Costa Concordia

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 January 2022

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Costa Concordia hit submerged rocks off the Italian island of Giglio in January 2012, leaving a fifty-metre-long gash in the hull. More than four thousand passengers and crew were on board. Ian and Janice Donoff were hoping to get away in a lifeboat, but it got stuck as it was being lowered into the sea, so they had to find another way off. Thirty-two people died in the disaster. The captain was later found guilty of manslaughter for needlessly navigating the ship too close to the shore of an island it was sailing past. Produced and presented by Nick Holland

PHOTO: The Costa Concordia lying aground off Giglio (2012)

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
0:04.7	My name's Linda Davies and I Commission Podcasts for BBC Sounds.
0:08.5	As you'd expect, at the BBC we make podcasts of the very highest quality featuring the most knowledgeable experts and genuinely engaging voices.
0:18.0	What you may not know is that the BBC makes podcasts about all kinds of things like pop stars,
0:24.6	poltergeist, cricket, and conspiracy theories and that's just a few examples.
0:29.7	If you'd like to discover something a little bit unexpected, find your next podcast over at BBC Sounds.
0:37.0	This is the Witness History Podcast from the BBC World Service with me Nick Holland.
0:46.0	We're going back to a reckless and unnecessary decision made by a cruise liner captain,
0:51.0	a decision that sank his ship, cost the lives of passengers and crew,
0:55.7	and landed him in prison.
1:00.2	Heading out of the Italian port of Chivitavecia on the evening of the 13th of January 2012
1:06.0	was a large luxury cruise ship.
1:08.4	The boat was absolutely gigantic. I didn't realize it was my first cruise and this was a floating village virtually.
1:16.1	The Costa Concordia was 290 meters long, 17 decks high with more than 4,000 passengers and crew on board, including newlyweds, Ian and Janice Donov.
1:28.0	This cruise was to be our honeymoon. The facilities were good, There was lots of entertainment. It was very
1:34.4	pleasant. They'd boarded the ship four days earlier in Barcelona. And then on a
1:40.9	Friday night the troubles occurred.
1:44.0	The cruise liner was making her way along the Italian coastline.
1:48.0	The sea that night was calm.
1:50.0	But at around 930, under orders from the Captain Francesco Scatino, the ship deviated from her planned route.
1:58.0	Instead, the Costa Concordia started navigating perilously close to the island of Gileo.
2:04.0	The idea was to sail right past, showing off the bright lights of the ship to the
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