed Galea models human behavior in extreme situations.
This is what we call behavioral inaction.
What you find is that the person freezes.
The situation is so overwhelming for them,
they just don't know what to do.
NARRATOR: Ed Galea's theory of negative panic might help explain
the errors made on board both Costa Concordia and Titanic.
Despite a distinguished career,
official inquiries found fault with Captain Smith of Titanic
for steaming too fast into an area known to have ice.
While some credit his actions in the rescue efforts
that followed, others find more to criticize.
If you look at his actions
on the night of the 14th, 15th of April,
he really failed not only the passengers
but also the crew and himself.
NARRATOR: With Titanic sinking fast,
Captain Smith failed to ensure that the lifeboats were filled
as they should have been.
In an emergency, in a crisis situation, in a dead, flat calm,
a lifeboat could certainly carry
perhaps 70 or even 80 women and children.
And instead some lifeboats left the side of the Titanic
with a handful of passengers.
NARRATOR: As a result, the death toll was far higher than it needed to be.
Some reports claim that Smith failed to take charge
as the crisis worsened around him.
Now, is this negligence-- criminal negligence?
Is this a complete failure of the command structure on board?
Or is it that Captain Smith had some sort of mental collapse?
I think it's Captain Smith had a mental collapse.
I think the magnitude of the coming disaster
was just too much for him and he was paralyzed.
NARRATOR: 100 years later, could the Costa Concordia's captain
also have been overwhelmed by events?
One fact is certain:
he failed to ensure that his passengers knew
the ship was in danger.
They were left confused by the lack of any useful information.
(commotion)
MARIO LOFARO: We were asking them,
"What's going on, what should we do?"
They would tell us,
"We have no information, we have no information."
We just really didn't know where to go.
Some people were screaming, "Go to your cabin,"
and some people were saying, "Go to the muster station."
And ended up just standing around
just waiting and waiting, you know, what we do from here?
NARRATOR: The lack of directions made a bad situation even worse.
GALEA: You need to provide them with accurate information--
you don't want to give them too much information
so that they're overloaded--
and you have to provide the information
in an authoritative way.
COMEAU: When people don't know what's going on,
hey don't have a firm grasp
of what the gravity of the situation may be,
they'll start to panic.
NARRATOR: Then, ten minutes after the collision,
all the lights went out.
Passengers were literally left in the dark,
told only there was an electrical fault.
MAN (on P.A. system): ...behalf of the captain to inform you
that due to an electrical fault which is currently under control
we are currently in a blackout.
Our technicians are working to resolve the situation
and we'll inform you of developments as they occur.
MAN: No, it's better if you sit down.
MAN: Sit down?
MAN: Yes.
(commotion)
WALKER: The cruise line was saying, "Everything is fine."
So that was...
that was false information the cruise line was generating.
NARRATOR: Despite the crew's reassuring words,
some passengers suspected that the situation was getting worse.
ROBERT MAURI: Just seeing the look on the staff's face,
you know, deer-in-the-headlights look,
it just kind of sunk in this is for real.
MARIO LOFARO: My wife and I
looked at each other
and we said, "They're full of it."
I said, "We have to get off this ship."
NARRATOR: Different people reacted in different ways.
Some simply could not grasp the reality of the situation--
that the ship was sinking.
MEGAN MAURI: Well, at first when I saw the water
starting to seep into the hallway,
I ignored it at first, like, "It's not really happening."
It just, you know...
ROBERT: I mean, we were in denial.
That just doesn't happen.
That doesn't happen on your honeymoon,
and it's not possible in this day and time
that a huge cruise ship like that could sink.
NARRATOR: Denial can be a normal reaction.
The initial response is actually not to respond at all.
There's a tendency to continue doing what you're doing,
and it takes some time
before people actually disengage from their normal activities.
NARRATOR: Other passengers decided to see for themselves
what was going on.
NANCY LOFARO: We decided to go up to the 12th deck
and see for ourselves what was going on,
and we looked over the rail.
MARIO LOFARO: The ship is leaning, and it's leaning more and more.
We knew this was so serious.
NARRATOR: Finally, around an hour after the collision,
Captain Schettino gave the order to abandon ship.
At this point it literally was too late.
He had run the clock out on his own passengers and crew.
NARRATOR: Lifeboats were quickly filling up with panicky passengers.
MARIO LOFARO: These men were just pushing
and shoving their way into the lifeboats.
We went to one lifeboat, and it looked like it was getting full,
so we went to the next one.
NARRATOR: The full consequences of Captain Schettino's delay
in ordering "abandon ship" now became clear.
Concordia was listing heavily.
Lowering the port-side lifeboats turned into a nightmare.
This was Nancy and Mario's designated lifeboat.
It was listing probably about 20 degrees or so,
maybe a little bit more.
And as the lifeboat was lowering,
it just dropped and went into a freefall.
(people screaming)
And all the people went flying to one side.
This is when we really, really thought this was it for us.
And then you could hear, as they were lowering it,
it just screeched down the side of the ship.
It just scraped, and then finally we got on the water
and everybody just clapped.
(cheering)
NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Captain Schettino had left the ship,
claiming he accidentally fell from the side into a lifeboat.
In addition, he refused the demands of the Coast Guard
that he return to his post.
(conversation over radio)
To be able to understand the situation as to what's going on,
you have to be onboard the vessel to direct that,
you have to see what's going on.
There is no forgiveness for abandoning ship
and leaving your charges somewhere else.
BRUNO: The behavior of this captain, if it is true that he left
prior to all the passengers being evacuated from the ship,
it runs entirely against every code that I'm aware of
and all the behavior of every captain I've ever met.
NARRATOR: Schettino never did return to his ship.
But hundreds of his passengers remained trapped on board.
Honeymooners Megan and Robert
were looking for a way onto the boat deck.
ROBERT MAURI: I don't think either one of us
ever ran as fast as we've ever ran.
It seemed like that hallway was forever and ever.
MEGAN MAURI: Just trying to get up to those stairs.
And it was harder to run because it was tilting at that time.
NARRATOR: But even once on the deck,
they could not find a usable lifeboat.
ROBERT MAURI: Nobody was really helping.
It was just pretty much every man for himself.
NARRATOR: They were fresh out of options.
ROBERT MAURI: That's when I turned to her and I said,
"We're gonna have to swim."
NARRATOR: Rushing to the starboard side, now listing towards the water,
they saw a lifeboat passing below.
ROBERT MAURI: And we leaped over the railing
and dropped down, I'd say a good eight- to ten-foot drop.
NARRATOR: The couple was amazingly lucky.
They landed on the lifeboat,
just before Concordia finally rolled on her side.
Other passengers were forced to make
a frightening hand-over-hand descent in the dark
on a rope laid across the capsized ship's hull.
It was almost like a dream when we finally got onto the island,
and just looking back,
just seeing what we had just come from.
NARRATOR: 32 people never made it at all.
It took months to recover some of the bodies.
Francesco Schettino was placed under house arrest,
facing charges of multiple manslaughter,
causing a shipwreck,
abandoning ship when passengers were still on board
and failing to communicate with maritime authorities.
But, as the inquiries continue,
it emerged that some credit may be owed Schettino
for acting to save the lives of hundreds.
COMEAU: One of the decisions
that apparently was made correctly,
and certainly saved lives,
was getting the ship onto the beach
and putting it in a position
where it wouldn't sink into deep water.
NARRATOR: The chaos of the Costa Concordia sinking
has thrown a spotlight on the standards of training
and emergency preparedness for crew members,
even those whose duties mainly involve passenger service.
Following his nautical institute graduation,
Captain Schettino worked for 30 years
as an officer on ferries and in the oil industry.
But he had only worked on Costa Line ships for four years
before captaining his first, and ultimately only, ship,
the Concordia, from its launch in 2006.
WALKER: This is an industry that's exploding.
There's only so many of those truly experienced
professional mature mariners.
NARRATOR: Training in a simulator could help cruise ship captains
to react more effectively in stressful situations.
Many major lines do insist on their captains
taking simulator training for two weeks each year,
but it's only a voluntary arrangement.
In aviation, by contrast,
ongoing training is a legal necessity.
Training is really important
in really emergency, life-threatening situations
that the personnel can just slip almost into automatic pilot,
and their behaviors become almost a natural reaction.
NARRATOR: Ideally, mistakes should be made and lessons learned
on a simulator, not in real life.
COMEAU: We have had some people freeze up.
That happens, that's okay.
You know, this is the place to do it.
In the marine industry,
we are probably 20 to 25 years behind
what the aviation industry does.
NARRATOR: But simulators will only have an impact on marine safety
if they become a mandated part of crew training.
The main difference between the aviation industry and simulation
and the maritime industry and simulation is...
the governments of countries who will oversee--
the FAA here in the United States,
they require simulator training for their pilots.
It's a law.
It's required.
We don't have that in the marine industry yet.
NARRATOR: The question now is:
will the Concordia disaster
produce an improvement in training and safety
throughout the cruise industry,
as the sinking of the Titanic did a century before?
BRUNO: This is an opportune time
to take a look at the size of the vessels
and the way that we operate these vessels.
NARRATOR: The cruise industry is reviewing safety procedures
in light of the Concordia disaster.
Lifeboat drills are now held before a ship leaves port.
It's not yet known what other changes are in store.
But has the sinking of Costa Concordia
decreased the public's appetite for taking a vacation cruise?
Even guitarist Moss Hills,
despite his traumatic experience aboard the sinking ship Oceanos,
retains his enthusiasm for life aboard ship.
In fact, when the cruise ship Achille Lauro caught fire
125 miles off the coast of Somalia in 1994,
there was a familiar face among the entertainment staff.
It was incredible.
I could hardly believe that I was on another ship
that was sinking.
It just didn't seem possible, but it was.
NARRATOR: The fire had started in the engine room
and spread through the ship.
Moss was once again involved in helping passengers escape,
but even that hasn't kept him away from the sea.
HILLS: I've cruised for many years after I sank twice,
and I've never had a problem again, and I still love it.
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