Cryptids: Mothman

 

In West Virginia folklore, the Mothman is a creature reportedly seen in the Point Pleasant area from November 15, 1966, to December 15, 1967. The first newspaper report was published in the Point Pleasant Register dated November 16, 1966, titled "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something". The national press soon picked up the reports and helped spread the story across the United States.

The Mothman was introduced to a wider audience by Gray Barker in 1970 and was later popularized by John Keel in his 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, claiming that there were supernatural events related to the sightings, and a connection to the collapse of the Silver Bridge. The book was later adapted to a 2002 film, starring Richard Gere.

An annual festival in Point Pleasant is devoted to the Mothman legend.

History

On November 15, 1966, two young couples from Point Pleasant, Roger and Linda Scarberry and Steve and Mary Mallette, told police they saw a large grey creature whose eyes "glowed red" when the car's headlights picked it up. They described it as a "large flying man with ten-foot wings", following their car while they were driving in an area outside of town known as "the TNT area", the site of a former World War II munitions plant.

During the next few days, other people reported similar sightings. Two volunteer firemen who saw it said it was a "large bird with red eyes". Mason County Sheriff George Johnson commented that he believed the sightings were due to an unusually large heron he termed a "shitepoke". Contractor Newell Partridge told Johnson that when he aimed a flashlight at a creature in a nearby field its eyes glowed "like bicycle reflectors", and blamed buzzing noises from his television set and the disappearance of his German Shepherd dog on the creature. Wildlife biologist Robert L. Smith at West Virginia University told reporters that descriptions and sightings all fit the sandhill crane, a large American crane almost as high as a man with a seven-foot wingspan featuring circles of reddish coloring around the eyes, and that the bird may have wandered out of its migration route. This particular crane was unrecognized at first because it was not native to this region.

At the time, Batman was a popular TV show, and soon after the first reports, newspapers coined the name “Mothman”, inspired by a comic book enemy of Batman called Killer Moth.

After the December 15, 1967, collapse of the Silver Bridge and the death of 46 people, he incident gave rise to the legend and connected the Mothman sightings to the bridge collapse.

The Mothman Prophecies (2002) is a major motion picture, loosely based on the 1975 book of the same name by John Keel.

According to Georgian newspaper Svobodnaya Gruziya, Russian UFOlogists claim that Mothman sightings in Moscow foreshadowed the 1999 Russian apartment bombings.

In 2016, WCHS-TV published a photo purported to be of Mothman taken by an anonymous man while driving on Route 2. Science writer Sharon A. Hill proposed that the photo showed "a bird, perhaps an owl, carrying a frog or snake away" and wrote that "there is zero reason to suspect it is the Mothman as described in legend. There are too many far more reasonable explanations."

Analysis

Folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand notes that Mothman has been widely covered in the popular press, some claiming sightings connected with UFOs, and others claiming that a military storage site was Mothman's "home". Brunvand notes that recountings of the 1966–67 Mothman reports usually state that at least 100 people saw Mothman with many more "afraid to report their sightings" but observed that written sources for such stories consisted of children's books or sensationalized or undocumented accounts that fail to quote identifiable persons. Brunvand found elements in common among many Mothman reports and much older folk tales, suggesting that something real may have triggered the scares and became woven with existing folklore. He also records anecdotal tales of Mothman supposedly attacking the roofs of parked cars occupied by teenagers.

Conversely, Joe Nickell says that a number of hoaxes followed the publicity generated by the original reports, such as a group of construction workers who tied flashlights to helium balloons. Nickell attributes the Mothman stories to sightings of barn owls, suggesting that the Mothman's "glowing eyes" were actually red-eye effect caused from the reflection of light from flashlights or other bright light sources. Benjamin Radford points out that the only report of glowing "red eyes," was secondhand, that of Shirley Hensley quoting her father.

According to University of Chicago psychologist David A. Gallo, 55 sightings of Mothman in Chicago during 2017 published on the website of self-described Fortean researcher Lon Strickler are "a selective sample". Gallo explains that "he's not sampling random people and asking if they saw the Mothman – he's just counting the number of people that voluntarily came forward to report a sighting." According to Gallo, "people more likely to visit a paranormal-centric website like Strickler's might also be more inclined to believe in, and therefore witness the existence of, a 'Mothman'.”

Some pseudoscience adherents (such as ufologists, paranormal authors, and cryptozoologists) claim that Mothman was an alien, a supernatural manifestation, or a previously unknown species of animal. In his 1975 book The Mothman Prophecies, author John Keel claimed that the Point Pleasant residents experienced precognitions including premonitions of the collapse of the Silver Bridge, unidentified flying object sightings, visits from inhuman or threatening men in black, and other phenomena.

Festival and statues

Point Pleasant held its first Annual Mothman Festival in 2002. The Mothman Festival began after brainstorming creative ways for people to visit Point Pleasant. The group organizing the event chose the Mothman to be center of the festival due to its uniqueness, and as a way to celebrate its local legacy in the town.

According to the event organizer, Jeff Wamsley, the average attendance for the Mothman is an estimated 10–12 thousand people per year. A 12-foot-tall metallic statue of the creature, created by artist and sculptor Bob Roach, was unveiled in 2003. The Mothman Museum and Research Center opened in 2005. The festival is held on the third weekend of every September, hosting guest speakers, vendor exhibits, pancake-eating contests, and hayride tours of locally notable areas.

In June of 2020, a petition was started to replace all Confederate statues in the United States with statues of Mothman. As of July 2020, the petition has garnered over 2,000 signatures.

Happy Birthday: February 28, 2021

 

Gavin Macleod, 90

Kelly Bishop, 77

Bernadette Peters, 73

Gilbert Gottfried, 66

John Turoturro, 64

Ali Larter, 45

Jason Aldean, 44

Quinn Shephard, 26

Sam the Sham, 84

Tommy Tune, 82

Frank Bonner, 79

Stephanie Beacham, 74

Mike Figgis, 73

Mercedes Ruehl, 73

Ilene Graff, 72

Cindy Wilson, 64

Rae Dawn Chong, 60

Maxine Bahns, 52

Robert Sean Leonard, 52

Pat Monahan, 52

Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler), 51

Tasha Smith, 50

Rory Cochrane, 49

Geoffrey Arend, 43

Melanie Chandra, 37

Michelle Horn, 34

Michael Mealor (2/29), 29

True O'Brien, 27

Madisen Beaty, 26

Bobb'e Thompson, 25

Frank Gehry, 92

Mario Andretti, 81

Bugsy Siegel (February 28, 1906-June 20, 1947)

Zero Mostel (February 28, 1915-September 8, 1977)

Cryptids: Chupacabras

 

The chupacabra or chupacabras (Spanish pronunciation: [tʃupaˈkaβɾas], literally 'goat-sucker'; from Spanish: chupar, 'to suck', and cabras, 'goats') is a legendary creature in the folklore of parts of the Americas, with its first purported sightings reported in Puerto Rico in 1995. The name comes from the animal's reported vampirism—the chupacabra is said to attack and drink the blood of livestock, including goats.

Physical descriptions of the creature vary. It is purportedly a heavy creature the size of a small bear, with a row of spines reaching from the neck to the base of the tail.

Eyewitness sightings have been claimed in Puerto Rico, and have since been reported as far north as Maine, as far south as Chile, and even outside the Americas in countries like Russia and the Philippines. Many of the reports have been disregarded as uncorroborated or lacking evidence. Sightings in northern Mexico and the southern United States have been verified as canids afflicted by mange. According to biologists and wildlife management officials, the chupacabra is an urban legend

Name

Chupacabras can be literally translated as 'goat-sucker', from chupar ('to suck') and cabras ('goats'). It is known as both chupacabras and chupacabra throughout the Americas, with the former being the original word, and the latter a regularization of it. The name is attributed to Puerto Rican comedian Silverio Pérez, who coined the label in 1995 while commenting on the attacks as a San Juan radio deejay.

History

The first reported attack eventually attributed to the creatures occurred in March 1995 in Puerto Rico. Eight sheep were discovered dead, each with three puncture wounds in the chest area and reportedly completely drained of blood. A few months later, in August, an eyewitness named Madelyne Tolentino reported seeing the creature in the Puerto Rican town of Canóvanas, when as many as 150 farm animals and pets were reportedly killed. In 1975, similar killings in the small town of Moca were attributed to el vampiro de Moca ('the vampire of Moca'). Initially, it was suspected that the killings were committed by a Satanic cult; later more killings were reported around the island, and many farms reported loss of animal life. Each of the animals was reported to have had its body bled dry through a series of small circular incisions.

Puerto Rican comedian and entrepreneur Silverio Pérez is credited with coining the term chupacabras soon after the first incidents were reported in the press. Shortly after the first reported incidents in Puerto Rico, other animal deaths were reported in other countries, such as the Dominican Republic, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Brazil, the United States, and Mexico.

In October and December 2018, there came many reports of suspected chupacabras in Manipur, India. Many domestic animals and poultry were killed in a suspicious manner similar to other chupacabra attacks, and several people reported that they had seen chupacabras. However, forensic experts opined that street dogs were responsible for mass killing of domestic animals and poultry after studying the remnants of a corpse.

In October 2019, a video recorded by Mundo Ovni showed a supposed attack on chickens in the Seburuquillo sector of Lares, Puerto Rico.

Reputed origin

A five-year investigation by Benjamin Radford, documented in his 2011 book Tracking the Chupacabra, concluded that the description given by the original eyewitness in Puerto Rico, Madelyne Tolentino, was based on the creature Sil in the 1995 science-fiction horror film Species. The alien creature Sil is nearly identical to Tolentino's chupacabra eyewitness account and she had seen the movie before her report: "It was a creature that looked like the chupacabra, with spines on its back and all... The resemblance to the chupacabra was really impressive", Tolentino reported. Radford revealed that Tolentino "believed that the creatures and events she saw in Species were happening in reality in Puerto Rico at the time", and therefore concludes that "the most important chupacabra description cannot be trusted". This, Radford believes, seriously undermines the credibility of the chupacabra as a real animal.

In addition, the reports of blood-sucking by the chupacabra were never confirmed by a necropsy, the only way to conclude that the animal was drained of blood. An analysis by a veterinarian of 300 reported victims of the chupacabra found that they had not been bled dry.

Radford divided the chupacabra reports into two categories: the reports from Puerto Rico and Latin America, where animals were attacked and it is supposed their blood was extracted; and the reports in the United States of mammals, mostly dogs and coyotes with mange, that people call "chupacabra" due to their unusual appearance.

In late October 2010, University of Michigan biologist Barry O'Connor concluded that all the chupacabra reports in the United States were simply coyotes infected with the parasite Sarcoptes scabiei, whose symptoms would explain most of the features of the chupacabra: they would be left with little fur, thickened skin, and a rank odor. O'Connor theorized that the attacks on goats occurred "because these animals are greatly weakened, [so] they're going to have a hard time hunting. So they may be forced into attacking livestock because it's easier than running down a rabbit or a deer."

Although several witnesses came to the conclusion that the attacks could not be the work of dogs or coyotes because they had not eaten the victim, this conclusion is incorrect. Both dogs and coyotes can kill and not consume the prey, either because they are inexperienced, or due to injury or difficulty in killing the prey. The prey can survive the attack and die afterwards from internal bleeding or circulatory shock. The presence of two holes in the neck, corresponding with the canine teeth, are to be expected since this is the only way that most land carnivores have to catch their prey.

There are reports of stray Mexican hairless dogs being mistaken for chupacabras.

Appearance

The most common description of the chupacabra is that of a reptile-like creature, said to have leathery or scaly greenish-gray skin and sharp spines or quills running down its back. It is said to be approximately 3 to 4 feet (0.9 to 1.2 m) high, and stands and hops in a fashion similar to that of a kangaroo.

Another common description of the chupacabra is of a strange breed of wild dog. This form is mostly hairless and has a pronounced spinal ridge, unusually pronounced eye sockets, fangs, and claws. Unlike conventional predators, the chupacabra is said to drain all of the animal's blood (and sometimes organs) usually through three holes in the shape of a downwards-pointing triangle, but sometimes through only one or two holes.

Related legends

The "Ozark Howler", a large bear-like animal, is the subject of a similar urban legend.

The Peuchens of Chile also share similarities in their supposed habits, but instead of being dog-like they are described as winged snakes. This legend may have originated from the vampire bat, an animal endemic to the region.

In the Philippines, another legendary creature called the Sigbin shares many of the chupacabra's descriptions.

In popular culture

The popularity of the chupacabra has resulted in it being featured in many types of media.

The critically acclaimed debut album of Imani Coppola is titled Chupacabra.

Following an incident in Cuero, Texas, the popularity of the chupacabra myth received global attention. Phylis Canion, who was responsible for retrieving the alleged specimen, claimed that T-shirts highlighting the event were shipped to locations such as Italy, Guam, and Iraq. The publicity that Cuero received following this event has led to some suggesting making the chupacabra the town's mascot.

The myth of the chupacabra is mocked in the 2012 episode "Jewpacabra" of the cartoon series South Park in which antisemitic main character Eric Cartman claims to have seen a Jewish Chupacabra that kills children on Easter.

The Magic: The Gathering set Rivals of Ixalan introduced a card named "Ravenous Chupacabra" in January 2018.

The Chupacabra was included as one of several vinyl figurines in Cryptozoic Entertainment's Cryptkins blind box toy line in 2018. A redesigned series of figurines, including an updated Chupacabra, was released in August 2020.

The search for a chupacabra was featured in the 1997 The X-Files episode "El Mundo Gira".

In the Jackie Chan Adventures episode "The Curse of El Chupacabra", Jackie Chan's friend El Toro gets scratched and infected by a Chupacabra, causing him to transform into another Chupacabra every night, much like a werewolf.

"Chupacabra" was the title of the mid-season finale of season 4 of the supernatural drama television series Grimm in December 2014.

The Adventures of Chupacabra Charlie is a children's book by Frederick Luis Aldama and Chris Escobar about a polite 10-year-old chupacabra who yearns for adventure beyond the edge of los Estados Unidos ('the United States'). It was published in 2020.

Cryptids: Kraken

 

The kraken (/ˈkrɑːkən/) is a legendary sea monster of gigantic size and cephalopod-like appearance in Scandinavian folklore. According to the Norse sagas, the kraken dwells off the coasts of Norway and Greenland and terrorizes nearby sailors. Authors over the years have postulated that the legend may have originated from sightings of giant squids that may grow to 13–15 meters (40–50 feet) in length. The sheer size and fearsome appearance attributed to the kraken have made it a common ocean-dwelling monster in various fictional works. The kraken has been the focus of many sailors passing the North Atlantic and especially sailors from the Nordic countries. Throughout the centuries, the kraken has been a staple of sailors' superstitions and mythos.

Etymology

The English word kraken is taken from the modern Scandinavian languages, originating from the Old Norse word kraki. In both Norwegian and Swedish Kraken is the definite form of krake, a word designating an unhealthy animal or something twisted (cognate with the English crook and crank). In modern German, Krake (plural and oblique cases of the singular: Kraken) means octopus, but can also refer to the legendary kraken. Kraken is also an old Norwegian word for octopus and an old euphemism in Swedish for whales, used when the original word became taboo as it was believed it could summon the creatures.

History

After returning from Greenland, the anonymous author of the Old Norwegian natural history work Konungs skuggsjá (c. 1250) described in detail the physical characteristics and feeding behavior of these beasts. The narrator proposed there must be only two in existence, stemming from the observation that the beasts have always been sighted in the same parts of the Greenland Sea, and that each seemed incapable of reproduction, as there was no increase in their numbers.

There is a fish that is still unmentioned, which it is scarcely advisable to speak about on account of its size, because it will seem to most people incredible. There are only a very few who can speak upon it clearly, because it is seldom near land nor appears where it may be seen by fishermen, and I suppose there are not many of this sort of fish in the sea. Most often in our tongue we call it hafgufa ("kraken" in e.g. Laurence M. Larson's translation). Nor can I conclusively speak about its length in ells, because the times he has shown before men, he has appeared more like land than like a fish. Neither have I heard that one had been caught or found dead; and it seems to me as though there must be no more than two in the oceans, and I deem that each is unable to reproduce itself, for I believe that they are always the same ones. Then too, neither would it do for other fish if the hafgufa were of such a number as other whales, on account of their vastness, and how much subsistence that they need. It is said to be the nature of these fish that when one shall desire to eat, then it stretches up its neck with a great belching, and following this belching comes forth much food, so that all kinds of fish that are near to hand will come to present location, then will gather together, both small and large, believing they shall obtain their food and good eating; but this great fish lets its mouth stand open the while, and the gap is no less wide than that of a great sound or bight. And nor the fish avoid running together there in their great numbers. But as soon as its stomach and mouth is full, then it locks together its jaws and has the fish all caught and enclosed, that before greedily came there looking for food.

In the late-13th-century version of the Old Icelandic saga Örvar-Oddr is an inserted episode of a journey bound for Helluland (Baffin Island) which takes the protagonists through the Greenland Sea, and here they spot two massive sea-monsters called Hafgufa ("sea mist") and Lyngbakr ("heather-back"). The hafgufa is believed to be a reference to the kraken:

[N]ú mun ek segja þér, at þetta eru sjáskrímsl tvau, heitir annat hafgufa, en annat lyngbakr; er hann mestr allra hvala í heiminum, en hafgufa er mest skrímsl skapat í sjánum; er þat hennar náttúra, at hon gleypir bæði menn ok skip ok hvali ok allt þat hon náir; hon er í kafi, svá at dægrum skiptir, ok þá hon skýtr upp hǫfði sínu ok nǫsum, þá er þat aldri skemmr en sjávarfall, at hon er uppi. Nú var þat leiðarsundit, er vér fórum á millum kjapta hennar, en nasir hennar ok inn neðri kjaptrinn váru klettar þeir, er yðr sýndiz í hafinu, en lyngbakr var ey sjá, er niðr sǫkk. En Ǫgmundr flóki hefir sent þessi kvikvendi í móti þér með fjǫlkynngi sinni til þess at bana þér ok ǫllum mǫnnum þínum; hugði hann, at svá skyldi hafa farit fleiri sem þeir, at nú druknuðu, en hann ætlaði, at hafgufan skyldi hafa gleypt oss alla. Nú siglda ek því í gin hennar, at ek vissa, at hún var nýkomin upp.

Now I will tell you that there are two sea-monsters. One is called the hafgufa [sea-mist], another lyngbakr [heather-back]. It [the lyngbakr] is the largest whale in the world, but the hafgufa is the largest monster in the sea. It is the nature of this creature to swallow men and ships, and even whales and everything else within reach. It stays submerged for days, then rears its head and nostrils above surface and stays that way at least until the change of tide. Now, that sound we just sailed through was the space between its jaws, and its nostrils and lower jaw were those rocks that appeared in the sea, while the lyngbakr was the island we saw sinking down. However, Ogmund Tussock has sent these creatures to you by means of his magic to cause the death of you [Odd] and all your men. He thought more men would have gone the same way as those that had already drowned [i.e., to the lyngbakr which wasn't an island, and sank], and he expected that the hafgufa would have swallowed us all. Today I sailed through its mouth because I knew that it had recently surfaced.

The famous Swedish 18th century naturalist Carl Linnaeus included the kraken in the first edition of its systematic natural catalog Systema Naturae from 1735. There he gave the animal the scientific name Microcosmus, but omitted it in later editions.

Kraken were extensively described by Erik Pontoppidan, bishop of Bergen, in his Det første Forsøg paa Norges naturlige Historie "The First Attempt at [a] Natural History of Norway" (Copenhagen, 1752). Pontoppidan made several claims regarding kraken, including the notion that the creature was sometimes mistaken for an island and that the real danger to sailors was not the creature itself but rather the whirlpool left in its wake. However, Pontoppidan also described the destructive potential of the giant beast: "it is said that if [the creature's arms] were to lay hold of the largest man-of-war, they would pull it down to the bottom". According to Pontoppidan, Norwegian fishermen often took the risk of trying to fish over kraken, since the catch was so plentiful (hence the saying "You must have fished on Kraken"). Pontoppidan also proposed that a specimen of the monster, "perhaps a young and careless one", was washed ashore and died at Alstahaug in 1680. By 1755, Pontoppidan's description of the kraken had been translated into English.

Swedish author Jacob Wallenberg described the kraken in the 1781 work Min son på galejan ("My son on the galley"):

Kraken, also called the Crab-fish, which is not that huge, for heads and tails counted, he is no larger than our Öland is wide [i.e., less than 16 km] ... He stays at the sea floor, constantly surrounded by innumerable small fishes, who serve as his food and are fed by him in return: for his meal, (if I remember correctly what E. Pontoppidan writes,) lasts no longer than three months, and another three are then needed to digest it. His excrements nurture in the following an army of lesser fish, and for this reason, fishermen plumb after his resting place ... Gradually, Kraken ascends to the surface, and when he is at ten to twelve fathoms, the boats had better move out of his vicinity, as he will shortly thereafter burst up, like a floating island, spurting water from his dreadful nostrils and making ring waves around him, which can reach many miles. Could one doubt that this is the Leviathan of Job?

In 1802, the French malacologist Pierre Dénys de Montfort recognized the existence of two kinds of giant octopus in Histoire Naturelle Générale et Particulière des Mollusques, an encyclopedic description of mollusks. Montfort claimed that the first type, the kraken octopus, had been described by Norwegian sailors and American whalers, as well as ancient writers such as Pliny the Elder. The much larger second type, the colossal octopus, was reported to have attacked a sailing vessel from Saint-Malo, off the coast of Angola.

Montfort later dared more sensational claims. He proposed that ten British warships, including the captured French ship of the line Ville de Paris, which had mysteriously disappeared one night in 1782, must have been attacked and sunk by giant octopi. The British, however, knew—courtesy of a survivor from Ville de Paris—that the ships had been lost in a hurricane off the coast of Newfoundland in September 1782, resulting in a disgraceful revelation for Montfort.

Appearance and origins

Since the late 18th century, the kraken has been depicted in a number of ways, primarily as a large octopus-like creature, and it has often been alleged that Pontoppidan's kraken might have been based on sailors' observations of the giant squid. The kraken is also depicted to have spikes on its suckers. In the earliest descriptions, however, the creatures were more crab-like than octopus-like, and generally possessed traits that are associated with large whales rather than with giant squid. An ancient, giant cephalopod resembling the legendary kraken has been proposed as responsible for the deaths of ichthyosaurs during the Triassic Period.

In popular culture

Although fictional and the subject of myth, the legend of the Kraken continues to the present day, with numerous references in film, literature, television, and other popular culture topics. Examples are Alfred Tennyson's 1830 irregular sonnet The Kraken, references in Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick (Chapter 59 "Squid"), the novel The Kraken Wakes, the Kraken of Marvel Comics, the 1981 film Clash of the Titans and its 2010 remake of the same name, and the Seattle Kraken professional ice hockey team. Krakens also appear in video games such as Sea of Thieves and Return of the Obra Dinn. The kraken was also featured in two of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, primarily in the 2006 film, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, as the pet of the fearsome Davy Jones, the main antagonist of the film. The kraken also makes an appearance in the film's sequel, "At World's End".

Christmas 1994: Air France Flight 8969

 

Air France Flight 8969 was an Air France flight that was hijacked on 24 December 1994 by the Armed Islamic Group of Algeria (GIA) at Houari Boumediene Airport, Algiers, Algeria. The terrorists murdered three passengers and their intention was to blow up the plane over the Eiffel Tower in Paris. When the aircraft reached Marseille, the National Gendarmerie Intervention Group (GIGN), a counter-terror unit of the French National Gendarmerie, stormed the plane and killed all four hijackers.

Background

Algeria was in a state of civil war at the time of the hijacking. Aircraft flying to Algeria faced the possibility of missile attacks. As a result, Air France's flights to Algeria had crews entirely made of people who volunteered for the route. Air France had asked government officials if it absolutely had to continue flying to Algeria; by the time of the hijacking, they had not received a reply. 51-year-old Bernard Delhemme was the captain of the flight. Jean-Paul Borderie was the copilot, and Alain Bossuat was the flight engineer. The Airbus A300B2-1C, tail number F-GBEC, had first flown on 28 February 1980.

Hijacking

24 December

On 24 December 1994, at Houari Boumedienne Airport in Algiers, four armed men boarded Air France Flight 8969 which was due to depart for Orly Airport, Paris at 11:15 am. The men were dressed as Algerian presidential police; they wore blue uniforms with Air Algérie logos. Their presence originally did not cause any alarm. Two of the men began inspecting the passengers' passports while one went into the cockpit and the fourth stood guard. Claude Burgniard, a flight attendant, recalled noticing that the "police" were armed and one of them had dynamite showing, which she considered to be unusual as the Algerian police were not normally armed when carrying out checks. The Algerian military felt suspicious on noticing that the Air France flight appeared to have an unauthorized delay, so they began surrounding the aircraft. Zahida Kakachi, a passenger, recalled seeing members of the Special Intervention Group (GIS), known as "ninjas", outside the aircraft. Kakachi recalled hearing one of the "police" say "taghut," an Arabic word for "infidel", upon seeing the GIS men gathering outside the A300; she then realized that the four men on board the plane were terrorists. The four hijackers then revealed that they were not police, but mujahideen seeking to establish an Islamic state in Algeria. They had hijacked the aircraft because the national airline Air France was a symbol of France, which they viewed as infidel foreign invaders.

The leader, Abdul Abdullah Yahia, already a notorious murderer, and the other three members of the Armed Islamic Group (Groupe Islamique Armé, or GIA) brandished firearms and explosives and announced their allegiance to the GIA, demanding co-operation from the 220 passengers and 12 flight crew. The hijackers had Kalashnikov assault rifles, Uzi sub-machine guns, pistols, homemade hand grenades and two 10-stick dynamite packs. Later, at one point during the flight, the men placed one pack of dynamite in the cockpit and one pack under a seat in the middle of the aircraft, then linked them with detonator wire. They also took the uniforms of the pilots to confuse Algerian army snipers.

Allah has chosen us to die and Allah has chosen you to die with us. Allah guarantees our success, Insha'Allah.— Abdul Abdullah Yahia

Burgniard recalled that the hijackers, in particular one called "Lotfi", disliked seeing a lack of adherence to their Islamic beliefs; according to Burgniard, the hijackers objected to men and women sitting together and sharing the same toilets and women having their heads uncovered. Once they had taken control of the aircraft, the hijackers forced the women to cover their heads, including the cabin crew members. Women who did not have veils used aircraft blankets as head coverings. An elderly Algerian man told the TF1 network that the hijackers "had a kind of art in their terror. Twenty minutes of relaxation and twenty minutes of torture. You never knew what was next."

The men stated over the aircraft's cockpit radio:

We are the Soldiers of Mercy. Allah has selected us as his soldiers. We are here to wage war in his name.— Abdul Abdullah Yahia

Abderrahmane Meziane Chérif, the Minister of the Interior of Algeria, came to the airport control tower to begin negotiating with the hijackers, who were using the captain to speak for them. They demanded the release of two Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) political party leaders, Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, who were under house arrest; the FIS was banned in Algeria in 1992. Chérif demanded that the hijackers begin releasing children and the elderly if they wanted to talk to the Algerian government. The media began arriving at the airport to cover the crisis.

At noon, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppé, organized a crisis team, and Charles Pasqua, Interior Minister of France, met his aides. French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur was recalled from his Christmas holiday in Chamonix, France, and other government officials were also summoned from their vacations. Balladur recollected spending the entire afternoon on the telephone, trying to determine what was happening and feeling confused. According to Balladur, the Algerian authorities wanted to crack down on the terrorists and Balladur himself encountered difficulties discussing the events. At one point, the hijackers dropped the demand for the release of the FIS party leaders. Two hours into the hijacking, the men told the captain to depart for Paris so that they could hold a press conference there. The captain could not take off because the aircraft boarding stairs were still attached to the plane and the Algerian authorities were blocking the runway with parked vehicles. When the hijackers forced the captain to ask for the boarding stairs to be removed, the Algerian authorities refused, determined not to give in to any of the hijackers' demands. The GIA men announced that they would detonate the aircraft unless the Algerian authorities followed their orders.

During the passport check, the hijackers had noticed that one of the passengers on the flight was an Algerian police officer. In order to force the Algerian government to comply with their demands, the hijackers approached the police officer and told him to follow them. Kakachi remembered that the police officer, seated two rows behind her, was hesitant as he did not know what they were going to do. Several passengers recalled him pleading "Don't kill me, I have a wife and child!" The hijackers shot the police officer in the head at the top of the boarding stairs. The pilots and most of the passengers were not aware at first that the man had been killed. Captain Delhemme recalled that his first contact with the passenger cabin during the hijacking was when a flight attendant, allowed into the cockpit, asked the pilots if they needed anything. According to Delhemme, he asked for a glass of water from the attendant to ease the pilots' parched throats. At this point, the attendant whispered to Delhemme that the hijackers had killed a passenger.

The Algerian authorities still refused to agree to the hijackers' demands. Burgniard recalled that he and the other occupants began to realize that "things were going wrong" when the hijackers came to collect another passenger. They selected 48-year-old Bui Giang To, a commercial attaché at the Embassy of Vietnam in Algeria. Burgniard described To as "the real foreigner on this plane". She remembered that To was not intimidated by the hijackers and she believed that this attitude upset the hijackers. The Vietnamese diplomat thought he was about to be released because he was a foreigner; instead he was shot dead on the boarding stairs. Delhemme recalled that when the flight attendant next appeared with refreshments, she whispered to him that two passengers, not one, had died.

The French government wanted to bring French military personnel into Algeria to safely resolve the hijacking, but the Algerian government would not allow foreign military to land on Algerian soil to resolve an Algerian political crisis. Prime Minister Balladur said that he asked the Algerian government "extremely forcefully and urgently" to give permission for the aircraft to take off. He felt that the French government held responsibility for solving the problem as the aircraft belonged to a French airline and almost a third of the passengers were French.

Seven hours into the hijacking, the cabin was calm but tense; at that point, few of the passengers knew that two people had been killed. It had grown dark outside and the aircraft was surrounded by spotlights. The pilots now attempted to defuse the situation by talking to the hijackers and trying to gain their trust. Delhemme explained that the beginning of a hijacking is violent, so the role of the pilot is to keep the participants calm, "buy time", show the hijackers who the crew are as people, and find out details about the hijackers; then the pilot has to try gaining the trust of the hijackers.

During the night, Spanish authorities allowed the French military to send its forces to Majorca, Spain, which was as close to Algeria as was possible without being accused of interfering in the situation. At 8:00 pm, Groupe d'Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale (GIGN) operatives boarded an Airbus A300 aircraft similar to F-GBEC, the hijacked plane, at a military base in France. En route to Majorca, the GIGN operatives were able to familiarize themselves with the A300 in preparation for storming the aircraft. After the GIGN's plane arrived at Palma de Mallorca Airport, the Algerian government made it clear that French forces were not welcome in Algeria.

25 December

Captain Delhemme made a tour of the cabin at about 2:00 am the next morning to check on the situation; he said that the cabin was "calm" during that time. He noticed two of the hijackers asleep on the floor. In the morning, French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur flew to Paris.

New information arrived at the Consulate General of France in Oran, Algeria, via a mole in the GIA:

We received this information directly from members of the Algerian secret service. And this information was very worrying. The terrorists' true aim was to crash the plane in Paris.— French Minister of the Interior Charles Pasqua

Police confirmed this plan after a raid on a safe house.

The hijackers released some of the passengers, mainly women with young children and those with severe medical conditions. Over 170 people still remained on board the plane. The hijackers offered to release the remaining Algerian passengers, but the Algerians refused to leave the aircraft. Delhemme recalled that one passenger who was refusing to leave said that he thought the crew would be killed if he did, and Delhemme believes that the passengers' motives were sincere. By the end of 25 December, the hijackers had freed a total of 63 passengers.

The Algerian police used night vision devices to identify the lead hijacker, who was Abdul Abdullah Yahia. The French government sent Yahia's mother to plead for him to release the passengers, in the hope that she could persuade her son to give in, but the tactic backfired. One passenger, Kakachi, recalled Yahia becoming enraged by this move. At this point, the hijackers began targeting the French passengers; there were two staff members of the French Embassy in Algiers on board the flight, a secretary and a chef. The hijackers forced the chef, Yannick Beugnet, to plead into the microphone. Through Beugnet, they demanded that unless the Algerian government cleared the A300 for takeoff before 9:30 pm, they would kill one passenger every 30 minutes, starting with Beugnet. They threatened to shoot him and throw him out of the door. The Algerian passengers assured him that the hijackers were bluffing while the French passengers were demanding that the aircraft be allowed to take off. When the 9:30 deadline passed, the hijackers shot the chef and threw his body outside. The door open warning light in the cockpit indicated to the pilots that another passenger had been murdered. Enraged, Captain Delhemme yelled at the Algerian authorities, "See what you get when you play tough?!" The airline knew that the chef had been murdered as it was listening in on the conversations between the aircraft and the control tower. Philippe Legorjus, a former Air France security adviser, said in an interview that the airline employees "lived through [the event] with great emotion". Zahida Kakachi recalled Lotfi calmly trying to convert her and another stewardess to Islam, though Kakachi was only pretending so that she would not enrage him.

The French government were informed of the events. Balladur spoke on the telephone to the Prime Minister of Algeria, Mokdad Sifi; he told him that the French government would hold the Algerian government responsible for the outcome if it did not authorize them to intervene in the situation. Just before midnight, Balladur told the President of Algeria, Liamine Zéroual, that France was ready to receive the Air France flight. As a result of Balladur's demands, 39 hours after the start of the hijacking, Zéroual allowed the aircraft to leave Algiers. Flight attendant Claude Burgniard recalled that everyone was relieved when the aircraft departed because they thought the crisis was over.

There was insufficient fuel on board the plane to reach Paris, because the auxiliary power unit had been running since the hijackers took over the plane, so a refueling stop was scheduled at Marseille Provence Airport. Delhemme confronted Yahia to find out whether he planned to blow up the aircraft between Algiers and Marseille. Yahia insisted that the plane would fly to Marseille, take on fuel, then fly to Paris for the press conference; reassured, Delhemme prepared for takeoff. In an interview, Delhemme suggested that the hijackers would probably have said this anyway to prevent the crew from taking action against them. Burgniard recalled that the hijackers, in the cockpit, seemed excited and "like kids".

26 December

The aircraft approached Marseille during the early hours of 26 December. The hijackers did not know that Major Denis Favier's GIGN squad was already in Marseille, having flown from Majorca to a military base near Marseille, and planned to storm the aircraft while it was in Marseille. The GIGN squad practiced entering the A300 before Flight 8969 arrived in Marseille. Favier explained in an interview that the enemy was arriving in friendly territory, and the power difference would be a key element in the struggle. The Flight 8969 aircraft landed at 3:33 am.

Steward Claude Burgniard said that the hijackers felt that the landing in Marseille was a "magic moment" as they had arrived in France. Burgniard recalled that the airport was dark and that she only saw the lights of the A300 and a car that the A300 followed. The French authorities deliberately led the aircraft away from the terminal and into a remote corner of the airport. By 26 December, the French government had received information stating that the hijackers had planned to attack Paris. Favier planned to appear conciliatory and prolong the negotiations as long as possible. He believed that the hijackers were tired, so he planned to wear them down. Alain Gehin, the Chief of Police of Marseille, spoke to the group of hijackers in the control tower. Gehin implemented Favier's strategy.

While using Delhemme to speak for them, the hijackers asked for 27 tons of fuel; the aircraft needed approximately 9 tons to fly to Paris from Marseille. The request indicated to the French authorities that the aircraft was going to be used as a firebomb or to fly the aircraft to an Islamic country sympathetic to the hijackers' cause. Hours later, the authorities received word of the firebomb plot. Passengers who were released in Algiers stated that the A300 had been rigged with explosives. Demolition experts determined that the plane was likely rigged in a way that would cause it to explode. Charles Pasqua said in an interview that the French government had decided that the aircraft was not going to leave Marseille, regardless of the consequences.

At around 8:00 am, the hijackers demanded that the forces let the aircraft take off by 9:40 am. The negotiators delayed the ultimatum by giving the aircraft additional food and water, emptying the toilet tanks, and providing vacuum cleaners. The GIGN operatives servicing the aircraft were disguised as airport personnel. They discovered the aircraft doors were not blocked or booby trapped. The men planted eavesdropping devices while others trained long-range "cannon" microphones on the A300's fuselage and windows. Favier's group asked the hijackers if they would rather do a press conference in Marseille instead of Paris, since all of the major media outlets had bureau in Marseille. The hijackers agreed to hold a press conference on the A300. The negotiators requested that the front of the aircraft be cleared for the press conference. This was to create an area for the GIGN during the storming of the aircraft. Favier explained in an interview that the press conference was an important tactic as it allowed the passengers to be moved to the rear of the aircraft. The hijackers did not realize that the doors of the A300 could be opened from the outside.

Twelve hours after the A300 arrived at Marseille, the GIGN knew how many hijackers were on board and their location on the aircraft with the help of eavesdropping devices, infrared vision equipment, and "cannon" microphones. It intended to wait until sunset to take advantage of the darkness. The occupants of the aircraft were unaware of the GIGN's true motives, and the militants were confused about why the press had not yet arrived. Yahia, frustrated by the absence of the press and sensing the authorities were up to something, ordered the pilot to move the aircraft. Dellemme parked the aircraft at the foot of the airport control tower and in close proximity to the terminal and other aircraft. An explosion in this position would result in many more casualties than in the earlier, remote location.

This was a tactical disadvantage for the GIGN; the positions were based on the aircraft being parked where the French authorities ordered the placement of the A300. When the aircraft moved, the GIGN had to quickly reorganize its forces. Favier placed snipers on the roof so they would have a view of the cockpit. He organized a group of thirty men with three passenger boarding stairs to rush the aircraft and take it over. Favier planned to have two teams, each with 11 people, open the rear left and rear right doors of the A300. A third team of eight would open the front right door. The forces planned to isolate the cockpit, with Yahia, from the rest of the aircraft.

By 5:00 pm, the authorities had not delivered any amount of fuel to the A300. Yahia entered the cabin to choose a fourth person to kill. He selected the youngest member of the Air France crew, who had told the hijackers that he was an atheist. Yahia felt reluctant to kill a fourth passenger at that point, saying "I don't want to do this. But I have no choice." Burgniard stated in an interview that she did not know whether Yahia had decided not to execute the crew member; she knew that he kept delaying the execution. Instead, the hijackers opened the door and fired around the aircraft. Zahida Kakachi, a passenger, recalled that the hijackers began reciting verses from the Quran on the public address system. The verses were prayers for the dead. According to Kakachi, the passengers were silent and began to feel panicked. The hijackers knew the negotiators were in the control tower, so through the side window of the cockpit, they began to fire automatic machine guns towards the control tower. Philippe Legorjus, who at the time was the airline's security adviser, recalled that glass shattered all around the negotiators. Captain Delhemme said that throughout the time in Marseille, there had been tension, but "nothing like what seemed to be about to happen". Balladur allowed Favier to take whatever actions he felt were necessary; after the hijackers fired at the control tower, Favier decided to begin the raid.

Raid

Once the hijackers noticed the boarding stairs moving towards them, they recognized the imminent assault. Through the cockpit window, a hijacker fired upon the stairs containing the forward GIGN team. As the first stairs reached the front starboard (right) door, it became apparent that it was elevated too high relative to the door frame for a uniform entry into the aircraft. The GIGN had trained on an empty aircraft, in which the suspension system of the plane was not as compressed, leading to an overestimation of the necessary height of the boarding stairs.[citation needed] After a short delay in repositioning the stairs, GIGN forces were able to enter. The hijackers returned fire, attacking the GIGN forces. One hijacker was killed instantly. Then, the two other units entered the rear of the aircraft. The participants fired hundreds of bullets. The hijackers fired through the skin of the aircraft. Grenades erupted and smoke went through the cabin. The GIGN's concussion grenades temporarily blinded and deafened occupants, allowing the GIGN to storm the aircraft. One of the hijackers' homemade grenades detonated, causing limited damage. The snipers on the tower could not get a clear shot into the aircraft as the copilot, Jean-Paul Borderie, blocked their view. Through a window, Borderie jumped out of the cockpit and staggered away. With the view unobstructed, the snipers began firing into the cockpit, while the GIGN evacuated passengers in the rear of the aircraft.

Flight attendant Claude Burgniard described the firefight as "the apocalypse". Christophe Morin, a flight attendant, recalled that the GIGN ordered passengers and crew to get down as low as possible with their hands over their heads, hide, and then to not move. Morin described the situation as "violent". He recalled putting his overcoat over his head so he would not see the tracer bullets and other occurrences during the raid. Morin said that he tried to help a female passenger next to him escape, but she was too large and Morin was unable to move her, so the two held hands. Pilot Bernard Delhemme said that he was in "a rather bad spot", so he crouched and made himself "as small as possible".

A few minutes after the beginning of the assault, most of the passengers had escaped. At that point, three of the four hijackers were fatally shot. Delhemme recalled that the cockpit only had himself, the flight engineer, and the last hijacker. Delhemme said that the hijacker could have killed him and his colleagues out of spite, but did not. In an interview, Denis Favier explained that there likely was a mutual recognition and "respect" between the hijackers and the hostages. He believes the bonds between the hijackers and hostages helped save lives of passengers and crew in the conflict.

GIGN commando Philippe Bardelli was leading a column up the front right stairs, as that team was tasked with throwing stun grenades in the cockpit, when a 7.62 × 39 mm bullet from an AK-47 hit his drawn pistol and detonated the cartridges; Bardelli later remarked that his pistol which was hit saved his life since such AK-47 rounds were able to penetrate the GIGN's helmet visors. The remaining hijacker kept the GIGN at bay for 20 minutes, but he eventually ran out of ammunition and died from a gunshot wound. Meanwhile, the GIGN operatives were not sure which men were the hijackers and how many were still alive, so they considered all male passengers as potentially being hijackers. The flight engineer, Alain Bossuat, radioed the tower stating that the hijackers were dead and that there were no more left. This signaled to GIGN forces that a final clearing of the A300 could begin. Delhemme said that when the forces entered the aircraft, they ordered him to put his hands on his head. Delhemme said that, after the hijacking ordeal had run its course, he refused to leave with his hands on his head and be "punished like a child". Burgniard said that when she saw Bossuat handcuffed, the cabin crew told the forces to let him go as the individual was the flight engineer. At 5:35 pm, Favier radioed to the tower that the incident was over; the incident unfolded in 54 hours.

All of the hijackers had been killed. The remaining passengers and crew survived the 20-minute gun battle. Of the remaining passengers, 13 received minor injuries. Nine of the 30 GIGN operatives received injuries; of them, one received serious wounds. Three crew members received injuries. Delhemme was hit by bullets in his right elbow and thigh. Bossuat received minor injuries; the dead bodies of two hijackers had shielded Delhemme and Bossuat from gunfire. Borderie, the most seriously injured, fractured his elbow and thigh from the 5-meter (16 ft) drop. Favier said that he determined that the operation was a success since none of the GIGN received fatal injuries. French Prime Minister Édouard Balladur said that the events unfolded "exceptionally well".

Aftermath

As a result of the damage to the aircraft, the A300 was written off.[ Several hours after the incident ended, the Armed Islamic Group, which had claimed responsibility for the event, killed four Roman Catholic priests in retaliation in Tizi-Ouzou, Algeria. Three of the priests were French, while one was Belgian.

The crew of the A300 and the GIGN forces received high national honors. Charles Pasqua, then the Minister of the Interior, said that throughout the ordeal the crew "rose to the occasion". Bernard Delhemme returned to flying and worked for Air France for nine years before retiring. Flight attendant Claude Burgniard said that she "kept seeing the faces" of the three passengers who had been executed; when she received her medal she realized that she had helped save 173 people; this allowed her to mourn and get over the incident. Burgniard said that she does not wear the medal, but that she felt like she deserved it. Burgniard, who also received a message of thanks from the airline, never again worked for Air France. Flight attendant Christophe Morin stopped working for Air France and began to work for a charitable organization.

A former militant group leader admitted that the men had planned to detonate the aircraft over the Eiffel Tower. The militant group never again attempted this plot. Pasqua said that if the militants crashed an aircraft on the Eiffel Tower or the Élysée Palace, they would have committed what they would believe to be "an extraordinary feat."

Flights between Algiers and Paris are now Flights 1555, 1855, 2155, and 2455 (operating to Charles de Gaulle instead of Orly). Flight number 8969 is now a codeshare flight number for Delta Air Lines flight number 1584 between Greater Rochester International Airport and Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport.

Passengers and crew

Most of the passengers were Algerians; 138 of the passengers were Algerian citizens. A significant number of the passengers were French people leaving Algeria. Captain Bernard Delhemme said that the hijackers, who had extensively planned the operation, did not anticipate that most of the passengers would be Algerians. The hijackers recited Quran verses and tried to reassure the Algerian passengers. Witness accounts said that they "terrorized" non-Algerians.

Hijackers

25-year-old Abdul Abdullah Yahia, also known as "The Emir", was a petty thief and greengrocer from the Bab El Oued neighborhood of Algiers. The negotiators said that Yahia spoke "approximate" French and always ended his sentences in "Insha'Allah" ("God willing"). Several passengers said all but one of the hijackers had no beards and closely cropped hair. A woman said that the men "were polite and correct" and that they "had the determined air of cold-blooded killers". Another passenger said the hijackers "seemed excited, very euphoric" and that they told the occupants that they would teach the French and the world a lesson and show what they were capable of doing.

As the hijacking progressed, the passengers recognized the personalities of the hijackers. Claude Burgniard, a flight attendant, recalled that the crew and passengers gave nicknames to the hijackers "to make things simpler". Yahia, the leader, had given his name, so the passengers called him by that name. According to Burgniard, Lotfi had a "peculiar" character, "was always on a knife edge", and "the most fanatic" and "the most fundamentalist" of the hijackers. Therefore, he received the nickname "Madman" from the passengers. According to Burgniard, Lotfi was the hijacker who insisted that the passengers follow Islamic law. Lotfi found women having their heads uncovered "intolerable", making him very angry. One hijacker did not give his name to the passengers, so they called him "Bill". Burgniard stated that Bill was "a little bit simple" and "more of a goatherd than a terrorist." She said his role as a hijacker was "an error in casting". Burgniard remembered that the occupants wondered why Bill was there and that they saw Bill appearing as if he wondered why he was there, as well. The hijacker nicknamed "The Killer" shot the hostages whom the hijackers had targeted.

In popular culture

The events of Flight 8969 were featured in "The Killing Machine", a Season 2 (2004) episode of the Canadian TV series Mayday (called Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the U.S. and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and elsewhere around the world). The dramatization was broadcast with the title "Hijacked" in the United Kingdom, Australia and Asia; and in the United States as "Hijack Rescue". The episode uses a mix of re-enactments and actual footage. Flight 8969 captain Bernard Delhemme and Colonel Denis Favier, then a major who was head of the GIGN counter-terrorist unit assigned to the flight, gave their first television interviews for Mayday, appearing in silhouette, as both felt under threat after the events and that members of the public believed that the militants were offering a reward for Favier's assassination. Elie Gemael, a Canadian actor of Jewish and Lebanese heritage, played lead hijacker Abdul Yahia.

The incident was also featured in an episode of the Zero Hour television series called "Shoot-Out in Marseille". Using a mix of real footage and reenactment, it suggests that two of the terrorists were killed by the GIGN snipers. Gemael reprises his role as Yahia for this dramatization.

A one-hour documentary, episode 3 of the UK BBC Two television series The Age of Terror, was transmitted on 29 April 2008. This showed an in-depth reconstruction of the hijacking, and included interviews with passengers, crew, GIGN commando and government official eyewitnesses, including the co-pilot who jumped out of the cockpit window. It was stated explicitly that a mole with the GIA terrorists informed the French, but not Algerian, authorities that the intention was to use the aircraft as a missile to attack Paris.

A 2011 French film called L'Assaut was made with the collaboration and advice of the GIGN.

Flight attendant Christophe Morin and passenger Zahida Kakachi co-authored the book Le vol Alger-Marseille: Journal d'otages, recalling the events of the attack and how it had affected their lives.

The Sinking of the Costa Concordia

 

On 13 January 2012, the Italian cruise ship Costa Concordia ran aground, capsized, and later sank in shallow waters after striking an underwater rock off Isola del Giglio, Tuscany, resulting in 32 deaths. The eight-year-old Costa Cruises vessel was on the first leg of a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea when she deviated from her planned route at the Isola del Giglio, sailed closer to the island, and struck a rock formation on the sea floor. Although a six-hour rescue effort brought most of the passengers ashore, 33 people died—27 passengers, five crew, and later, one member of the salvage team.

An investigation focused on shortcomings in the procedures followed by Costa Concordia's crew and the actions of her captain, Francesco Schettino, who left the ship prematurely. About 300 passengers were left on board, most of whom were rescued by helicopter or motorboats in the area. Schettino was later found guilty of manslaughter in connection with the disaster and sentenced to sixteen years in prison. Despite receiving its own share of criticism, Costa Cruises did not face criminal charges.

Costa Concordia was officially declared a "constructive total loss" by the cruise line's insurer, and her salvage was "one of the biggest maritime salvage operations." On 16 September 2013, the parbuckle salvage of the ship began, and by the early hours of 17 September, the ship was set upright on its underwater cradle. In July 2014, the ship was refloated by large metal tanks called "sponsons" which were welded to the sides and was towed 320 kilometers (200 miles) to its home port of Genoa for scrapping, which was finished in July 2017.

The total cost of the disaster, including victims' compensation, refloating, towing and scrapping costs, is estimated at approximately $2 billion, more than three times the $612 million construction cost of the ship. Costa Cruises offered compensation to passengers (to a limit of €11,000 per person) to pay for all damages, including the value of the cruise; 65% of the survivors took the offer.

Collision

Costa Concordia disaster

Costa Concordia (call sign: IBHD, IMO number: 9320544, MMSI number: 247158500), with 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew members on board, was sailing off Isola del Giglio on the night of 13 January 2012, having begun a planned seven-day cruise from Civitavecchia, Lazio, Italy, to Savona and five other ports. The port side of the ship struck a reef at 21:42 or 21:45 local time. The reef is charted as an area known as Le Scole, about 800 meters (870 yd) south of the entrance to the harbor of Giglio Porto, on the island's east coast.

The point of initial impact was 8 meters (26 ft) below water at the "Scola piccola", the most seaward exposed rock of Le Scole, which tore a 50-meter (160 ft) gash in the ship's port side below the water line. The impact sheared two long strips of steel from the ship's hull; these were later found on the seabed 92 to 96 meters (302 to 315 ft) from the main island. A few minutes after the impact, the head of the engine room warned the captain that the hull had an irreparable tear of 70 meters (230 ft) through which water entered and submerged the generators and engines.

Without propulsive power and on emergency electric power, the ship moved through inertia and the settings of its rudders, and continued north from Le Scole until well past Giglio Porto. Schettino has said various instruments were not functioning. Reports differ whether the ship listed to port soon after the impact and when it began listing to starboard. At 22:10, Costa Concordia turned south. The vessel was then listing to starboard, initially by about 20°, coming to rest by 22:44 at Punta del Gabbianara in about 20 meters of water at an angle of heel of about 70°. Schettino attributed the final grounding of Costa Concordia at Punta del Gabbianara to his own effort to manoeuvre the ship there. In contrast, on 3 February, the chief of the Italian Coast Guard testified that the final grounding of the ship at Punta del Gabbianara may not have been related to any attempts to manoeuvre the ship and the ship may have drifted simply due to the prevailing winds that night.

Situation on the bridge

Schettino said that, before approaching the island, he turned off the alarm system for the ship's computer navigation system. "I was navigating by sight, because I knew those seabeds well. I had done the move three, four times." He told investigators that he saw waves breaking on the reef and turned abruptly, swinging the side of the hull into the reef. "I have to take responsibility for the fact that I made a judgment error." "This time I ordered the turn too late." The captain initially said the ship was about 300 meters (330 yd) from the shore (about the length of the vessel) and hit an uncharted rock. The ship's first officer, Ciro Ambrosio, told investigators Schettino had left his reading glasses in his cabin and repeatedly asked Ambrosio to check the radar for him.

The captain said that Costa Cruises managers told him to perform a sail-past salute on 13 January 2012. Previously, on 14 August 2011, the ship took a similar sail-past route, but not as close to Le Scole. The 2011 sail-past was approved by Costa Cruises and was done in daylight during an island festival. The normal shipping route passes about 8 km (5 mi) offshore.

Costa Cruises confirmed that the course taken in 2012 was "not a defined [computer programmed] route for passing Giglio." In an interview with the Italian TV channel Canale 5 on 10 July 2012, Schettino said this was a contributing factor to the accident. In addition, at the captain's invitation, the maître d'hôtel of the ship, who is from the island, was on the ship's bridge to view the island during the sail-past. A further person on the bridge was a Moldovan dancer, Domnica Cemortan, who testified that she was in a romantic relationship with Schettino and had just boarded the ship as a non-paying passenger.

Situation on deck

Passengers were in the dining hall when there was a sudden, loud bang, which a crew member (speaking over the intercom) ascribed to an "electrical failure". "We told the guests everything was [okay] and under control and we tried to stop them panicking", a cabin steward recalled. Coincidentally, when the ship first made impact with the rock, it was claimed that the Celine Dion Titanic theme song "My Heart Will Go On" was playing in a restaurant. The ship lost cabin electrical power shortly after the initial collision. "The boat started shaking. The noise—there was panic, like in a film, dishes crashing to the floor, people running, falling down the stairs and saying "cazzo", said a survivor. Those on board said the ship suddenly tilted to the port side. Passengers were later advised to put on their life jackets.

Half an hour before the abandon-ship order, one crew member was recorded on video telling passengers at a muster station, "We have solved the problems we had and invite everyone to return to their cabins." When the ship later turned around, it began to list approximately 20° to the starboard side, creating problems in launching the lifeboats. The president of Costa Cruises, Gianni Onorato, said normal lifeboat evacuation became "almost impossible" because the ship listed so quickly.

Rescue

After the grounding, passengers and crew were taken ashore from the ship by lifeboats and helicopters or swam to the island, leaving about 40 people missing. Half of these were later found inside the ship, most of them deceased.

Evacuation

In the first contact, made at 22:12, between Italian port officials and Costa Concordia after the impact on the reef, an unidentified officer on board the cruise ship insisted that she was suffering only from an electrical "black-out". A passenger's video recorded at 22:20 showed panicked passengers in life jackets being told by a crew member that "everything is under control" and that they should return to their cabins. No lifeboat passenger evacuation drill had taken place for the approximately 600 passengers who had just embarked. A ship's cook said that Schettino ordered dinner around 22:30. Around the same time, a patrol boat of the Guardia di Finanza made a call to Costa Concordia, but no answer came. Schettino participated in three telephone calls with the cruise line's crisis management officer.

At 22:26, Schettino told the Port of Livorno's harbor master that the ship had taken water through an opening in the port side and requested a tug boat. Port authorities were not alerted to the collision until 22:42, about an hour after the impact, and the order to evacuate the ship was not given until 22:50. Some passengers jumped into the water to swim to shore, while others, ready to evacuate the vessel, were delayed by crew members up to 45 minutes, as they resisted immediately lowering the lifeboats. Some sources report that the ship did not list until 23:15 and therefore if Schettino had given the order to abandon ship, the lifeboats could have been launched earlier, allowing the passengers to reach safety. In contrast, one expert stated that a delay might be justified considering the hazards in launching lifeboats while a ship is still moving. Staff or 2nd captain Roberto Bosio, is said to have coordinated some of the deck officers in much of the evacuation. He began to evacuate the ship before Schettino's order. Many junior officers and crew members who were aware of the severity of the situation also began readying lifeboats and moving passengers from their cabins before the abandon ship orders were given, a move that has been characterized as a "mutiny".

While the vast majority of the ship's multinational personnel held positions that did not require a seaman's qualifications (as they handled services like laundry, cooking, entertainment, cleaning, minding children, and waiting tables), according to a senior shipping official, they had received mandatory training in basic safety to be able to help in situations like this. Although all of them spoke at least basic English, most spoke no Italian.

Several passengers asserted that the crew did not help or were untrained in launching the lifeboats. This allegation was denied by the crew, one of whom stated, "The crew members, whether Filipino or Colombians or Indians, tried to the best of our ability to help passengers survive the shipwreck. Comments by some of the passengers that we were unhelpful have hurt us." A third engineer officer from the ship's engine room also pointed out that "Unlike the captain, we were there until the end. We did all we could to avoid catastrophe." Costa Cruises CEO Pier Luigi Foschi praised the crew and personnel, despite difficulties resulting from the apparent lack of direction from the ship's officers and problems in communication. Three people reportedly drowned after jumping overboard, and another seven were critically injured. The local fire chief said his men "plucked 100 people from the water and saved around 60 others who were trapped in the boat." Five helicopters from the Italian Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force took turns airlifting survivors still aboard and ferrying them to safety.

In one telephone call from the Coast Guard to Schettino, Captain Gregorio De Falco, a captain from Livorno, repeatedly ordered Schettino to return to the ship from his lifeboat and take charge of the ongoing passenger evacuation. At one point in the call, De Falco grew so angry at Schettino's stalling that he raised his voice and told Schettino, "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" (translated as "Get the fuck [back] on board!", "Get [back] on board, for fuck's sake!" or "Get on board, damn it!" depending on the source). One of these calls took place at 01:46. Despite this, Schettino never returned to the ship from the lifeboat into which he claimed he had "fallen".

At 01:04, an Air Force officer who was lowered on board by helicopter reported that there were still 100 people on board. Father Raffaele Malena, the ship's priest, said he was among the last leaving the ship at around 01:30. The deputy-mayor of Isola del Giglio, Mario Pellegrini, who went on board as part of the rescue operations, praised the ship's doctor and a young Costa Concordia officer, Simone Canessa, the only officer he met on board, for their help. He and Canessa were "shoulder to shoulder" until 05:30. One of the missing crewmen, a waiter, was last seen helping passengers.

At 03:05, 600 passengers were evacuated to the mainland by ferry. At 03:44, the Air Force officer reported that 40 to 50 people were still on board. At 04:46, the evacuation was noted as "complete" on the Port of Livorno's Harbour Master log. The next day, the survivors were transported to Porto Santo Stefano, where the first center for coordination and assistance was established. Prime Minister Mario Monti announced his intention to propose to the President of the Republic to grant the gold medal for civil valor to the common people of Isola del Giglio and Monte Argentario for their conduct during the rescue.

Search for missing people

Between 14 and 30 January 2012, rescue divers searched within the ship for missing people. The head of the coast guard diving team described the conditions inside the ship, still perched on a 37-meter (120 ft) ledge, as "disastrous". Pitch-black conditions with large furniture drifting around made the rescue operation hazardous. Divers would find a path into the ship and tie down obstacles such as mattresses, before making noise to alert trapped people. The divers worked in pairs for safety (which is standard procedure for any diving operations even for leisure) and searched each assigned area slowly in a zig-zag manner. The search dives were planned as 40 minutes in duration, with sufficient extra compressed air in the scuba tanks in case of emergency. The divers had two headlamps positioned on their helmets because underwater visibility varied from approximately 5 to 60 cm. In addition, divers marked their route by trailing a line to be used to lead them back out in low visibility and positioned extra emergency air tanks within the ship. The divers were from the Italian Navy, Coast Guard, and Vigili del Fuoco (fire and rescue service).

On 14 January, divers searched the ship until nightfall. Divers and firefighters continued to search for survivors who might have been trapped in the ship, and rescued a South Korean newlywed couple who slept through the capsizing, only to awake and find that they couldn't open their cabin's door, two decks above the water line and the ship's purser, who had a broken leg.

On 16 January, violent waters shifted the ship about 1.5 centimeters (0.6 in), interrupting rescue work—trap doors were shut and debris fell on rescuers—and giving rise to fear that the ship could be pushed into 68-meter (224 ft) deep waters or that the fuel could leak. Operations resumed about three hours later. Throughout the process, rescuers set off explosives to create holes in the ship's hull to reach previously inaccessible areas. On 18 January, rescue efforts were suspended again when the ship shifted, but shortly afterwards they were resumed.

On 20 January, the ship began shifting by 1.5 centimeters (0.6 in) per hour, but on 24 January, Franco Gabrielli, the Italian Civil Protection Agency head, said the ship was "stable". The same day, divers recovered the body of the 16th victim. On 29 January, the operation was suspended because the ship had shifted 3.8 centimeters (1.5 in) in six hours and because of high waves. Gabrielli said, "Our first goal was to find people alive ... Now we have a single, big goal, and that is that this does not translate into an environmental disaster." By the next day, operations resumed.

On 28 January, the 17th body, that of a female crew member, was recovered from a submerged part of the vessel. On 31 January, Italy's Civil Protection agency terminated the search in the submerged part of the ship because the deformed hull caused unacceptable safety concerns for divers. On 22 February, guided by information from passengers as to where bodies might be, divers found eight additional bodies in the wreck. A "special platform" was assembled to facilitate swift recovery of the bodies, four of which were recovered. On 22 February, the recovery was suspended by inclement weather. On 4 March, officials reported that they would use "sophisticated robot-like equipment" to find the bodies.

On 22 March, another five bodies were discovered in a remote section of the ship that was believed to be inside the hull.

On 15 January 2013, the final two bodies were thought to have been located (those of a female passenger and a male crew member), but they reportedly could not be recovered, because their location near the stern made their recovery inaccessible until the ship could be rotated. However, the companies performing the refloating operation denied finding any bodies.

The search for the two still missing bodies continued after the ship was uprighted on 17 September 2013. On 26 September 2013, unidentified remains were found near the central part of the ship, where they were last seen. The remains were subjected to DNA testing in order to determine their identity. On 8 October 2013, the family of missing crew member Russel Rebello was informed that a body believed to be his was found near the third deck at the stern of the ship. Items on the body were reportedly subsequently identified as belonging to missing passenger Maria Grazia Trecarichi instead and on 24 October 2013 it was reported that DNA analysis confirmed it was her body. Additional bone fragments of unknown identity were found in the wreck a few days after the body was found.

On 23 October 2013, it was announced that the search for the missing while the wreck was still in the water was completed as far as was technically possible. Depending on the outcome of identification analyses of remains already found, it was stated that further search activities might be conducted in the wreck for the missing crew member Russel Rebello after it has been removed from the water.

On 6 and 7 August 2014, divers found human remains on the wreck which was then moored in the port of Genoa. On 3 November 2014, the final body was discovered in the wreckage of the ship.

Wreck

Looting

Numerous reports of the wreck site being infiltrated by looters and souvenir hunters were made following the disaster. Items stolen from the wreck include the ship's bell, cash registers, jewelry, furniture, artwork and various assorted smaller items. Sources at Costa Crociere indicated that the thieves may have gained access to the interior of the ship via entrances cut by search and rescue teams.

Authorities banned all private boats from Giglio Porto and excluded them from a one-nautical-mile (1,852 m) non-navigation zone around the ship.

Poor weather conditions could have caused a spill of oil from the ship. A floating oil barrier was put in place as a precaution. High winds on 1 February lifted the protective barrier, allowing an oily film into the surrounding waters that began spreading from the stern of the ship. The protective boom was redesigned for the weather conditions.

On 7 February, Civil Protection director Franco Gabrielli told the Italian Senate that the waters were not crystal-clear but are "within the legal limits." Environment Minister Corrado Clini told the Parliament of Italy that the amount of diesel fuel and lubricating oil on board Costa Concordia was about the cargo of a small oil tanker. Clini said any oil leakage would be highly toxic for plant and animal life. In a first step to prevent pollution of the shore and assist in a refloat the ship, her oil and fuel tanks were emptied.

As part of the recovery effort a group of about 200 giant fan mussels Pinna nobilis were manually relocated to a nearby area due to the threat posed by subsequent engineering work.

Giant fan mussel of the type relocated away from the Costa Concordia wreck for fear of the threat posed by subsequent engineering work

Isola del Giglio lies within the Pelagos Sanctuary for Mediterranean Marine Mammals, one of the Specially Protected Areas of Mediterranean Importance. It is a popular scuba diving destination, with tourism being its leading industry. Island residents were concerned that the wreck would be an eyesore that turned away tourists, disabling the island's economy. One resident explained, "Environmental damage is what concerns us most. If the oil pollutes the coast, we're ruined." Luigi Alcaro, head of maritime emergencies for Italy's Institute for Environmental Protection and Research (ISPRA), an agency of the Ministry of the Environment, stated that in a worst case, "[W]e could be talking years and dozens of millions of euros".

EMSA-contracted stand-by oil spill response vessel Salina Bay arrived at the site of Costa Concordia on 28 January and remained on station as a precautionary measure during the fuel removal operation. ISPRA's Oceanographic Ship Astrea arrived in Tuscany on 29 January to conduct environmental investigations. On 9 February, the CEO of Costa Cruises told residents of Giglio the company would have a plan by mid-March to remove the ship. He also promised to minimize harm to their tourism businesses.

The wreck came to rest on a rock ledge and there were concerns that she might slide into deeper water. The stability and deformation of the ship was monitored by satellite imagery and surface-based instruments. Although the ship was not in "immediate risk" of slipping from its grounded position into deeper water, Environment Minister Clini told the Italian Senate on 8 February that "the risk for a collapse is quite real... The more time passes, the weaker the hull becomes. We cannot guarantee that it has not been compromised already." On 29 January 2012, scientists had become "very concerned" that the ship had moved 3.5 centimeters (1.4 in) over six hours that day. On 2 February, the ship shifted 8 centimeters (3 in) during seven hours. Shifts and any high winds and high seas caused suspension of recovery and salvage operations.

On 16 February, Civil Protection director Gabrielli "confirmed that the data registered is absent of anomalies." Another report based on sonar and laser measurements, and an ISPRA underwater video, indicated that the ship might collapse in its midsection because its weight was not supported between the rock spur supporting the bow and the rock spur supporting the stern, and said at the time that both of those rocks had "now started crumbling dramatically". Civil Protection director Gabrielli stated that report was reassuring in that "It shows that a part of the seabed has got into the hull, basically increasing the ship'[s] stability." It was also found that the hull was slowly collapsing under its own weight, making salvage more difficult and expensive.

Salvage

All operations planned for the wreck, including defuelling, were conducted jointly by Costa Cruises and the Concordia Emergency Commissioner's Office. On 12 February 2012, after weeks of weather delays, Dutch salvage firm Smit Internationale, acting jointly with Italian company NERI SpA, started removing the vessel's 2,380 tonnes of heavy fuel oil. The 15 tanks that contained about 84% of the fuel in the vessel were emptied first and expected to take about 28 days. The second phase involved the engine room, which had "nearly 350 cubic meters of diesel, fuel and other lubricants". The offloading process required fixing valves to the underwater fuel tanks, one on top, one on the bottom. Hoses were then attached to the valves and as the oil, warmed to make it less viscous, was pumped out of the upper hose and into a nearby ship, replacing it with sea water pumped in through the lower hose to fill the space, so as not to affect the ship's balance, a technique known as "hot-tapping".

Removal and clean-up plan

The operation (from June 2013 onwards) was delineated by Costa's Cristiano De Musso, Head of Corporate Communications, according to the following plan:

Site inspections of the ship and its position;

Securing of the wreck to ensure on-going safety and stability;

Installation of sponsons on port side of vessel and construction of submarine platforms;

Parbuckling of the wreck, rotating it past a critical angle of about 24° from its resting position, beyond which the sponsons would be flooded and the ship would roll into a fully upright position on the underwater platforms;

Installation of sponsons on the starboard side of the ship;

Sponsons are dewatered to raise the ship from the bottom;

Ship delivered to an Italian port for processing according to regulations;

Cleaning and replanting of marine flora.

By 20 February 2012, the tanks in the forward part of the ship, which had held about two-thirds of the fuel, had been emptied, but the following day defuelling was suspended because of poor weather conditions. On 3 March 2012, salvage workers cut a hole in the ship for access to the engine room, the location of the remaining fuel. On the morning of 12 March, defuelling operations resumed and were completed on 24 March.

With defuelling complete, removal of the wreck began. On 3 February, Franco Gabrielli, the head of the Civil Protection Authority, told a meeting of residents of Giglio that the ship would be "refloated and removed whole" and not cut up for scrap on site. The CEO of Costa stated that after the breaches in the hull were sealed, the ship could be refloated, with difficulty, by giant inflatable buoys and then towed away. The company invited ten firms to bid for the contract to salvage the ship. Six bids were submitted in early March and the proposed removal plans were assessed jointly with the Civil Protection Scientific Committee. The salvage operation was expected to commence in the middle of May. The operation, one of the largest ever ventured, was predicted to take from seven to ten months, depending on weather and sea conditions.

By 12 April 2012, Costa Crociere had two consortia in mind: Smit and NERI, or Titan Salvage and Micoperi. On 21 April, it was announced that Florida-based marine salvage and wreck removal company Titan, with its partner company Micoperi, an Italian firm specializing in undersea engineering solutions, had been awarded the contract to refloat and tow Costa Concordia to a port on the Italian mainland. The salvage operation, using the port of Civitavecchia as its base was anticipated to begin in early May, take about 12 months and cost $300 million.[citation needed] Once in port, the ship would be dismantled and the materials sold as scrap. South African freelance Nick Sloane was appointed as "salvage master" to lead the operation. The salvage plan included the following operations:

Secure the hull to the land using steel cables, to stop it falling deeper

Build a horizontal underwater platform below the ship

Attach airtight tanks, called sponsons, to the port side of the hull

Bring the hull to vertical, by winching (or parbuckling) the hull onto the platform

Attach sponsons to the starboard side of the hull

Refloat the hull and tanks

Recovery tow to an Italian port

Parbuckling

Principles of righting and refloating of Costa Concordia

1. Funnel (chimney) is removed and a submerged platform is built to support the ship. Steel sponsons are attached to the port side and partially filled with water.

2. Cables roll the ship upright, helped by the water weight in the sponsons

3. Sponsons are attached to the starboard side

4. Water is pumped out of the sponsons to lift the ship so she can be towed away

Preparatory work consisted of building an underwater metal platform and artificial seabed made of sand and cement on the downhill side of the wreck and welding sponsons to the side of the ship above the surface. Once this was completed, the ship was pulled upright by cables over the course of two days and settled on the platform, a method called parbuckling. Additional sponsons would then be attached to the other side of the ship; both sets would be flushed of water and their buoyancy would refloat the ship to allow her to be towed away for demolition.

In June 2012, a barge was put in place, and the removal of her radar, waterslide and funnel began before stabilization of the ship to prevent further slippage down the sloped seabed. Concordia's funnel was cut off in December, and the salvage companies were in the process of building the underwater support structure by mid-January 2013. On 16 September 2013, the parbuckling of the ship began.

The operation to right the ship and free her from the rocks began on 16 September 2013, but started late due to bad weather. Once the ship had been rotated slightly past a critical angle of 24° from its resting position, valves on the sponsons were opened to allow seawater to flood into them and the increasing weight of the water in the sponsons completed the rolling of the ship to the upright position at an accelerated pace, without further need of the strand jacks and cables. The ship was returned to a fully upright position in the early hours of 17 September 2013, shortly before 3 a.m. CET. As of 16 September 2013 the salvage operation had cost over €600 million ($800 million). The final cost of the salvage came to be $1.2 billion.

Images of righting of Costa Concordia

Preparing for righting, July 2013. On the left are the strand jacks (used to pull the cables) mounted on the tops of the retaining turrets.

Operation in progress. On the right are the port side sponsons.

The operation continues but very slowly, at less than 2 degrees per hour

Sponsons are ready to fill with sea water, nearing 24 degrees of rotation.

The ship on the morning after the parbuckling

After parbuckling and before refloat, September 2013

Starboard side of the righted Costa Concordia, showing the crushing effect of the rock spurs upon which she had rested

Refloating and removal

Following the conclusion of the righting operation, the ship was kept on a platform while further inspections were made and the starboard sponsons attached. On 10 October 2013 a $30 million option was taken with Dockwise for the use of the world's largest semi-submersible heavy lift vessel, Dockwise Vanguard, to transport Costa Concordia, as an alternative to conventional towing; but the Concordia was instead refloated and towed to Genoa in July 2014.

In December 2013 invitations were issued by Costa to twelve companies to tender for the dismantling of Costa Concordia, in France, Italy, Norway, Turkey and the UK. On 30 June 2014 the Italian Government endorsed Costa's decision to have the vessel dismantled at Genoa by Italian companies Saipem, Mariotti and San Giorgio.

On 1 February 2014 a Spanish diver working on the Costa Concordia wreck died after cutting his leg on a sheet of metal. He was brought to the surface alive by a fellow diver, but later died. This was the only death to occur during the Costa Concordia salvage operation.

On 14 July 2014 salvage operators re-floated Costa Concordia off its submerged platform and towed the ship laterally a short distance away from the coast. As of 20 July 2014, the ship had re-floated 7.5 meters from its supporting platform, with 6.3 meters remaining. On 23 July 2014, Costa Concordia began her final journey to the Port of Genoa.

On 27 July 2014, Costa Concordia arrived in Genoa where it was moored against a wharf that had been specially prepared to receive the vessel for dismantling. On 11 May 2015 Costa Concordia was removed to another location within the Port of Genoa to ease the access of road vehicles which carried the waste from the wreck. By January 2017, most of Costa Concordia had been completely dismantled and scrapped in Genoa, with all metal being recycled where possible. Final scrapping of the ship was completed in July 2017.

Site remediation

After the wreck of Costa Concordia was towed away, Costa Crociere put Micoperi in charge of the salvage site remediation. This project is also known as phase WP9. Initially, $85 million was assigned to the project, which was to start at the end of 2014, and take about 15 months for its completion. The main activities included ocean floor cleaning, anchor block removal, grout bag removal, and platform removal. The project continued into May 2018. The entities involved regularly published details of the activity.

Loss and compensation

Most of the passengers on board were Italian, German, or French nationals. The crew consisted of citizens of 20 to 40 countries. Some were Italians (including the captain and all the officers), but 202 Indians and 296 Filipinos made up approximately half of the personnel. Other nationalities include 170 Indonesians, 12 British nationals, 6 Brazilians, 3 Russians, and an unspecified number of Colombian, Peruvian, Spanish, Honduran and Chinese. 32 people are known to have died, and 64 others were injured. Three people (two passengers and one crewman) trapped inside the ship were rescued more than 24 hours after the accident. The body of the last missing person, Indian crew member Russel Rebello, was recovered on 3 November 2014.

On 27 January 2012, Costa posted on its website the compensation package offered to uninjured passengers. The compensation comprises a payment of €11,000 per person to compensate for all damages (including loss of baggage and property, psychological distress and loss of enjoyment of the cruise) and reimbursement for a range of other costs and losses, including reimbursement for the value of the cruise, for all air and bus travel costs included in the cruise package, for all travel expenses to return home, for all medical expenses arising from the event, and for all expenses incurred on board during the cruise.

Costa also promised return of all property stored in cabin safes, to the extent recoverable, and to grant passengers access to a programme for "psychological assistance". Costa stated that these payments would not be offset against or impact any amount an insurance policy pays to the passenger. The offer to uninjured passengers was effective until 31 March; as to the families of the dead and missing, separate proposals were to be offered "based on their individual circumstances." For a time, Costa permitted its customers to cancel any future cruises booked with them, without penalty. One-third of the passengers have acquiesced to the €11,000 compensation. The trade union representing the crew negotiated compensation packages. Crew members were paid wages for a minimum of two months or, if longer, their full contract term. They also received reimbursement for expenses and up to £2,250 for lost personal property.

As well as compensation, survivors of the Concordia disaster have called for safety improvements to be made. From the evidence available, including expert evidence obtained during the criminal proceedings in Italy, it is clear that the initial grounding of Costa Concordia could have been avoided and that subsequent failings in carrying out the evacuation process made a very bad situation far worse.

On 23 February 2012, the Environment Ministry announced it would be "taking legal action" against Costa Cruises regarding a "possible" claim for "possible environmental damage" and the cost of salvage.

Ship

Industry experts believed the ship to be a constructive total loss early on in the salvage efforts, with damages of at least US$500 million. Pier Luigi Foschi, CEO of Costa, told a Senate committee hearing "we believe that the wreck can no longer be put in use." Shares in the Carnival Corporation, the American company that jointly owns (with Carnival plc) Costa Cruises, initially fell by 18% on 16 January 2012 following a statement by the group that the grounding of the ship could cost Carnival Corporation up to US$95 million (€75 million, £62 million). Carnival Corporation later increased the estimated financial impact in fiscal year 2012 to include a reduction in net income of $85 million to $95 million, an estimated insurance excess of an additional $40 million, and $30–40 million in "other incident related costs".

The insurance excess on the vessel was $30 million (€23.5 million, £19.5 million). The group of cruise lines jointly owned by Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc comprises 49 percent of the worldwide cruise ship industry and owns 101 ships, of which Costa Concordia represents 1.5% of capacity. Booking volume for Carnival's fleet, excluding Costa, in the 12 post-accident days was down by "the mid-teens" as a percentage of year-earlier bookings.

Investigations

The Italian Marine Casualty Investigation Central Board (Commissione centrale di indagine sui sinistri marittimi, CCISM), a unit of the Corps of the Port Captaincies – Coast Guard, conducts the technical investigations of maritime accidents and incidents within Italian-controlled waters. On 6 February, the International Chamber of Shipping, representing shipowners' associations, called for the "earliest possible publication of the Italian accident investigations." International experts have said that it is too early to speculate on why the vessel capsized despite its watertight compartments but that the size of the vessel is unlikely to have been an issue. Tuscany's prosecutor general said that the investigation would seek to find causes for various aspects of the event, and beyond Schettino to other persons and companies. By January 2013 the technical investigation report had not yet been released. Lloyd's List said that the casualty investigation board "roundly" received criticism for not having released the investigation yet. The board said that the investigation was delayed because the Italian prosecuting team had seized important information, including the voyage recorder.

Judge Valeria Montesarchio summoned survivors to testify at a hearing to be convened on 3 March in Grosseto. The European Maritime Safety Agency is the EU agency tasked to develop a common methodology for investigating maritime accidents. The captain tested negative for drug and alcohol use, but one group that is suing Costa Cruises and that leaked the test results, disputed the tests as unreliable. On 24 February 2012, prosecutors alleged that Schettino "slowed down the ship so that he could finish dinner in peace" and to compensate for lost time, subsequently increased the speed to 16 knots (30 km/h) just before the sail-past.

In addition, on 2 February 2012 the prosecutor's office in Paris, France, opened a preliminary inquiry to question survivors to establish any criminal liability and "assess psychological damage".

Criminal proceedings against officers

Francesco Schettino (born 1960 in Meta, Naples), who had worked for Costa Cruises for 11 years, and First Officer Ciro Ambrosio were arrested. The captain was detained on suspicion of manslaughter and for violations of the Italian Penal Code and Code of Navigation on three specifications—of his having caused the shipwreck "owing to ... imprudence, negligence and incompetence" resulting in deaths; having abandoned about 300 people "unable to fend for themselves"; and "not having been the last to leave" a shipwreck. They were questioned on 14 January.

At the validation hearing of 17 January 2012, the Court of Grosseto charged Schettino and Ambrosio with the results from the records of investigation compiled immediately after the event, including the first report of the coast guard of Porto Santo Stefano of 14 January 2012, the summary testimonial information given by the members of the ship's crew, the chronology of events of the Harbour Office of the Port of Livorno, the AIS recording on record, and the PG Annotation of the Harbour Office of the Port of Livorno. Schettino was released from jail on 17 January but was placed under house arrest. The house arrest order included an "absolute prohibition against going away or communicating by any means with persons other than his cohabitants." On 7 February, the Court decided to continue Schettino's house arrest. On 23 February, two additional charges, of "abandoning incapacitated passengers and failing to inform maritime authorities" were levied against Schettino. His pretrial hearing was scheduled for 20 March. On 5 July 2012, Schettino was released from house arrest but mandated to reside in Meta di Sorrento.

Officials were initially trying to determine why the ship did not issue a mayday and why it was navigating so close to the coast. The delay in the evacuation request was also unexplained.

On 11 February, TG5 broadcast a video of the commotion on the bridge following the collision. In the video, when one officer said, "Passengers are getting into the life boats", Schettino responded "vabbuò" (a Neapolitan colloquialism which stands for "whatever", "well" or "it is ok"). The magistrate in charge of the inquiry remarked, "This is new to us—I've just seen it for the first time."

On 19 February, the Associated Press reported that traces of cocaine had been found on Schettino's hair samples, "but not within the hair strands or in his urine—which would have indicated he had used the drug". A 2015 report indicated that the ship had been carrying a large amount of mafia-owned cocaine when it sank, although senior officers were likely not aware it was on board.

On 22 February 2012, four officers who were on board and three managers of Costa Cruises were placed formally "under investigation" and "face charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and failing to communicate with maritime authorities".

Recorded evidence

One of the ship's voyage data recorders (VDRs), which was designed to float, was recovered. Another, containing different data, was located on 17 January. A third was in a submerged part of the ship, difficult to reach. On 19 January 2012, all the data storage devices from the ship's control panel, including hard disks, were recovered. One of the hard disks contained videos from cameras located near the control board, which were expected to reveal the movements of the ship's captain and officers. The chief prosecutor received from the Guardia di Finanza a video, taken from their patrol boat, that filmed the ship between 22:30 and 23:10 or at 23:20.

On 3 March 2012, in Grosseto, judges began a hearing open to all survivors, other "injured parties", and their lawyers, but closed to the general public and media. Four specialists were ordered to review the VDR data and relate their conclusions at a 21 July 2012 hearing. Prosecutor Francesco Verusio had stated that it could take "a month, two months, three months" for evidence analysis, including of recorded conversations on the bridge, to be completed. The hearing also determined who could "attach lawsuits to the case". Inhabitants of Giglio and some environmental groups were denied this ability.

Trials

On 20 July 2013, five people were found guilty of manslaughter, negligence and wrecking: Roberto Ferrarini (the company's crisis director) received the longest sentence at 2 years and 10 months, followed by Manrico Giampedroni (the cabin service director) at two and a half years. Three crew members—first officer Ciro Ambrosio, helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin and third officer Silvia Coronica—were given sentences between 1 and 2 years. Ferrarini, who was not on the ship, was convicted of minimizing the extent of the disaster and delaying an adequate response. Giampedroni, the hotel director, was convicted for his role in the evacuation, which was described as chaotic. The helmsman Bin was convicted for steering the ship in the wrong direction after Schettino ordered a corrective manoeuvre. Reuters cited judicial sources as saying none of these individuals are likely to go to jail as sentences less than 2 years for non-violent offences are routinely suspended in Italy, and longer sentences may be appealed or replaced by community service.

Lawyers for the victims declared the sentences as shameful and said they might appeal to overturn the plea bargains that allowed reduced sentences in return for guilty pleas. The company Costa Cruises avoided a trial in April by agreeing to a €1 million fine, but victims are pursuing damages in a civil case.

In a separate trial for manslaughter and causing the loss of the ship, Captain Francesco Schettino sought a plea bargain agreement. When his trial resumed in October 2013, Domnica Cemortan (a 26-year-old Moldovan) admitted having been Schettino's lover and having been a non-paying passenger on the ship, after the prosecution alleged that her presence on the bridge "generated confusion and distraction for the captain". Helmsman Jacob Rusli Bin failed to appear in court in March 2014 to give evidence and was thought to be somewhere in Indonesia. Roberto Ferrarini told the court in April that "Schettino asked me to tell the maritime authorities that the collision was due to a blackout on the ship. But I strongly objected." Passengers told the court in May that if they had followed the officers' orders to return to their cabins, they would have drowned. In February 2015, Schettino was convicted and sentenced to 16 years in prison. Schettino appealed against the sentence, which was initially upheld in May 2016, then finally in May 2017. He is serving his sentence in Rebibbia Prison, Rome.

Reactions

Costa Cruises and its parent companies

Costa Crociere S.p.A. also does business using the name "Costa Cruises". Costa Cruises is jointly owned by a dual-listed company comprising the two separate companies Carnival Corporation and Carnival plc. Carnival Corporation announced on 30 January 2012 that its board of directors will engage outside consultants in various disciplines, including emergency response, organization, training and implementation, to conduct a comprehensive review of the accident and the company's procedures.

Costa Cruises at first offered to pay Schettino's legal costs but decided later that they would not do so.

Regulatory and industry response

Corrado Clini, Italy's Minister of Environment, said that saluting, a "custom that has resulted in an outcome visible to all", should no longer be tolerated. On 23 January 2012, UNESCO asked Italy to reroute cruise ships to avoid sailing too close to "culturally and ecologically important areas", and on 1 March, Italy excluded large ships from sailing closer than two miles from marine parks.

The European Maritime Safety Agency was in the process of conducting a review of maritime safety when the accident occurred. On 24 January 2012, Transport Commissioner Siim Kallas told the Transportation Committee of the European Parliament that lessons learned from the loss of Costa Concordia would be taken into account. British MEP Jacqueline Foster warned against "trial by television and trial by newspapers", a view that was backed by fellow British MEP Brian Simpson, who said that it was "good practice to wait for the official report".

On 18 January 2012, the Chairman of the United States House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure announced that it would hold a hearing, conducted jointly with the committee's Maritime Transportation Subcommittee, to "review the events of this specific incident, current safety measures and training requirements". Testimony and statements at 29 February hearing primarily promoted North American cruise ships as being safe.

Gianni Scerni, the chairman of Registro Italiano Navale (RINA), the classification society that issued Costa Concordia a certificate of seaworthiness and safety management in November 2011, resigned on 18 January 2012.

The Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), the European Cruise Council (ECC) and the Passenger Shipping Association adopted a new policy requiring all embarking passengers to participate in muster drills before departure. On 29 January 2012, at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Holland America Line made one passenger disembark from the cruise ship MS Westerdam for "non-compliance" during a mandatory muster drill. On 24 April, the CLIA and the ECC introduced new policies: bridge officers must agree on the route before departing; ships must carry more life-jackets; and access to the bridge must be limited.

In an action some parliamentarians said was a reaction to the wrecking of Costa Concordia, the Italian government withdrew proposed legislation that would have reduced current restrictions on mineral exploration and production. On 8 July 2012, CNN reported that the disaster brought changes to safety and evacuation procedures in the cruise industry. Carnival, the parent line of Costa, and several other cruise lines now require safety instruction, referred to as muster drills, before leaving port. The new muster policy consists of 12 specific emergency instructions, which include providing information on when and how to don a life jacket, where to muster and what to expect if there is an evacuation of the ship.

Media

Coverage of the shipwreck dominated international media in the days after the disaster. The New York Times called the incident "a drama that seemed to blend tragedy with elements of farce". Phillip Knightley called it the "most significant event in modern maritime history" because "every single safety procedure designed to make sea travel safe failed miserably".

UK's Channel 4 television commissioned and broadcast two programmes about the disaster. Terror at Sea: The Sinking of the Costa Concordia, broadcast on 31 January 2012, explored how and why the ship went down. The Sinking of the Concordia: Caught on Camera, broadcast on 11 April 2012, provided a minute-by-minute anatomy of the Costa Concordia disaster, made almost entirely from passengers' mobile phone and video camera footage. The documentary also featured thermal imaging footage of the stricken ship taken by the rescue helicopter, together with pilot commentary, and a recording of the conversation between the Coast Guard and the captain, during which the Coast Guard ordered Schettino to return to his ship.

The parbuckling was a major media operation, and the righting was well documented in video and photographs. News Agencies Getty Images and AP had an extensive coverage, from the day of the disaster to the removal of the wreck with the photographers Laura Lezza, Marco Secchi and Andrew Medichini documenting and capturing all phases.

In 2014, the Smithsonian Channel broadcast Cruise Ship Down: Saving Concordia, detailing the efforts to right the Costa Concordia before she collapsed under her own weight.

In Italy

Newspaper Corriere della Sera stated that Italy owed the world a "convincing explanation" for the wreck and called for harsh punishment of those found responsible. Il Giornale said the wreck was a "global disaster for Italy". Il Messaggero said there was "anguish over those still missing". La Repubblica called the event "a night of errors and lies". La Stampa criticized the captain for not raising the alarm and refusing to go back on board the ship.

Italian commentators reflected on the contrast between Schettino and De Falco and what it said about the national character. They represented "the two souls of Italy", according to Aldo Grasso in Corriere della Sera. "On the one hand a man hopelessly lost, a coward who shirks his responsibility as a man and an officer, indelibly stained. The other grasps the seriousness of the situation immediately and tries to remind the first of his obligations."

Some saw parallels between the incident and the country's recent political upheavals. "To see someone that in a moment of difficulty maintains steady nerves is consoling because that is what we need", another Corriere della Sera columnist, Beppe Severgnini, told The New York Times. "Italy wants to have steady nerves because we've already done the cabaret route."

De Falco's exasperated order to Schettino, "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" became a catchphrase in Italy. T-shirts with the phrase were soon printed and sold across the country. It has also been used on Twitter and Facebook.

Honors and memorial

In September 2012, Lloyd's of London awarded the title of Seafarers of the Year recognizing the best professional sailing and ship to the Costa Concordia crew for their exemplary behavior during the shipwreck which saved most of the ship's passengers. In January 2013, the municipalities of Isola del Giglio and Monte Argentario were decorated with the highest Italian Civil award: the Gold Medal of Civil Merit granted by the President of the Republic for the commitment of citizens, administrators and local institutions in the rescue of the survivors of the ship Costa Concordia.

The mayor of Giglio, Sergio Ortelli, and Costa Cruises are in agreement that the large boulder to be removed from the side of the vessel should be suitably positioned on the island as a memorial to the 32 people who lost their lives. Ortelli anticipates the boulder will "most likely" be positioned "close to the harbor entrance so that visitors and locals can see it clearly and pay their respects to the victims. What happened that night is something Giglio will never forget and the rock will be a fitting memorial." The cost of removing the 80-tonne boulder is estimated at £40,000.

On 13 January 2013, a rock was cast into the sea at the site of the disaster with a plaque to commemorate those lost.

Safety regulations

Like all passenger ships, Costa Concordia was subject to two major International Maritime Organization requirements: to perform "musters of the passengers (...) within 24 hours after their embarkation" and to be able to launch "survival craft" sufficient for "the total number of persons aboard ... within a period of 30 minutes from the time the abandon-ship signal is given". Passenger ships must be equipped with lifeboats for 125% of the ship's passenger and crew maximum capacity, among which at least 37% of that capacity must consist of hard lifeboats as opposed to inflatable ones. Launching systems must enable the lowering of the lifeboats under 20° of list and 10° of pitch.

According to Costa Cruises, its internal regulations require all crew members to complete Basic Safety Training, and to perform a ship evacuation drill every two weeks. Every week, all the lifeboats on one side of the ship are launched for a test. Under the regulations in force in 2006 when Costa Concordia was delivered, the ship had to be designed to survive the flooding of two adjacent compartments caused by an 11-meter (36 ft) breach. The damage caused by impact with the rocks left a 36.5-meter tear (120 ft) in the hull.

Notes

In August 2011, Giglio Porto's mayor, Sergio Ortelli, had thanked Captain Schettino for the "incredible spectacle" of a sail-past. Mayor Ortelli has now said, "It's a very nice show to see, the ship all lit up when you see it from the land. This time round it went wrong". In August and September 2010, Costa Pacifica and Costa Allegra, sister ships of Costa Concordia, came within a mile of the island.

Costa Cruises CEO Pier Luigi Foschi explained that the company's ships have computer-programmed routes and "alarms, both visual and sound, if the ship deviates by any reason from the stated route as stored in the computer and as controlled by the GPS", but that these alarms could be "manually" over-ridden.

After certain emergency disembarkations and other events, the cruise ship operator is required to compensate passengers €10,000 each.