Today we received a message from a passenger is sailing on the Costa Magica with family. The passenger indicated that a fire broke out on the Costa cruise ship yesterday, February 24th, while the cruise ship was heading toward Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe which is in the eastern Caribbean between St. Kitts and Antigua & Barbuda to the north and Dominica to the south.
The passenger, who wishes to remain anonymous, indicated that the fire started early in the morning/ late at night (around 1:30 A.M.), apparently in the engine room.
The passenger stated that the passengers were timely informed that a fire broke out but there was confusing announcements regarding the location of the fire.
There was first an announcement regarding an emergency on deck A. Later, there was an announcement regarding an emergency in the luggage area on deck 0. Finally, there was an announcement of an emergency in the engine room, according to the passenger.
We are trying to obtain further details regarding this reported incident, regarding the cause of the fire and the length of the time before the fire was extinguished. There is no indication that the ship was disabled nor any information suggesting that there were any injuries to passenger or crew members.
If you are working or sailing on the Magica and have information to share, we would like to hear from you.
Please leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page. If you wish to remain anonymous, please contact me via email at jim@cruiselaw.com.
Update: After publishing this article, a reader brought to my attention that a report of a fire on this ship was posted (in German) via Facebook: "Just got the information of a fire onboard Costa Magica – are you sure Costa has everything under control??" (translated). Costa was asked to respond and said via Facebook: "it should be on board, so is the safety of our guests and the crew at the top. You can be assured that costa all action, if it is necessary. If you have any further questions, please send us a pm. Thank you very much and greetings, your costa team." (translated) The person posting the comment then asked Costa: "So does this mean that it is untrue that it yesterday (in the engine room? ) has burned?" (translated). Costa has not responded to this inquiry.
February 26, 2017 Update: "Additional information from the reporting passenger: "it lasted at least 90 minutes. No smoke could be seen from our point of view. Fire doors near the cabins weren’t closed, ventilation wasn’t stop either. The ship seemed to have slowed down during the intervention.
. . . the ship bilingual staff made statements in different language. The Capt could only speaks italian on the PR system.
The crew were not close to us to inform us. From my cabin I could see a few crew members stand-by at a lifeboat.
Quickly after the annoncement that the fire was exthinguished, a medical team was required at muster station E. We had no news afterward on what happen there."
February 27, 2017 Update: Costa confirmed today that a fire broke out on the Magica, but claims that it was "small" and "quickly extinguished." No explanation was provided regarding the cause of the fire or the specific steps taken by the fire crew to extinguish it . . .
March 1, 2017 Update: Costa Magica Fire: Did Costa Cruises Learn Anything from the Costa Concordia?
Photo credit: Abxbay – CC BY-SA 3.0, commons / wikimedia.