3 On Your Side: Cruise Ship Safety
By Jim Donovan
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- As the investigation continues into the Costa Concordia accident in the Mediterranean, some are wondering just how safe cruise ships really are, and who is monitoring them. 3 On Your Side Consumer Reporter Jim Donovan, who has traveled on dozens of cruise ships, has that part of the story.
Passenger ships are subject to many rules and regulations, but enforcement varies depending on the ship's home port and the country in which it's registered. The Costa cruise line is owned by Carnival, an American company, but Costa ships are under Italian jurisdiction.
Infrared images show passengers of the Costa Concordia using rope ladders to climb down the side of the ship to safety in the dark. According to passengers, safety measures aboard the ship were lax or unenforced. A French military officer said she had been on board the Concordia for five days and there had been no lifeboat evacuation drill in that time.
Mark Rosenker is a former chairman of the NTSB, and cruise industry safety is one of his specialties. He asks, "Why they would not hold a muster drill is beyond my comprehension?"
Cruise ships around the world are supposed to follow minimum safety codes established by the International Maritime Organization. The codes include the numbers of life boats and life jackets and a requirement to stage a life boat drill within 24 hours of departure. But the Concordia had been at sea for less than 3 hours when it ran aground.
While international rules require that a ship be emptied within 30 minutes of an order to abandon ship, maritime lawyer Brett Rivkind says that's unrealistic for the giant cruise ships that have become an industry standard.
"We've seen these megaships being built with over four- or five-thousand passengers, like a floating city, and we haven't been able to see all the dangers that can come with that," Rivkind explains.
The Costa Concordia, with 4200 people on-board, seems small when compared to mega-ships like Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Seas and Oasis of the Seas. Those ships have the ability to transport over 8700 passengers and crew--double the number of people that the Concordia had sailed with on this tragic voyage.
