Sinking

Costa Concordia Last September Carnival won its first battle arising out of the January 2012 Costa Concordia disaster when U.S. District Court judge Robin Rosenbaum held that the lawsuits against Carnival should be filed in Italy.

In that case, a thousand businesses on the island of Giglio where the Concordia cruise ship ran aground near the harbor tried

King of the Nile Cruise Ship Sinking News sources in the Middle East are reporting that a cruise ship carrying 112 Egyptian passengers sank in the Nile River yesterday evening after striking large rocks. The Al-Ahram’s news website report that the incident took place near the Egyptian cities of Kom Ombo and Aswan.

Reports are that all passengers safely disembarked the sinking vessel which

Oasis of the Seas - Viking Dual Evacuation Chute SystemA retired U.S. Coast Guard official called me last week about issues of cruise ship safety. We had an interesting hour and one-half discussion about whether modern cruise ships are designed to safely evacuate passengers and crew members in times of emergencies like fires or sinkings.

Our conversation began with Royal Caribbean’s biggest cruise ships

The one year anniversary of the Costa Concordia disaster is one week away.

You will begin to see daily stories about the survivors and families whose loved ones did not survive the disaster.  There will be a wide variety of articles about how the victims are handling their lives at this point.

Some people have

Tonight the Sixty Minutes television program airs a special on the Costa Concordia disaster. The program will discuss how the cruise ship capsized and will also examine the steps now being taken to salvage the ship. The plan is to right the cruise ship so that it can be floated out of the little port

Pacific Sun Storm - Cruise Ship MayhamTravel Weekly reports that the Cruise Line International Association (CLIA) announced three new policies designed to supposedly improve cruise ship safety after the Costa Concordia disaster earlier this year. 

It’s great PR for the cruise industry. But like the other post-Concordia CLIA policies, there’s not much substance to the new procedures.

One policy talks about

While some cruise ships have elected to hunker down in port and ride out Hurricane Sandy, other ships such as the Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas and Carnival’s Miracle are out at sea trying to skirt the high seas and high winds. ABC News reports: 

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Today’s hearing in the packed theater in Grosetto regarding the Costa Concordia disaster adjourned. It was a curious day.

Captain Schettino previously denied all of the legal charges which been mentioned in the press: manslaughter of 32 passengers and crew members, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship. But the Chicago Tribune reports that when Schettino

Today the hearing begins in Grosseto, Italy to determine who should be named as defendants in the criminal trial involving the deadly Costa Concordia disaster.

The potential defendants from the cruise ship include infamous Captain Schettino who was at the helm when he maneuvered the ship into the rocks, as well as the ship’s second-in-command

Bahuga Jaya SinkingEight passengers from the cruise ferry Bahuga Jaya are reported dead after a collision in Indonesian waters.

The LPG tanker Norgas Cathinka struck and sank the Bahuga Jaya, which is a Ro-Ro passenger cruise ferry vessel, near the port of Merak, Indonesia. 

The accident took place on Wednesday. Eight passengers on the cruise ferry