Cruise Ship Law

WHITE BEAR LAKE, Minn.—Family members of a Minnesota couple missing in the Italian cruise ship disaster said Tuesday they accept the decision to end the search.

In a blog posting, the children of Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake, Minn., say they are "certainly disheartened to hear the news" but understand.

Italian emergency officials decided to end the search due to the danger to rescue workers. The Heils are the only Americans missing in the Jan. 13 wreck.

"We cannot express enough our sincere gratitude to all those involved in the search and rescue effort. Time and time again, the rescuers faced many perils in the hopes of reuniting the missing with their families. We will be forever grateful for all those who worked so hard for people they did not even know, yet understood how important their job was for those that remained waiting for news," the Heil family said in a statement.

"As we struggle to come to grips with this tragedy, we find comfort knowing Mom and Dad are now in a better place free from any worries. They have always been obedient to God's plan and now we must do the same."

Some 4,200 passengers and crew were on board the Costa Concordia cruise ship when it capsized. Seventeen bodies have been recovered, of which one has not yet been identified. Sixteen people are listed as missing but are presumed dead. The last time anyone was found alive was Jan. 15.

The Heils are active members of the Church of St. Pius X in White Bear Lake, a St. Paul suburb. Church members describe the Heils as quiet, kind people deeply involved in their congregation. Jerry Heil, 69, who retired from a job at the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, would teach religious education classes, and Barbara Heil, 70, would bring baked goods to class members.

Diane Vorwald, 48, who uses a wheelchair, said Jerry Heil would come to her home weekly to administer communion. In the summer, he would bring her fresh pies, she recalled.

"He's done a lot for me. It's a loss to me," Vorwald said.

The Heil family is making plans for a memorial service.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 6:34 PM | Permalink

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Authorities in the Bahamas say a 26-year-old tourist from South Carolina died aboard a Carnival cruise ship over the weekend.

Bahamas police said in a statement Saturday that a man from South Carolina apparently jumped from one floor to another aboard the Carnival Fantasy ship that had docked in Nassau late Friday. He was declared dead at the scene.

Carnival issued a statement saying the guest apparently fell. They said the ship's visit to Freeport on Saturday was canceled due to the investigation.

Officials did not release the man's name or home town.

The ship left Charleston on Wednesday for a five-day Bahamas cruise. It is expected to return to Charleston on Monday.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 6:32 PM | Permalink

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. (AP) — Investigators in Florida do not suspect foul play in the death of a Massachusetts woman who fell down stairs aboard a cruise ship.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office identified the woman Monday as 47-year-old Barbara Wood of Middleboro, Mass.

The fall happened early Monday aboard the Liberty of the Seas operated by Royal Caribbean Cruises. The ship was just returning to Port Everglades from a four-night cruise that included a stop in Cozumel, Mexico.

Sheriff’s investigators said Wood slipped down the stairs and hit her head at about 1:48 a.m. She had just left the ship’s Catacombs nightclub.

The Broward County medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine exactly what caused her death, but it appears accidental, the sheriff’s office said in a statement.

A Royal Caribbean spokeswoman said its medical personnel responded but the woman died before the ship reached port. She said the cruise line was providing support to Wood’s family and friends.

“We will continue to do our very best to assist them,” said spokeswoman Cynthia Martinez.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 6:30 PM | Permalink

Cruise ships' designs are at fault

As a descendent of a long line of ship designers and builders, I shiver when I see each new modern cruise ship hit the waves.

They are designed to have far too many passenger decks above the main deck. This, of course, is to get as many dollars per cruise as possible. This causes the center of gravity to be far too high above the center of buoyancy.

To make matters worse, the upper decks extend widthwise to the edge of the hull, and the upper deck contains the weight of water in swimming pools.

Perhaps ship designers now are not aware of center of gravity and center of buoyancy.

I do not blame the ship's captain in the recent overturned ship accident as much as I blame the ship's designers. This was an accident waiting to happen.

It's a wonder that some of the newer modern cruise ships haven't been overturned by broadside waves during a major storm.

This ship should have been able to hit the reef with considerable damage, but it should not have turned over.

As my wife put it plainly when I explained it to her, the cruise ships are now top-heavy.

Stuart H. McElroy
Colonial Beach

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 5:14 PM | Permalink

January 27, 2012 -- The Italian Association of Tour Operators announced from Rome this morning that passengers who survived the Costa Concordia cruise ship accident on January 13 without physical injury will each be offered $14,460 in compensation. The arrangement was hammered out in a meeting between Costa Cruises and several consumer groups.

The offer from Costa Cruises will provide a lump-sum of $14,460/11,000 euros/£9,199 to be paid to each surviving passenger, regardless of age, and would cover:
~ Damage to and loss of property, baggage and personal effects
~ Psychological trauma from the incident
~ Access to a Costa-provided psychological counseling program for those passengers who request it

The Italian cruise line has also offered to compensate non-injured survivors for:
~ The cost of the cruise, including port taxes as well as any expenses incurred during the cruise
~ Additional travel expenses incurred in returning home
~ Related medical expenses incurred

Costa plans to offer separate arrangements to the families of those who died, as well as any of the approximately 100 passengers who were injured during the grounding and evacuation of the ship and required medical treatment at the scene. The offer, however, has not been extended to over a thousand crewmembers of the Concordia, many of whom have lost their jobs.

Industry experts, as well as some passengers, voice less than positive reaction to the Costa offer.

Carlo Rienzi, president of Codacons, an Italian consumer watchdog group, offered an emphatic directive to the survivors of the Concordia tragedy: "The passengers are absolutely not to accept the compensation offered by Costa," he said. "The distinction made between who has been physically injured and who has not is absurd. This is why we urge every passenger to undergo medical visits, which would confirm any eventual permanent psychological damage. This could give them access to much larger compensations."

Passengers will be able to take legal action against the cruise line if they are unhappy with the amount.
The Associated Press interviewed Claudia Urru of Sardinia, who was aboard the Concordia with her husband and two young sons. Urru told AP that her family has retained a lawyer because they don't know what the real impact of the trauma will be, financial or otherwise. Urru said they are very worried about their children.Her eldest child is already seeing a psychiatrist. "He's terrorized at night. We are all sleeping together. We are having a very, very hard time."

Maritime trial attorney Charles Lipcon, founder of the award-winning maritime law firm Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman, P.A., offers his advice based on over 30 years of experience representing victims internationally in cases against the cruise lines. "This $14,000 offer is inadequate in my opinion. Claims made through an experienced admiralty attorney should be worth substantially more."

Although based in Miami, Florida, the Lipcon firm also represents clients in Europe, Central America & South America, Africa, and Asia, with the ability to handle matters across a wide spectrum of languages, including English, Italian, French, German, Norwegian, Polish, and Spanish.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 2:52 PM | Permalink

By Monica Kim, Condé Nast Traveler magazine

The capsizing of the Costa Concordia has thrown a harsh spotlight on the international cruise industry. Much like the ill-fated Concordia, the $40 billion industry is being portrayed as a ship without a captain by media outlets including The New York Times. The event has also brought renewed attention to an issue that dates back to the Titanic: a faulty system of safety oversight.

The oversight system currently in place
The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) was passed by the maritime nations in 1914, spurred by public outrage over the loss of more than 1,500 people in the sinking of the Titanic. It was an international agreement that established safeguards such as ice patrols and set standard safety procedures, including the number of lifeboats required on a ship. SOLAS is now administered by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), an agency of the United Nations that updates the regulations at an annual convention (the Marine Safety Committee will next meet May 16-25, 2012).

The big problem
Though the IMO sets safety standards, critics have long argued that they are meaningless because the organization has no power to enforce them. Each ship sails under a country's flag, and that country becomes its "flag state." It is the flag state's responsibility to uphold SOLAS regulations (the Costa Concordia sailed under Italy's flag). In fact, in a 2001 speech, the former IMO Secretary General W.A. O'Neil conveyed that not all ships were being held accountable by their flag states, causing problems with safety oversight. "This flag State responsibility is at the core of the process and is applicable to all IMO Members, in equal measure," he said. "However, some of them may lack the skills and resources to carry out their responsibilities effectively."

The attempted solution
So without any jurisdiction over the countries deploying ships, the IMO emphasized the importance of a port's power and duty to inspect any incoming ships and make sure they are up to code. But a similar problem arises here: While all "port states" must check ships according to the basic SOLAS guidelines, it's up to each nation how far above and beyond those guidelines it wants to go. For example, U.S. Coast Guard officials inspect ships sailing through U.S. waters every year (checking lifeboats, structural integrity and watching safety drills to ensure the crew has been trained according to IMO laws); other countries may conduct inspections only every two, three or five years, according to Scott Elpheson, a senior marine inspector with the Cruise Ship National Center of Expertise, the Coast Guard center that trains ship inspectors. "No vessel is going to sail through our waters unless the minimum safety standards are met," says Elpheson.

Based on more than 30 years of research of maritime law, Judge Tom Dickerson, author of Travel Law, claims the U.S. has the best set of safety rules to guard passengers' rights. "When people ask me what kind of cruise they should take, I always say they should take a ship that touches a U.S. port," Dickerson says, though he could not comment on the records of other ports.

What will happen now?
In the end, the "flag states" still have the ultimate say on whether a ship and its crew are fit to sail, and their decisions are not subject to review by any international body. Marine safety advocates are hoping that the Costa Concordia accident might improve the current system. At a recent press conference in London, Christine Duffy, President and CEO of the Cruise Lines International Association, urged the IMO to carefully evaluate the findings from the Costa Concordia investigation to ensure the cruise industry remains as safe as possible. Duffy said, "While there is a great deal still not known about this incident, all of our members recognize the seriousness of these events and want to ensure we apply the lessons learned from this tragic event."

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 5:10 PM | Permalink

Thinking about booking a cruise? The crew may be unprepared.

Talk to cruise-line workers, and you won’t hear much surprise about the chaos during the Costa Concordia disaster. “Those of us who’ve had close calls before knew it was a question of ‘when,’ not ‘if,’” says Shari Cecil, a former merchant marine with Norwegian Cruise Line America. Cecil describes safety drills where crew members had no clue about their responsibilities—some were so nonchalant that they didn’t want to take off their high heels when boarding inflatable safety rafts—and the crew would be handed safety-reminder “cheat sheets” ahead of U.S. Coast Guard inspections. “I passed them out myself,” she says. “We’d even shut down the bar for crew so no one would be hung over.” (A Norwegian Cruise spokeswoman would not comment on specific claims but says “the safety of our guests and crew is, at all times, our No. 1 priority.”)

Former crew of numerous other lines say workers were often too exhausted to pay attention during safety-training sessions, and many didn’t speak enough English to even understand what was being said. Reshma Harilal says that during her eight years as a stateroom attendant with Carnival Cruise Lines, parent company of the ill-fated Concordia, boat-safety drills varied in regularity, and she never once had a native English speaker conduct training. “We all got safety training, but even I had difficulty understanding the English of the officers who trained us, who were always Italian with strong accents.” Carnival referred questions to the Cruise Lines International Association, which responded that “training must be conducted in a language that will be understood by the particular crew members.”

Though most big cruise lines like Carnival have headquarters and home ports in the U.S. and cater to American travelers, they are actually “flagged” in countries like the Bahamas or Panama, staffed mostly by foreigners, and incorporated overseas—thus allowing the companies to pay minimal U.S. taxes and circumvent many domestic labor and safety regulations. “There is a real absence of regulatory oversight or authority over the cruise industry,” says Jim Hall, who was chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board during the Clinton administration.

Yet the multiple investigations now underway into the Concordia crew’s handling of the disaster could change all that. “While I have every confidence in the safety of our vessels and the professionalism of our crews,” Carnival CEO Micky Arison said in a statement, “this review will evaluate all practices and procedures to make sure that this kind of accident doesn’t happen again.”

Those who’ve spent their lives in the industry say some answers are floating right on the surface. One is crew-to-passenger ratios, which have widened over the past few decades from an average of one crew member for every two passengers to one for every three, according to the International Transport Workers’ Fed-eration. Crew members work 12-to-14-hour days, seven days a week, for months at a stretch, with minimal time off. “Half the ship is working in a state of fatigue,” says James Walker, a former cruise-industry lawyer who now represents aggrieved crew. “All types of safety studies have shown if you’re really exhausted you can be impaired to the point of intoxication.” The mostly Asian crew of the Costa Concordia had been on an eight-month shift when the ship capsized after running ashore off the Tuscan island of Giglio. Accommodations were like the Titanic’s steerage section. Only managers had shared cabins, and the others slept in dormitory bunks.

“These are bean-counter dynamics,” says lawyer and author of Unsafe on the High Seas Charles Lipcon, who is in talks with several potential Concordia plaintiffs.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 7:25 PM | Permalink

Detectives are investigating claims of sexual abuse against children alleged to have taken place onboard two of Cunard's most luxurious cruise liners.

It is claimed that a crew member committed assaults on the Queen Mary 2 and its sister vessel the Queen Elizabeth.

Wiltshire Police confirmed an investigation had been launched and they would be contacting all the parents who they needed to speak to.

The force also said it was working closely with the NSPCC and the children's charity had staff available to speak to parents if they wanted counselling or advice.

The Mail on Sunday reported that detectives started the investigation after a tip-off and that the unnamed man, who is under investigation, lived in Wiltshire.

A Wiltshire Police spokeswoman told the newspaper: "We can confirm we are investigating historical allegations of child abuse by an employee of Cunard cruise liners.

"Inquiries continue. The employee no longer works for the company."

And a force spokeswoman said: "We are unable to confirm any details at this time due to an ongoing investigation. However, we would like to reassure parents and the public that the police will be contacting all of the parents they need to speak to in the course of the investigation.

"If you are still concerned and would like some professional advice then you can call the dedicated NSPCC number 0800 980 4502. The NSPCC have advisors available who are aware of this matter and can assist parents if they have concerns about their children."

Cunard is part of the Carnival Corporation group - owners of the Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the coast of Italy - and operates the Queen Mary 2, the Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth cruise liners offering luxurious ocean travel.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 10:15 PM | Permalink

Navy teams conducting rescue efforts are seen January 21, 2012, near the Costa Concordia cruise ship which ran aground off the west coast of Italy at Giglio island.

Italian media say police divers searching the Costa Concordia cruise liner, which ran aground earlier this month off the Italian island of Giglio, have found a hard disk containing data of the voyage, as another body was pulled from the wreckage, bringing the death toll to 12.

Media reports say the disk retrieved late Saturday may shed light on the role Captain Francesco Schettino played in the disaster. Italian prosecutors are investigating Schettino's role or lack thereof in the rescue operations the night of the disaster

Divers also recovered the body of a woman in a life vest found in the corridor of a submerged section of the 114,000-ton ship.

Rescue efforts are continuing for 20 people still missing. Officials say chances are slim for finding survivors. Authorities say they are also working to remove oil from the vessel to prevent an environmental disaster.

Italy's civil protection agency took command at the site Saturday after the government declared a state of emergency on the small island. The agency's head, Franco Gabrielli, said the environment has already been affected.

"I would like this to be clear: this is not an event where nothing happened," Gabrielli said. "This is a story where a 300-meter-long ship carrying 4,000 people on board, plus all these people needed is in the sea. So the contamination of the environment, gentlemen, has already occurred."

Gabrielli added 2,400 tons of fuel is inside the shipwreck and needs to be removed.

The vessel, which is owned by the U.S.-based Carnival Corporation, ran into a rocky reef, which damaged its hull, and caused the vessel to keel over on its side. Carnival Corporation said it would conduct a comprehensive audit of all of its cruise lines to review safety standards and procedures following the Concordia accident.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 10:25 PM | Permalink

There has been a media sensation surrounding the sinking of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy last Friday, perhaps in large part due to the chilling coincidence it happened on the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.

As the days have progressed there have been various conflicting reports and conjecture over how this tragedy happened. We have heard a lot about the Captain, who is fast becoming the villain of the story, ignoring orders not to deviate from the planned route and fleeing the ship before others had got to safety. Certainly he has a lot to answer for. Regardless of his actions however, some people are asking how a modern day cruise ship could capsize so easily. Are there serious design flaws?

When the Titanic was built it was the biggest ship in the world at 882 Ft long and weighing 46,328 tonnes. In the 100 years that have passed ships have become even larger. Where the Concordia is only marginally longer than the Titanic at 952 ft long, it is more than double its weight at 112,000 tonnes.
The top-heavy design

If you look at two pictures of the ships there is one noticeable difference: the height. The Costa Concordia is much taller than the Titanic and this has become a modern trend in cruise ships. Much like high-rise flats, it’s a way of fitting as many people as possible into a confined area. Does this top-heavy design make the ship less stable and more liable to capsize?

The union for maritime professionals, Nautilus International, has been very vocal since the accident stating they had been warning that an accident like this was inevitable. Andrew Linington, from Nautilus, wrote in the Guardian about new cruise ship designs, “The number of decks has been increased, with additional leisure facilities, to increase revenue-earning capacity. Additional swimming pools, coupled with a number of slack tanks when in operational service, further reduce vessel stability.”

However, when we spoke to Mark Staunton-Lambert at the Royal Institute of Naval Architects, he seemed to disagree. He claims, though it appears to be top-heavy, in actuality the weight is properly spaced. He says, “It’s not really a question of how tall they are, it is a question of where their centre of gravity is and their centre of buoyancy.”

Was the top-heavy design of the Costa Concordia at fault?

Apparently, the decks above the hull are relatively light compared to the weight of the hull where the heavy engine lies and the weighted keel below. Moreover, there are regulations set in place that have to be followed regarding the weighting of a ship to ensure stability. Staunton-Lambert says that boats that didn’t pass rigid safety tests and adhere to the rules for safe design, “would be breaking regulations, simple as that. The flag state wouldn’t allow it, the classifications designers wouldn’t allow it and the owner would be at fault in even trying to think about it.”

What are the regulations?

In finding out how stringent the regulations are, we contacted the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), and a spokesperson ensured me that under the international convention for Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), “all ships had to be designed to ensure they can’t capsize during expected operations”. One feature of design that it insists upon is the compartmentalization of the hull. In Chapter 2, clause 1 of SOLAS it states, “the subdivision of passenger ships into watertight compartments must be such that after assumed damage to the ship’s hull the vessel will remain afloat and stable.”

So why did the Costa Concordia not remain stable after its hull was damaged? We will have to wait for the conclusions of the investigation into the accident in due course but it seems odd that the ship, which would have to have abided by the SOLAS convention in order to sail managed to capsize. I asked Staunton-Lambert. He said, “(it depends) where and how big the hole is in the hull and so just how many watertight compartments were flooded. Make a big enough hole and you can sink any ship. There is also a possibility that the grounding of the vessel may have also contributed to the vessel heeling.”
Is it time to reassess cruise ship design?

Interestingly, the Titanic was one of the first ships to use the innovative new design of watertight compartments throughout the hull with the intention that, if two or three compartments were flooded, the ship would still not sink. When the White Star Line were informed that the Titanic was in trouble, the vice president P.A.S Franklin is quoted to have said, “we place absolute confidence in the Titanic. We believe the boat is unsinkable.” By the time he spoke these words the Titanic had sunk.

Of course, it would be foolhardy to believe that a ship could never sink. The sea is a dangerous place and man cannot control it. Having said that, a reassessment of cruise ship design is needed to make sure that another tragedy like this can be prevented in the future.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 11:19 PM | Permalink

"The captain is last to leave a sinking ship": A legally binding rule, or a nautical myth? Last Friday's cruise ship accident off the coast of Italy has once again raised the question.

August 3, 1991: An explosion shakes the engine room of the Greek cruise ship, Oceanos, as it sails off the South African coast. With hundreds of people on board, the ship springs a leak, then begins to list and slowly starts to sink.

At this point, the crew was supposed to jump into action and implement a rescue plan. In the case of the Oceanos, however, most of the crewmembers were the first to leave the ship in the lifeboats, leaving around 200 passengers behind.

Helicopters came to the rescue, and one of the first lifted out of danger was Captain Yiannis Avaranas. Meanwhile, dozens of men, women and children still trapped on the ship were left fearing for their lives.

Later, Avaranas apparently said, "When I give the order to abandon ship, it doesn't matter what time I leave. Abandon is for everybody. If some people want to stay, they can stay."

Chain of command

With his actions, Avaranas was accused of breaking an ancient seafaring law: "The captain is always last to leave a ship in an emergency." But is this an actual regulation, or simply a legend?

Uwe Jenisch, an expert on international maritime law and a professor at the University of Kiel in northern Germany, says there's no clause in any law that specifically states this.

But, he adds, the rule could be deduced from other regulations: "On every ship, one person is in charge. There is a prescribed hierarchy on all ships. The captain alone is responsible at the top. He assumes command. He must direct the evacuation; so long as the ship exists, he is responsible."

Aside from that, it's simply good seamanship for the captain to steer his ship like a father would his family - and that's how the rule developed historically, Jenisch explains. "You can almost speak of customary law. However, it's not written down anywhere," he said.

The International Maritime Organization in London regulates ship security worldwide, but Jenisch says individual countries are responsible for implementing these regulations. In the case of the wrecked Costa Concordia, the Italian government must hold itself to international standards, he adds.

Better by helicopter?

Willi Wittig, vice president of the Federation of German Captains and Ship Officers, also thinks the captain carries the ultimate responsibility for his ship.

But, as Wittig pointed out on German public broadcaster Deutschlandfunk, admittedly this responsibility does not have to be executed from the bridge.

There could be situations, he said, "where perhaps in order to gain perspective, it really would be appropriate to [conduct operations] from off the ship."

Wittig adds, however, that for a captain to leave his ship early, even if it doesn't necessarily make him legally liable, would be highly unusual. In such cases, experts usually refer back to the sailors' code of honor.

In the end, where a captain decides to exercise his duty to his passengers, crew and ship, is up to him. Avaranas, one of the first to be saved by the rescue helicopter, argued this decision allowed him to better conduct the rescue operation.

Though criticized for his decision, Avaranas was acquitted by a London court, and he eventually returned to work as a cruise ship captain.

Holding out for insurance

Abandoned passengers aside, a ship's insurer would be another party that wouldn't be too happy about a captain's early departure. If a ship in distress at sea is abandoned by its crew, then it belongs to those left aboard.

An old seaman's yarn tells of Hendrik Kurt Carlsen, the Danish captain of the US freighter Flying Enterprise, who in 1951 held out all day as the last man on board his ship, which was sinking in the English Channel.

Allegedly, Carlsen stayed on his ship to ensure that the vessel remained the property of the shipping company, a fact still reported by the media decades later.

Cruise ships 'out of control'

Experts today doubt that a captain could direct a cruise ship evacuation by himself, with vessels at their current scale. Speaking to the news agency AFP, Wittig said accidents where cruise ships are involved are so complex that an evacuation can't be controlled by a single person.

Jens Peter Hoffmann, a ship security expert, thinks a smooth evacuation would even be impossible under certain circumstances. "When a ship suddenly tilts 30 to 40 degrees, nothing works anymore," he said recently on the German news program Tagesschau, referring to the Costa Concordia.

In addition, there are often hundreds of personnel on a ship, but generally only 30 to 40 are actual seamen, trained to handle emergencies.

Maritime law expert Jenisch thinks the cruise ship industry today is out of control - ships have simply gotten too big. "It would require a Herculean effort to organize a prompt evacuation of 4,000 to 5,000 people," he said.

Ships with promenade decks, which aid in evacuations, are today in the minority. Cabins are now more likely to have their own balcony, a design feature which impedes access to lifeboats. Larger ships also tend to have many floors, which can further slow an evacuation.

No lessons from Titanic?

Molly Brown honors Titanic captain Jenisch thinks shipbuilding codes need to be reviewed, as current ship designs don't reasonably allow for effective evacuation.

"One notch smaller, one notch saner, one notch more human, that's what's needed," he said.

Jenisch points out that a ship suffering from a big crack in its side, like the Costa Concordia, should not tip over so easily. He says ships should be built to prevent water from spreading throughout the entire vessel.

"Haven't we learned anything from the Titanic?" he asked.

In the case of the infamous "unsinkable" Titanic, which in 1912 struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic, an estimated 1,500 of its 2,200 passengers died in the icy waters. Including, incidentally, Captain Edward J. Smith.

He stayed till the end – and went down with the ship.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 10:29 PM | Permalink

Italian rescue workers suspended operations Wednesday after the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship shifted slightly on the rocks near the Tuscan coast, creating deep concerns about the safety of divers and firefighters searching for the 22 people still missing.

Premier Mario Monti has offered his first comments since the grounding of the cruise ship off Tuscany, saying such a disaster "could and should" have been avoided and assuring that all precautions were being taken to ensure there is no fuel leak.

Monti also thanked the residents of the tiny island of Giglio, which has a wintertime population of about 900, for opening their doors to to the 4,200 cruise ship refugees who washed ashore Friday night when the Costa Concordia grounded and capsized.

In response to a question at a press conference in London, Monti acknowledged Wednesday concern about a potential leak of the 500,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship. He says authorities had made limiting and preventing leaks a priority, as well as caring for victims.

The $450 million Costa Concordia cruise ship had more than 4,200 passengers and crew on board when it slammed into the reef Friday off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after the captain made an unauthorized maneuver.

The bodies of five adult passengers -- four men and one woman, all wearing life jackets -- were discovered in the wreckage Tuesday, raising the death toll to 11. Their nationalities were not immediately released.

Hungary's foreign ministry says one of the bodies recovered from the wreck of the cruise ship that ran aground off Tuscany was a Hungarian man, a musician working aboard the ship.

Ministry spokesman Jozsef Toth said Wednesday the body of Sandor Feher, a 38-year-old violinist, was found inside the wreck of the Costa Concordia and identified by his mother in the Italian city of Grosetto. He is the first victim officially identified.

Jozsef Balog, a pianist who worked with Feher, told the Blikk newspaper that Feher was wearing a lifejacket when he decided to return to his cabin to pack his violin. Feher was last seen on deck en route to a lifeboat.

According to Balog, Feher helped put lifejackets on several crying children before returning to his cabin.

Instruments attached to the ship detected the movements early Wednesday, forcing the search to be suspended even though firefighters who spent the night searching the area above water could not detect the movement. No additional passengers or crew were found.

"As a precautionary measure, we stopped the operations this morning, in order to verify the data we retrieved from our detectors, and understand if there actually was a movement, and if there has been one, how big this was," said Coast Guard Cmdr. Filippo Marini.

Officials said they hope the data from the instruments will reassure them that the ship has resettled, allowing the search to resume. The latest victims were discovered after navy divers exploded holes in the hull of the ship to allow easier access.

In addition to the rescue, much of the focus has been on the cruise ship captain's actions during and after the grounding.

In a dramatic phone conversation released Tuesday, a coast guard official was heard ordering the captain, who had abandoned the ship with his first officers, back on board to oversee the evacuation. But Capt. Francesco Schettino resisted the order, saying it was too dark and the ship was tipping dangerously.

"You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me?" the Coast Guard officer shouted as the captain of the grounded Costa Concordia sat safe in a life raft and frantic passengers struggled to escape after the ship rammed into a reef off the Tuscan coast.

"It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship.' Now I am in charge."

Jailed since the accident, Schettino appeared Tuesday before a judge in Grosseto, where he was questioned for three hours. The judge ordered him held under house arrest, his lawyer told reporters, and Italian media said he had returned to his home near Naples.

Criminal charges including manslaughter and abandoning ship are expected to be filed by prosecutors in coming days. He faces 12 years in prison for the abandoning ship charge alone.

Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, the recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco makes clear he fled before all passengers were off -- and then defied De Falco's repeated orders to go back.

"Listen Schettino," De Falco can be heard shouting in the audio tape. "There are people trapped on board. ... You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?"

But Schettino resisted, saying the ship was listing and he was with his second-in-command in the lifeboat.

"I am here with the rescue boats. I am here. I am not going anywhere. I am here," he said. "I am here to coordinate the rescue."

"What are you coordinating there? Go on board! Coordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?" came the response.

Schettino said he was not refusing, but he still did not return to the ship, saying at one point: "Do you realize it is dark and here we can't see anything?"

De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

The exchange also indicates that Schettino did not know anyone had died, with De Falco telling him at one point: "There are already bodies now, Schettino."

"How many bodies?" Schettino asks in a nervous tone.

"You are the one who has to tell me how many there are!" De Falco barks in response.

Schettino was finally heard on the tape agreeing to reboard. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and police arrested him on land several hours later.

Italian authorities say 24 passengers and four crew members are missing, including the five bodies found Tuesday. They include two Americans, 13 Germans, six Italians, four French, a Hungarian, an Indian and a Peruvian.

Meanwhile, a Dutch company also said it would be ready to begin operations to pump fuel from the ship to avert a potential environmental disaster. Fire department spokesman Luca Cari said once the all clear is given, the plan is to both resume the search and begin work on pumping the fuel out in tandem.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 10:49 PM | Permalink

Tuscany Coast, Italy, Jan. 15, 2012—Rescuers continue to search the submerged wreckage of the Costa Concordia cruise liner that sank on January 13th, only a few hours after it set sail. The Concordia reportedly had approximately 3,000 passengers aboard, of which 123 were Americans. Another 1,000 crew members were also on the ship.

In addition to 5 confirmed deaths, about 60 people were injured and at least 15 people are still missing, including 2 Americans. Two South Korean passengers on their honeymoon were found earlier today trapped in a cabin and a crew member trapped on the 3rd deck was also rescued via airlift.

The ship allegedly hit the rocks off Italy’s Isola del Giglio and sustained a 165-foot gash that capsized the ship onto its port side.

The ship’s captain, Franchesco Schettino, is being detained for allegedly causing a shipwreck and abandoning the ship before all his passengers had escaped, in addition to manslaughter. Quoted by Italian news agency ANSA, Francesco Verusio, the prosecutor in the city of Grosseto where Captain Schettino was arrested, attributed the accident to a “reckless maneuver.” Several Italian newspapers said the captain may have steered the ship closer to the coast to allow passengers a better view of the island’s lights. The ship capsized only 150 yards from the shore.

Today’s broadcast of “CBS Sunday Morning” cited an additional issue that may have added to the chaos of the evacuation effort. The Concordia apparently didn’t have its “muster”, a dry-run safety drill of emergency evacuation procedures, on January 13th once it set sail. Instead it had the drill “scheduled” for the following morning, the day after the accident occurred, leading many to conclude that the passengers hadn’t been properly prepared for this emergency evacuation.

The CBS report also noted that the ship was allegedly designed to survive this type of damage and provide watertight safety, suggesting that the cruise ship’s design may also have contributed to what a spokesman for Costa’s parent, Carnival Cruise Lines, has dubbed a “terrible tragedy.”

Charles Lipcon, the seasoned maritime lawyer and founder of Lipcon, Margulies, Alsina & Winkleman, P.A., recommended these time-sensitive next steps for the Concordia's affected passengers and their families:

~ Victims and their families should immediately contact an experienced maritime lawyer, especially one who handles cruise line cases.”

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 6:35 PM | Permalink

GIGLIO, Italy — The captain of the cruise ship that capsized aground near an Italian island, killing at least five people, may have caused the accident by taking the ship too close to the island’s rocky shore, the owner of the vessel said on Sunday, as rescue workers extracted three survivors and two bodies from the wreck.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, 52, of Naples, Italy, was detained for questioning by the Italian police on charges of manslaughter, failure to offer assistance and abandonment of the ship.

On Sunday, Costa Cruises, the ship’s owner, issued a statement saying that “there may have been significant human error” by Captain Schettino that caused the ship, the Costa Concordia, to ground on a rocky outcropping near this resort island on Friday.

“The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and in handling the emergency, the captain appears not to have followed standard Costa procedures,” the statement said.

The statement appeared to diverge from the company’s comments on Saturday when it said that the Costa Concordia had followed the normal course it follows “52 times a year.” The company had also commended Captain Schettino, saying he “immediately understood the severity of the situation” and “initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation.”

Before he was detained by the authorities, Captain Schettino told Italian television that the ship hit a reef that was not on its navigation charts.

About 70 people were injured when the ship capsized, just as a late-seating dinner had begun on Friday night.

Accounts from survivors and witnesses raised questions about whether the ship had veered off course and suggested that the crew was ill-prepared for an emergency.

With 17 of the ship’s 4,200 passengers still listed as missing, rescue workers searched the waterlogged luxury liner on Sunday for survivors and found three, including a couple on their honeymoon. The couple was found inside a cabin, said Luca Cari, a spokesman for the Italian fire brigade that rescued them.

Later, firefighters rescued the ship’s purser by helicopter, hoisting him strapped to a stretcher. The purser, Manrico Giampedroni, 57, from the northwestern region of Liguria, had a broken leg.

Divers searching submerged cabins found the bodies of two elderly men, one from Spain and one from Italy, both wearing life jackets, said Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro, a coast guard spokesman. The deaths brought the number of people confirmed dead to five.

Among the people still missing were 11 passengers and 6 crew members, said Enrico Rossi, president of the Tuscany region. The United States State Department said Sunday that 120 Americans had been on board and all but 2 had been accounted for.

Through the day, Italian fire brigades circled the massive ship, which lay on its side like a beached whale, with a wide gash just below the waterline and a rock jutting through its hull. The firefighters tapped the hull and listened for any responses from people trapped inside.

Rescuers were focusing their efforts on the part of the ship still above water. “The likelihood that we can find somebody alive in the underwater cabins is very low, so we are aiming at the ones possibly trapped above water,” said Mr. Cari, the fire spokesman.

So far, his crews had searched only a quarter of that area, parts of which are blocked by debris. He said the sunken portion of the ship would be inspected through the porthole windows during the night by divers with flashlights.

On the tiny island of Giglio, some residents had tended to survivors through the night on Friday, offering hot tea and dry clothes. At Mass on Sunday morning at the Giglio Porto church, a priest placed a life jacket, a rope and a rescue helmet on the altar to honor the dead and missing.

“Giglio will no longer be the same,” said Don Lorenzo, the priest. “Let’s us all pray together now for our souls.”

While the investigation continued, residents, many of whom are sailors, had little doubt about the cause of the accident, saying the captain had tried to thread a narrow passage between the rocks that was too small for the 114,500-ton ship.

“We used to get kind of close to the shore to show off its beauty, to entertain passengers,” said Demetrio Mattera, 75, a former cruise ship sailor here. “But never so close.”

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 8:43 AM | Permalink

The confirmed death toll from the capsizing of Carnival Corp.’s (CCL) Costa Concordia off Italy’s Tuscan coast rose to five today as rescuers continued to search for 15 people still missing. Three people were found alive in the capsized cruise liner.

The ship’s captain has been arrested and accused of manslaughter, abandoning the vessel and causing the shipwreck following the incident on Jan. 13. Two bodies were found aboard the ship today, said Stefano Giannelli, a fire department spokesman, adding to two French tourists and a Peruvian crewmember who are also known to have perished.

About 60 people were also injured after the ship carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew hit submerged rocks near the island of Giglio in the Tyrrhenian Sea. Many of the survivors spoke of the panic on board when the ship began listing, with some likening the events to those in the film “Titanic.”

Rescue workers evacuated passengers and crew to the nearest mainland port, Santo Stefano, Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said on its website. Rescuers found two South Korean passengers in a cabin inside the ship at 3 a.m. local time today and they saved a crewmember after voices were heard on the third deck, Giannelli, said.

About 60 firemen are deployed in the search operation that will continue “all night long,” he said. Rescuers have searched one third of the ship, Giannelli said.
Prosecutor Probe

Captain Francesco Schettino is being detained for allegedly abandoning the ship “since we know he was in the harbor about midnight,” Francesco Verusio, the chief prosecutor in the city of Grosseto, said in an interview. The ship’s first officer is also being probed, he said. Dozens of people have been questioned so far, the prosecutor said.

Gianni Onorato, general manager of the Costa Crociere line, said the ship had embarked about 7 p.m. from Civitavecchia near Rome on a trip that was scheduled to include stops at ports in France and Spain. The vessel hit the rocks and Captain Schettino, after assessing the damage, decided to secure the ship and gave the evacuation order, Onorato told news channel SkyTG24 in an interview. A Costa Crociere spokesman confirmed the comments.

The number of missing may be as low as 15, including six crewmembers, according to the Tuscany Region Governor Enrico Rossi. Among them are an 84-year-old Italian and a 5-year-old child, la Repubblica said on its website. The U.S. Embassy in Italy said two of the 120 U.S. passengers are still unaccounted for, according to a statement posted on Twitter today.
‘Terrible Tragedy’

“This is a terrible tragedy and we are deeply saddened,” Carnival said yesterday in a statement. Carnival, based in Miami, is the world’s largest cruise line owner, with brands such as Cunard, Princess Cruises and Costa.

The ship probably was on a wrong route, the prosecutor said. The so-called black box was retrieved, Verusio said. Investigators have determined the ship was only about 150 meters (492 feet) from the coast when it hit the rocks, Ansa said.

Captain Schettino said he was the last one to leave the ship, according to an interview broadcast by TGCOM24 before his arrest. The rocks weren’t identified on the navigation maps, Schettino said. The ship was at least 300 meters from the island when it hit the rocks, he said.

The accident was due to a “reckless maneuver,” news Ansa quoted Verusio as saying. Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera said the captain may have steered the boat closer to the coast to allow passengers a better view of the island’s lights.
Scuba Divers

A scuba-diving unit arrived from Genoa today to search for survivors who may be inside the ship, Lieutenant Colonel Italo Spalvieri of the Livorno Air-Naval Rescue unit said in a telephone interview.

Television images broadcast today showed the Costa lying on its starboard side, a portion of the ship underwater and its orange smokestack close to the waterline. The ship was built in 2006 and has 1,500 cabins, according to Costa Crociere’s website. The vessel also had a docking accident at Palermo’s harbor in 2008 because of strong winds, newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore reported.

The ship hit the rocks about 9:45 p.m. as dinner was being served, sending plates and glasses crashing, Italian media reported. Passengers said the situation on board was reminiscent of the film “Titanic,” as the vessel tilted, electrical power was lost and people rushed to find lifeboats. Several passengers interviewed by Italian television channels including SkyTG24 said they were initially told by crew that there only was an electrical problem and it wasn’t an emergency.
‘Roaring Sound’

Cabin steward Deodato Ordona told the British Broadcasting Corp. there was a “roaring sound” before the ship began to shift. He said the vessel leaned to the left and then the right before the captain announced an order to abandon ship.

There were 3,200 passengers on the ship, including 1,000 Italians, 500 Germans, 160 French and 250 from North America, Costa Crociere said. Emergency procedures began immediately and were impeded by the ship’s listing, Costa Crociere said in a statement. The cause of the incident can’t be confirmed, the company said.

The first coast guard boats arrived within 10 minutes of the accident, Air-Naval Rescue Lieutenant Colonel Spalvieri said by phone. The vessel is carrying a large amount of fuel and Costa Crociere has been ordered to start procedures to remove it, according to Cosimo Nicastro, a spokesman for the Italian Coast Guard. The Giglio island is part of the biggest marine park in Europe. Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli said in an e-mailed statement that there’s no risk of an oil spill.
Launching the Lifeboats

Fabio Costa, a shop worker on the boat, said it took the crew a long time to launch the lifeboats because the vessel had listed so much.

“We just saw a huge rock, that was probably where the ship hit, and people were having huge trouble trying to get on the lifeboats,” Costa told the BBC. “So at that point we didn’t know what to do, so it took hours for people to get off the ship. It was easier for people to jump into the sea because we were on the same level as that water.

“So some people pretty much just decided to swim as they were not able to get on the lifeboats,” he said.
‘Felt Like’ Titanic

Rose Metcalf, a 22-year-old British dancer who had been performing on the ship and who was winched to safety by a helicopter, told her father it had “felt like the sinking of the Titanic.”

“The ship rolled over on its side, so they had to get a fire hose which they strung between the railings to stop them falling overboard,” Philip Metcalf told the broadcaster in an interview after speaking with his daughter.

“She thought she’d have to make a jump for it as it was dark and cold, like the sinking of the Titanic, but the helicopter then winched her off,” Metcalf said.

The vessel set sail at 7 p.m. Jan. 13 from Civitavecchia near Rome, Costa Crociere said. Its itinerary was to include calls at the Mediterranean ports of Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.

Italian newspapers said that when the vessel was christened in 2006 the champagne bottle didn’t break against the side of the ship, supposedly an omen of bad luck.

Carnival owns 100 ships and has 10 on order. Its brands also include Carnival, Holland America Line, Seabourn, AIDA Cruises, Ibero Cruises and P&O Cruises. The Costa cruise line has 15 ships and sails worldwide.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 8:34 AM | Permalink

It’s the fourth case of a cruise ship sexual assault on an underage girl to hit the news since November. Fabian Palmer, 25, a Royal Caribbean employee, has admitted to having sex with a 14-year-old girl while she was on a cruise with her family during Christmas week.

Palmer has been accused of luring the girl into a men’s locker room on board the Adventure of the Seas cruise ship and having sex with her. He told fellow employees that he thought the girl was 16 years old.
He reportedly first befriended the girl and her family before allegedly raping her. The assault was interrupted when another employee knocked on the locker room door. According to the Baltimore Sun, Palmer has now been indicted on a single count of sex abuse of a minor.
Palmer was born in Jamaica and lives in Malaga, Spain.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 8:24 PM | Permalink

PORTO SANTO STEFANO, Italy - The first course had just been served in the Costa Concordia's dining room when the wine glasses, forks and plates of cuttlefish and mushrooms smashed to the ground. At the magic show in the theater, the trash cans tipped over and the theater curtains turned on their side. Then the hallways turned upside down, and passengers crawled on bruised knees through the dark. Others jumped alone into the cold Mediterranean Sea.

The terrifying, chaotic escape from the luxury liner was straight out of a scene from "Titanic" for many of the 4,000-plus passengers and crew on the cruise ship, which ran aground off the Italian coast late Friday and flipped on its side with a 160-foot (50-meter) gash in its hull. At least three bodies were recovered. But late Saturday, nearly 24 hours after the capsizing, rescuers had reason to celebrate: a South Korean couple on their honeymoon responded in the door-to-door search of cabins and were brought to safety in good condition, officials said.

Close to 40 others remained unaccounted for.

The Friday the 13th grounding of the Concordia was one of the most dramatic cruise ship accidents in recent memory. It immediately raised a host of questions: Why did it hit a reef so close to the Tuscan island of Giglio? Did a power failure cause the crew to lose control? Did the captain — under investigation on manslaughter allegations — steer it in the wrong direction on purpose? And why did crew members tell passengers they weren't in danger until the boat was listing perilously to the side?

The delay made lifeboat rescue eventually impossible for some of the passengers, some of whom jumped into the sea while others waited to be plucked to safety by helicopters.

"We had to scream at the controllers to release the boats from the side," said Mike van Dijk, from Pretoria, South Africa. "It was a scramble, an absolute scramble."

Van Dijk said the boat he was on — on the upended port side — got stuck along the ship's wall as it came down.

"It was a hell of a sound, the crunching," he said.

Costa Crociera SpA, which is owned by the U.S.-based cruise giant Carnival Corp., defended the actions of its crew and said it was cooperating with the investigation. Carnival Corp. issued a statement expressing sympathy that didn't address the allegations of delayed evacuation.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, was detained for questioning by prosecutors, investigating him for suspected manslaughter, abandoning ship before all others, and causing a shipwreck, state TV and Sky TV said. Prosecutor Francesco Verusio was quoted by the ANSA news agency as saying Schettino deliberately chose a sea route that was too close to shore.

Schettino's lawyer, Bruno Leporatti told the agency: "I'd like to say that several hundred people owed their life to the expertise that the commander of the Costa Concordia showed during the emergency."

France said two of the victims were Frenchmen; a Peruvian diplomat identified the third victim as Tomas Alberto Costilla Mendoza, 49, a crewman from Peru. Some 30 people were injured, at least two seriously.

Late Saturday, firefighters who had been searching the Costa Concordia for dozens who remained missing heard distinct shouts, "one in a male voice, other in a female voice" coming from the cruiser liner, Coast guard officer Marcello Fertitta said.

They turned out to be a honeymooning South Korean couple, who were brought out in good condition, Prato fire Cmdr. Vincenzo Bennardo told The Associated Press from the scene.

A risky search by divers of the sunken, water-filled half of the ship for the missing was suspended at darkness Saturday night.

The trapped survivors were found more than 24 hours after the ship ran aground and lurched violently.

Passengers described a scene of frantic confusion. Silverware, plates and glasses crashed down from the dining room's upper floor balcony, children wailed and darkened hallways upended themselves. Panicked passengers slipped on broken glass as the lights went out while crew members insisted nothing serious was wrong.

"Have you seen 'Titanic'? That's exactly what it was," said Valerie Ananias, 31, a schoolteacher from Los Angeles who was traveling with her sister and parents. They all bore dark red bruises on their knees from the desperate crawl they endured along nearly vertical hallways and stairwells, trying to reach rescue boats.

"We were crawling up a hallway, in the dark, with only the light from the life vest strobe flashing," her mother, Georgia Ananias, 61 said. "We could hear plates and dishes crashing, people slamming against walls."

She choked up as she remembered the moment when an Argentine couple handed her their 3-year-old daughter, unable to keep their balance as the ship listed to the side.

"He said,'Take my baby,"' Georgia Ananias said, covering her mouth with her hand. "I grabbed the baby. But then I was being pushed down. I didn't want the baby to fall down the stairs. I gave the baby back. I couldn't hold her."

Whispered her daughter Valerie: "I wonder where they are."

The Ananias family was among the last passengers off the ship, left standing on the upended port side. They were forced to exit from a still-attached lifeboat that became impossible to use once the ship began to tip over; so they climbed a ladder dropped too them off a deck and shimmied down a rope to a waiting rescue vessel.

"We thought we were dying four times," Valerie said, recounting the most terrifying moments in their escape.

CBS News correspondent Allen Pizzey spoke with the Lukes family from Girdwood, Alaska, who were on the ship.

"The boat was listing," said Nate Lukes. "There's water coming on board, there's something wrong if it's tipping like that. So we went to the high side. But that was chaotic in the hallways, people with lifejackets on, the power was out."

"People were panicking and yelling and pushing," said Cary Lukes. "They wanted to be the first on the lifeboat. We didn't get on the first lifeboats and then they were gone and there we stood."

Capsized ship survivors tell harrowing stories

A top Costa executive, Gianni Onorato, said Saturday the Concordia's captain had the liner on its regular, weekly route when it struck a reef. Italian coast guard officials said the circumstances were still unclear, but that the ship hit an unknown obstacle.

Despite some early reports that the captain was dining with passengers when his ship crashed into the reef, he was on the bridge, Onorato said.

"The ship was doing what it does 52 times a year, going along the route between Civitavecchia and Savona," a shaken-looking Onorato told reporters on Giglio, a popular vacation isle off Italy's central west coast.

He said the captain was an 11-year Costa veteran and that the cruise line was cooperating with Italian investigators to find out what went wrong.

Malcolm Latarche, editor of maritime magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions, said a loss of power coupled with a failure of backup systems could have caused the crew to lose control.

"I would say power failure caused by harmonic interference and then it can't propel straight or navigate and it hit rocks," Latarche said.

Many passengers complained the crew didn't give them good directions on how to evacuate and once the emergency became clear, delayed lowering the lifeboats until the ship was listing too heavily for many to be released.

Several other passengers said crew members told passengers for 45 minutes that there was a simple "technical problem" that had caused the lights to go off.

Seasoned cruisers knew better and went to get their life jackets from their cabins and report to their "muster stations," the emergency stations each passenger is assigned to, they said.

Passengers said they had never participated in an evacuation drill, although one had been scheduled for Saturday. The cruise began on Jan. 7.

Miriam Vitale, a hostess on the cruise liner who disembarked earlier this week in Palermo, told SkyTG24 the ship conducts a drill every 15 days. She said that since passengers on the Concordia embark or disembark every day, some passengers could miss it depending on which day they begin the trip.

Surviving passengers huddled under woolen or aluminum blankets in a middle school on the Italian mainland of Porto Santo Stefano, where passengers were ferried early Saturday from Giglio. Some wore their life preservers, their shoeless feet were covered with aluminum foil.

Christine Hammer, from Bonn, Germany, shivered near the harbor as she waited for a bus to take her somewhere — she didn't know where. She wore her gray cashmere sweater and a silk scarf with a large pair of hiking boats loaned to her by an islander after she lost her shoes in the scramble. Her passport, credit cards and phone were left in her cabin.

Hammer, 65, said the ship lurched to the side as she ate an appetizer of cuttlefish, sauteed mushrooms and salad on her first night aboard her first-ever cruise, a gift to her and her husband, Gert, from her local church where she volunteers.

"We heard a crash. Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous," she said.

Alan and Laurie Willits from Wingham, Ontario, celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary, said they were watching the magic show in the ship's main theater when they felt an initial jolt, as if from a severe steering maneuver. That was followed a few seconds later by a "shudder" that tipped trash cans over.

The subsequent listing of the ship made the theater curtains seem like they were standing on their side.

"And then the magician disappeared," Laurie Willits said.

Miami-based Carnival Corp. issued a brief statement Saturday.

"Our hearts go out to everyone affected by the grounding of the Costa Concordia and especially the loved ones of those who lost their lives. They will remain in our thoughts and prayers in the wake of this tragic event."

Costa Cruises said about 1,000 Italian passengers were onboard, as well as more than 500 Germans, about 160 French and about 1,000 crew members. The State Department said about 126 U.S. citizens were onboard.

Coast guard Cmdr. Francesco Paolillo said the exact circumstances of the accident were still unclear, but that the first alarm aboard went off about 10:30 p.m., about three hours after the Concordia had begun its voyage from the port of Civitavecchia to Savona, in northwestern Italy. No SOS was sent, he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.

The vessel "hit an obstacle," that tore a 50-meter (160 feet) gash in the side of the ship and started taking on water, Paolillo said. It wasn't clear if the obstacle was a jagged, rocky reef or something else, he said.

The captain, Paolillo said, then tried to steer his ship toward shallow waters, near Giglio's small port, to make evacuation by lifeboat easier.

Five helicopters from the coast guard, navy and air force took turns airlifting survivors still aboard and ferrying them to safety.

Costa Cruises said the Costa Concordia was sailing on a weeklong cruise across the Mediterranean Sea that began Jan. 7 in Savona with stops at Civitavecchia, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo.

The Concordia had a previous accident in Italian waters, ANSA reported. In 2008, when strong winds buffeted Palermo, the cruise ship banged against the Sicilian port's dock, and suffered damage but no one was injured, ANSA said.

Read more:

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 1:16 PM | Permalink

Rome, Italy -- The Italian captain of the cruise ship that ran aground -- killing three people and injuring 20 more -- was arrested late Saturday and is being investigated for abandoning ship and manslaughter, said a local prosecutor in Grosetto, Italy.

Abandoning ship is the more serious of the potential charges, authorities said.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, had been earlier interviewed by investigators in Porto Santo Stefano about what happened when the 4,200-passenger Costa Concordia struck rocks in shallow water off Italy's western coast, said officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno.

Authorities were looking at why the ship didn't hail a mayday during the accident near the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night, officials said. The ship is owned by Genoa-based Costa Cruises.

"At the moment we can't exclude that the ship had some kind of technical problem, and for this reason moved towards the coast in order to save the passengers, the crew and the ship. But they didn't send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing," Del Santo said prior to the announcement of the arrest.

Giuseppe Orsina, a spokesman with the local civil protection agency, said 43 to 51 people were missing, though authorities are reviewing passenger lists to confirm the exact figure.

"These people could be still on the island of Giglio, in private houses or in hospitals," Orsina said.

The coast guard said 50 to 70 people could be missing.

Authorities said earlier Saturday they believed everyone was accounted for, but that they did not have a definitive list of names.

"Fear and panic are comprehensible in a ship long over 300 meters with over 4,000 passengers," Del Santo said. "We can confirm that the ship has a breach on the hull of about 90 meters, and that the right side of it is completely under water."

Two French tourists and a crew member from Peru were killed, Port authorities in Livorno said. One of the victims was a 65-year-old woman who died of a heart attack, according to authorities.

A surviving crew member, Rosalyn Rincon, 30, of Blackpool, England, said she wanted to know why the cruise ship was sailing so close to shore. She described a harrowing grounding of the vessel, whose tilting and rising water evoked the film "Titanic," she said.

"I'm pretty much angry, and I want to know why we were so close to the coast," said Rincon, who works as a dancer on the ship and was entertaining passengers by performing a trick inside a box with a magician when the accident occurred.

Nautilus International, a maritime employees trade union, called the accident a "wake-up call" to regulators.

"Nautilus is concerned about the rapid recent increases in the size of passenger ships -- with the average tonnage doubling over the past decade," said Nautilus general secretary Mark Dickinson in a statement. "Many ships are now effectively small towns at sea, and the sheer number of people onboard raises serious questions about evacuation."

The ship was 2.5 miles off route when it struck a rocky sandbar, according to the Italian Coast Guard. Local fishermen say the island coast of Giglio is known for its rocky sea floor.

Gianni Onorato, president of Costa Cruises, expressed "deep sorrow for this terrible tragedy," but said the cruise line was unable to answer all the questions that authorities are now investigating.

"On the basis of the initial evidence - still preliminary - Costa Concordia, under the command of Master Francesco Schettino, was sailing its regularly scheduled itinerary from Civitavecchia to Savona, Italy, when the ship struck a submerged rock," Onorato said in a statement before the announcement of the captain's announcement.

"Captain Schettino, who was on the bridge at the time, immediately understood the severity of the situation and performed a maneuver intended to protect both guests and crew, and initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation," he continued.

"Unfortunately, that operation was complicated by a sudden tilting of the ship that made disembarkation difficult," Onorato said.

Some passengers fell into the chilly waters during the rescue, Italy's ANSA news agency reported.

The huge ship, which was lying on its side in shallow water Saturday evening, was carrying about 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew members when it ran aground around dinner time.

Initial reports suggested as many as six people had been killed, but it was unclear why the number dropped. About 1,500 of the people aboard the ship were on their way home Saturday, the Civil Protection Authority said.

Passengers described how the lights went out and it then became clear the ship had hit something, prompting scenes of chaos.

Laurie Willits from Ontario, who was watching a magic show with her husband at that moment, told CNN: "We heard a scraping noise to the left of the ship and then my husband said 'we're sliding off our seats.'"

The couple ran to their cabin to get coats and life jackets before making their way to a lifeboat. Emergency instructions in English were hard to hear, Willits said.

Panic spread as people scrambled to find lifeboats in the dark as the ship quickly leaned to one side. Access to some lifeboats was hampered by the ship's tilt into the water, adding to the confusion.

Willits and her husband, who managed to get into a lifeboat about an hour to 90 minutes after the alarm was raised, watched from a pier on the island as the ship slowly sank until it was at an almost 90 degree angle in the water.

"I'm exhausted, I haven't had any sleep, I'm hungry," Willits said, but added that she was relieved to have been able to call her family thanks to the help of people on the island.

The coast guard said three helicopters were used to rescue some passengers from the ship.

Adm. Ilarione Dell'Anna, head of coastal authorities for the port city of Livorno, said an investigation is under way.

"There has probably been a technical blackout," he said. "The ship was dangerously near the coast. We worked all night in a state of maximum emergency.

"Fortunately the sea conditions have helped us, otherwise -- given the high number of people to rescue, 4,231 -- we could have had a completely different scenario: a real tragedy."

Many of those rescued in the early hours were taken to small churches and other buildings around the island for shelter. Some were still wearing the pajamas and slippers they had on as the ship went down, as they waited for help Saturday morning at reception centers set up on the island.

Costa said it was focusing on the final stages of the emergency operation and helping passengers and crew return home.

"It is a tragedy that deeply affects our company. Our first thoughts go to the victims and we would like to express our condolences and our closeness to their families and friends," Costa said on its website.

The Concordia, built in 2006, was on a Mediterranean cruise from Rome with stops in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallorca, Cagliari and Palermo, according to the cruise line. It was unclear how far into the cruise the grounding occurred.

Most of the passengers on board were Italian, as well as some French and German citizens. CNN affiliate America Noticias, in Peru, said a group of 32 Peruvians were also onboard. Brazil's state-run Agencia Brasil said 53 Brazilians were on the cruise ship: 47 passengers and six crew members, according to the foreign ministry. An estimated 126 Americans were also on board, according to the U.S. State Department. There were no reports of injured Americans.

The United Kingdom's Foreign and Commonwealth Office was working with Italian authorities to identify British nationals on the cruise, a spokesman said.

Another Costa ship was involved in a deadly 2010 accident when the Costa Europa crashed into a pier in Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh during stormy weather, killing three crew members.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 8:40 AM | Permalink

MIAMI — Veterans of the cruise line industry can’t remember an accident more dramatic than the one that captivated the world’s attention this weekend.

An Italian ocean liner capsized onto its side, half the ship submerged in the shallows of the Mediterranean Sea. The Costa Concordia had rolled so far over that a steam stack looked nearly eye-level in photos taken from the shores of a rugged Tuscan island where passengers fled after the grounding. Three passengers were confirmed dead, with dozens missing amid reports of people leaping from the ship as it listed toward 80 degrees.

The images from the half-sunken Concordia present a major challenge to South Florida’s cruise-line industry, which attracts millions of tourists to the region and employs thousands of workers. Carnival, Miami-Dade’s eighth largest private employer, owns Costa, making the financial fall-out a direct concern for the world’s largest cruise company and its 3,500 local employees.

But beyond the sinking of a major ship and the deaths of at least three passengers, the unfolding Concordia incident injects a new worry for those considering any vacation at sea.

"Obviously there’s going to be that gut reaction, like after Sept. 11,’’ said Simon Duval, a South Florida-based home agent with Expedia CruiseShipCenters. "I think there’s going to be a short-term hit to the industry…I pray it’s not long-term.’’

The Concordia incident delivered a particularly disturbing narrative. The crew hadn’t held evacuation drills by the time the vessel with 3,200 passengers struck an underwater rock two hours into the voyage along Italy’s western coast. Images showed the ship resting what looked like a stone’s throw from the Isola del Giglio, a lighthouse framing many of the photos.

Passengers described chaos after the ship struck ground around 10 p.m. and began leaning toward the sea. One couple recalled a mother handing them an infant as the boat turned. With the ship listing so severely, some life rafts couldn’t be lowered. By Saturday evening, reports had three passengers dead, 70 missing and the captain under arrest on suspicion of abandoning ship.

Carnival and Costa communicated only in press releases well into Saturday evening. "This is a terrible tragedy and we are deeply saddened," Carnival said in a statement. Costa’s president Gianni Oporto’s statement said in part: "We are not at this time able to answer questions because the authorities are trying, with our cooperation, to understand the reasons for the incident."

Smaller cruise ships have sunk entirely, and capsized ferries have taken far more lives. In 1998, Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas hit a reef off St. Maarten , ripping a 160-foot hole in the hull, forcing the captain to intentionally ground the ship to prevent it from sinking.

But industry veterans couldn’t remember a time when a vessel as large as the 950-foot Concordia came as close to sinking, or came to rest in such an eerie position. "Basically this is everyone’s biggest nightmare,’’ said Carrie Finley-Baja, who used to sell cruise vacations and now runs the website cruisebuzz.com "I heard it all the time. There is this huge fear of being stranded in the water."

Finley-Baja and other industry watchers said they doubted the Concordia incident would cause a noticeable dent in cruise-line bookings. Most voyages are booked months in advance, so the initial fear will have a chance to subside before affecting actual travel plans. While well-known in Europe, the Costa line has a low profile in the United States and so shouldn’t impact Carnival, Princess, Norwegian, Celebrity and other major brands sailing domestically.

And given past reactions to transportation calamities, experts and industry executives see travelers as predictably resilient.

"Look, airplanes crash. And that same day, people get on airplanes,’’ said Stuart Chiron, a frequent television commentator on the industry who runs the website cruiseguy.com. "This is a tragic, freak accident. People are boarding cruise ships all around the world today being fully aware of what happened in Italy."

Travel agent Bob Zweig, who runs a Cruise Planners franchise out of his Cooper City home, predicted only a short period of shock. In the 30 days after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack, the company he worked with lost 50 percent of its business. Within three to four months, all of the cancellations had rebooked their vacations, he said.

Dwain Wall, senior vice president and general manager of franchise travel agent network Cruise One, said the deaths and dramatic photos are bound to scare off some people who considering their first cruise. But he predicted the overall track record of the industry will prevail in most travelers’ minds.

"I don’t want to minimize the situation and the lives that have been lost,’’ said Wall, who Saturday was trying to determine the whereabouts of the eight clients his 1,200-agent company had booked aboard the Costa ship. "But we do have the utmost confidence in the cruise lines...They’re probably the most concerned about safety of anyone.’’

Agents interviewed said they had had no cancellations for future cruise bookings this weekend. Wall said when Cruise One customers booked on future Concordia voyages called his agency Saturday, they were mostly asking how the incident would affect their trips.

"We don’t expect it to have any long-term impact on business,’’ he added. "Educated travelers do understand that in rare situations tragedy happens.’’

The Concordia incident hits during a soft patch for the industry overall. Higher fuel costs and European economic woes have cut into profits, with Carnival and Royal Caribbean lowering their forecasts in recent months. That may have been turning around. In an interview last week, Scott Knutson, head of North American sales for Concordia, said advance bookings were up for 2012.

Costa, Carnival’s third-largest cruise line, maintains a small sales staff in a Hollywood office. Carnival purchased the company in 1997. While primarily based in the Mediterranean, the Italian cruise line does move some ships to Florida for winter Caribbean voyages. On Wednesday, the Costa Atlántico is schedule to set sail from Miami to Mexico on a 10-day voyage.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/14/v-print/2590198/foundering-of-italian-cruise-ship.html#storylink=cpy

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 8:37 AM | Permalink

Earlier Saturday Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, had told Italian television that the vessel had hit a rocky spur while cruising in waters which, according to the charts, should have been safe.

"As we were navigating at cruise speed, we hit a rocky spur," he told Tgcom24 television station:

"According to the nautical chart, there should have been sufficient water underneath us," he added.

Holidaymakers from Britain, France, Italy and Germany were forced to flee the 1,500-cabin Costa Concordia in lifeboats when it hit a reef less than two hours after leaving port.

Some leapt overboard and swam to shore as the ship started to sink into the waters near the island of Giglio, off the Tuscan coast.

Francesco Paolillo, the coastguard spokesman, said that at least three bodies were retrieved from the sea. Local officials are also reporting that 69 people are still unaccounted for.

By this morning, the ship was lying virtually flat off Giglio's coast, its starboard side submerged in the water.

Pregnant women and young children were among the 3,200 passengers and 1,000 crew on board.

Passengers' dinner on Friday night was interrupted by a loud boom at around 8pm and a voice over the loud-speaker system initially claimed that the ship was suffering an electrical failure, before ordering everyone on-board to don life-jackets.

"It was just like something out of the Titanic," one woman said. "You could tell straight away that the ship had hit something and no way was it an electrical fault."

Fabio Costa, who worked in a shop on the stricken cruise ship, said a number of people were jumping into the sea to swim ashore.

Describing the moment the boat began to list, he told the BBC: "All of a sudden we felt the boat hitting something and everything just started to fall, all the glasses broke and everybody started to panic and run.

"We could only feel that the boat had hit something, we had no idea how serious it was until we got out and we looked through the window and we saw the water getting closer and closer.

"Everything happened really, really fast and we saw the water coming in."

Mr Costa said that once the emergency alarm was set off people started to panic and push each other in a bid to get into lifeboats.

"A lot of people were falling down the stairs and were hurt because things fell on them," he added.

The worker said it took the crew a long time to launch the lifeboats as the vessel had listed so much.

He said: "We just saw a huge rock, that was probably where the ship hit, and people were having huge trouble trying to get on the lifeboats. So at that point we didn't know what to do so it took hours for people to get off the ship.

"It was easier for people to jump into the sea because we were on the same level as that water so some people pretty much just decided to swim as they were not able to get on the lifeboats."

Pictures showed a massive gash in the hull more than 150ft long, with a huge rock embedded in the side of the ship towards the stern.

Helicopters airlifted to safety around 50 people who were trapped on board.

The Costa Crociera company, which operates the seven-day Mediterranean cruise, said there were 1,000 Italians on the ships as well as 500 Germans and around 150 French people but could not confirm whether any Britons were among the evacuated.

The Foreign Office, which is sending a team to the scene, said that a few dozen British passengers are believed to have been on board.

A spokesman said: "We are in close contact with the local authorities and are working urgently to identify British nationals involved.

"A consular team from the British Embassy will shortly be in the area to provide consular assistance."

Philip Metcalf from Dorset described how his daughter Rose, a dancer and entertainer on the Costa Concordia, was brought to safety early this morning.

He said: "My phone rang just before three. I had a message from Rose telling me not to worry that she was OK but there had been a fire or something on board and she had been airlifted from near Tuscany.

"She said she had to wait a long time and that she was one of the last ones to be taken of, as she was staff. It sounds a bit like the Titanic. The boat seemed to have taken on water. I'm just so glad she's alright and she's one of the lucky ones."

Miss Metcalf posted a message on Facebook last night, saying: "My name is Rose, its Friday 13th and I'm one of the last survivors on board the sinking cruise liner off the coast of Italy. Pray for us to be rescued."

A local mayor on the island of Giglio said he was trying to find rooms to house the stranded people overnight.

The company said it was not clear what caused the fault and that an investigation was under way.

A spokesman said: "In this moment all our efforts are focused on the completion of the last emergency operations, besides providing assistance to the guests and the crew who were onboard.

"The company will fully co-operate with the relevant authorities in order to determine the causes of what happened."

An explosion heard by some of the passengers on board may have been caused by a phenomenon known as “harmonic interference”, according to Malcolm Latarche, the editor of the global shipping magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions.

Mr Latarche said that the ship was powered by a bank of six diesel-electric engines which effectively worked as an on-board power station designed to supply electricity to all parts of the vessel.

But like power stations on land, the engines are prone to electrical surges and troughs caused by “harmonic interference”.

Mr Latarche added: “From the reports I have seen it seems there was an explosion followed by a blackout which could have been caused by a power surge. There are various back-up systems in place on all ships but they may have failed also."

Mr Latarche said it was possible the cruise ship experienced the same problem that saw the Queen Mary 2 (QM2) lose power in September 2010 as she was approaching Barcelona.

He continued: “Once you have a problem with the electric supply to the ship’s main propulsion motors that could lead to a problem with steering. Once you are in a position where you cannot control a ship's speed and direction you have a problem until you can get those systems back on line. It seems that this may have happened quite close to land, in shallow water. When you can’t steer you are going to run aground and hit rocks at some point.”

The Costa Crociera company said the evacuation of the ship started promptly, but the operation was hindered as the vessel started to list on one side.

Some passengers claimed that the crew had failed to give instructions on how to evacuate the ship. An evacuation drill was scheduled for Saturday afternoon.

Melissa Goduti, 28, an American on board the ship told the Associated Press: "It was so unorganised, our evacuation drill was scheduled for 17:00 (16:00 GMT). We had joked what if something had happened today."

The cruise ship had set off from the Civitavecchia port near Rome earlier on Friday and had been due to visit Palermo, Cagliari, Palma, Barcelona and Marseille.

Italian media reported that the ship had been involved in a previous accident in Italian waters in 2008, when strong winds around Palermo, the Sicilian capital, caused the ship to bang against the port's dock. The ship was reported to have suffered damage but nobody aboard was injured.

Two years ago, a Costa Cruises ship crashed into a dock at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh, killing three members of the crew.

The ship, which entered into service in 2006, is described on the firm’s website as “one of the biggest ships in the Costa fleet, a real floating temple of fun that will amaze you.”

Built at a Cost of £372 million, it features four swimming pools, a 64,000 sq ft spa with a gym, sauna, Turkish bath and solarium. There is also a running track, cinema, theatre, art gallery and casino on board.

Prices begin at around £400 but can exceed £1,200 for the first-class cabins.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 8:30 AM | Permalink

Mobile, AL - Declared by his judge to be a “serial rapist”, 19-year-old Dylan Cole Bloodsworth of Gautier, Mississippi was sentenced to 10 years in prison for sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl on a Carnival cruise ship in March of 2011.

Bloodsworth has been implicated in two sexual assault cases against two different 13-year-old girls. In the case aboard the Carnival cruise ship Elation, Bloodsworth plead guilty to federal charges after allegedly tricking the girl into returning to his cabin to pick up a coat and then forcing her to have sex. He also faces charges in Mississippi for forcing the other 13-yr.old girl to have sex with him, after threatening to kill her and her family if she didn’t comply.

After hearing this federal case, U.S. District Judge William Steele categorized the accused as "a serial rapist who preys on underage girls”. The judge also ordered that Bloodsworth spend the rest of his life under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office.

Statistics about the number of cruise ship sexual assaults vary widely since many incidents are not reported. CruiseRape.com notes that one large cruise line has reported an average of 2 rapes / sexual assaults per month on each of its ships.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 4:32 PM | Permalink

HOLIDAYMAKERS subjected to a constant stench of sewage during a £1,000 cruise are taking the tour operator to court.

Paul and Cynthia Holdcroft, from Tunstall, are among hundreds of disgruntled customers who are looking to take action against Thomson following a 'holiday from hell' on board one of the firm's cruise ships.

Lawyers representing Mr and Mrs Holdcroft, along with the other 205 holidaymakers, have taken the case to the Royal Courts of Justice.

The complaints are centered around the Thomson Dream break between May and October 2010.

Passengers claim toilets were blocked and overflowing, food was undercooked and reused, and air conditioning units were often broken. A number also claim they have been ill as a result of the trip.

Mr and Mrs Holdcroft paid £1,006 for the one-week trip in May.

The couple, who have been together for 44 years flew to Spain where they boarded the ship for a cruise around the Mediterranean.

Retired school administrator Cynthia, aged 62, said: "When we arrived and were walking on to the ship I could smell sewage and I did ask a member of staff but we were told it was just because we were in dock and that it would go once we set sail.

"On one particular stairwell you had to hold your nose as you went down there because the smell was so bad."

While the couple did not suffer any illnesses as a result of the trip, they say the cruise was a complete disaster. Paul, aged 65, a retired HGV driver, said: "It has been the worse cruise holiday that I have ever been on. To expect people to pay money and suffer those kind of conditions is unreasonable. Some families had paid more than £4,000."

Cynthia claims the unhappy passengers joined forces during the trip to hold meetings regarding the state of the ship.

But she says staff tried to clamp down on these gatherings by barring entry to the theatre area and rearranging bingo times to fill up free rooms.

She added: "The staff there didn't seem very experienced.

"In the theatre the air conditioning didn't work and a whole area was shut off because water had dripped into it.

"In the eating area there was a stench of sewage and diesel at times. It was horrendous.

"I was also told a hot tub had to be closed because sewage had got in there.

"It was a complete holiday from hell."

The couple say they have been advised by lawyers from Irwin Mitchell – the firm looking after the case – they could receive a refund of around 70 per cent from the holiday company.

However, Thomson has denied claims that problems were caused because of poor hygiene conditions on the ship.

A spokesman said: "The health and safety of our customers is our primary focus and we are genuinely concerned to hear of any illnesses reported on our ship. We continuously monitor all the ships in our fleet to ensure that the strictest health, safety, hygiene and comfort levels our customers expect are maintained.

"We would be happy to address the issues raised by the passengers directly, however as they have decided to seek legal advice and as the matter is now the subject of legal proceedings it would be inappropriate for us to comment further."

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 2:16 PM | Permalink

A 15-year-old girl's family Caribbean cruise turned into a holiday nightmare when she was lured into an on-board trap and raped, authorities said.

The suspects in the Iowa girl’s ordeal, Luiz Scavone, 20, of Sao Paolo, Brazil, and an unnamed 15-year-old boy, also of Brazil, were arrested Tuesday by authorities in Port Everglades, Fla., where the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas returned from the 10-day trip that set off on Christmas Day.

The girl's saga began on the trip's final night, when she met the teenage boy at Fuel, the ship's teen dance club.

The boy invited her to what he said was a party and escorted her to his room, authorities said. The man was waiting there, and both suspects prevented the girl from leaving and raped her, according to an arrest report.

Scavone is charged with a single count of committing a lewd and lascivious act. The boy is accused of lewd and lascivious battery and is being held at the Broward County Juvenile Assessment Center, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported.

Royal Caribbean said the cruise liner offered the girl medical care and other attention, and is working with investigators, the Daily Mail reported.

Scavone, who has no criminal history, is being held without bond, the Sun Sentinel reported.

That's because authorities are concerned he could flee to Brazil, whose extradition laws make it unlikely he could ever be brought back to the United States.

Broward County Judge John Hurley said Scavone -- should he be granted bail -- would have to wear an ankle-bracelet monitor. He also ordered that Scavone turn in his passport. Scavone's bail status is to be discussed next week.

“People who are from Brazil can go to Brazil, and there's very little chance that they'll be brought back to the United States,” Hurley said, according to the Sun Sentinel.

Scavone’s attorney, David Raben, said his client comes from an excellent family and intends to plead not guilty, the Sun Sentinel reported.

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 11:08 AM | Permalink

Iowa 15-year-old was on 10-day cruise with parents

By Danielle A. Alvarez and Brittany Wallman, Sun Sentinel

A teenager said she was raped by two passengers while aboard a Port Everglades-based cruise ship, lured from a teen dance club to a private room in the wee hours of the morning.

A teenage boy and a young man were arrested at Port Everglades on Tuesday. Both live in Brazil, but are being held in Broward.

The teen and her family, who live in Iowa, set sail from Fort Lauderdale on Christmas for a 10-day cruise aboard Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas. The ship called at ports in St. Thomas, St. Maarten, St. Kitts and Haiti.

The teen told authorities that on the last night aboard she'd gone to a teen club called Fuel, and at about 1:45 a.m. was invited to a party by a 15-year-old boy. She said she thought she'd be meeting friends in his private room, but said that when she got inside, another man was present, and the two would not allow her to leave.

The 15-year-old said she told them she had a curfew and tried to leave, but said both males raped her. She reported it immediately to ship officials, according to arrest documents.

The adult suspect, 20-year-old Luiz Scavone, stood before judge John "Jay" Hurley at a first-appearance court hearing Wednesday, accused of one count of committing a lewd and lascivious act. Hurley placed Scavone's bond at $10,000 and ordered him to relinquish his Brazilian passport.

He was being held at the Broward County Main Jail on Wednesday pending an immigration hold.

The second defendant was charged with lewd and lascivious battery and taken to Broward's Juvenile Assessment Center, according to the probable cause affidavit.

Cynthia Martinez, the manager of Global Corporate Communications for Royal Caribbean, said the ship reported the incident immediately to the FBI and BSO, and allowed them aboard at the port to investigate.

"Royal Caribbean's guest care team offered the female guest a variety of assistance, including medical care and counseling,'' Martinez said in a written statement. She said Royal Caribbean "will continue to support law enforcement agencies during their investigation."

Posted by Lipcon Law Firm at 2:44 PM | Permalink