Costa Cruises has offered passengers of the capsized Concordia a settlement of $14,500 each, but Purchase staffer Nancy Kane and her husband have rejected the deal.
Instead, they’ve opted to sue the company.
“We feel it’s more about making a statement, holding people accountable,” said Kane, director of the college’s Center for Production Services, who was aboard the ill-fated Concordia with her husband, Mario Lofaro. “Absolutely no one should have died on that ship.”
Kane spoke to a journalism class at Purchase Thursday, Feb. 2 three weeks after the Concordia capsized Jan. 13 off the Italian island of Giglio. The ship hit a reef, which tore a 160-foot hole in the side.
A total of 17 bodies have been recovered, and another 15 passengers remain missing. The ship’s captain, Francesco Schettino, remains under house arrest and faces charges of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning ship. He has denied the allegations.
Kane’s nightmare began hours after she boarded the ship near Rome. She and her husband had just finished dinner.
“We went to see a magic show in the theater when the accident happened,” said Kane. “We heard a loud grinding sound, and we felt the boat rock.”
About 40 minutes later, Kane said, the crew finally made an announcement over the ship’s public address system noting that everything was fine and it was just an electrical generator issue.
“We knew that wasn’t the case,” said Kane. “We knew we had to get off the ship. We didn’t panic, but we were very concerned.”
Kane and her husband went to the muster stations with hopes of getting information, but were told by the crew that none was available.
“At about 10:40 p.m. we heard six short whistles and one long whistle, which we knew meant abandon ship,” said Kane. “But they never actually made an announcement to abandon ship.
“The scene was chaotic,” Kane continued. “Not like in ‘Titanic’ where the women and children go first. It was a free for all.”
The ship continued to list as the panicked crew stood there unable to control the frantic crowd. “I refused to get in a lifeboat without my husband,” Kane said.
Eventually the couple boarded a lifeboat and began to be lowered into the sea from the tilting ship. The tender swung on the cables attaching it to the Concordia and slammed into the side of the ship before freefalling toward the water. “For a few seconds,” Kane confessed, “I thought I was going to die."
When they finally boarded a lifeboat and reached land, Kane said that it was the locals on the island who were most helpful to them, not the employees of Costa.
“From the time the accident occurred to when we eventually got back to Rome, I never saw any officers from the ship,” said Kane. “We saw regular crew members, but no officers, and nobody had any information for us.”
After hearing how the captain of the ship acted, Kane said she was angry.
“He’s not supposed to leave the ship,” said Kane. “And the excuse that he gave about accidentally falling into a life boat is an absolute lie.”
But Kane feels that the accident isn’t just the fault of the captain, but also of Costa and Carnival Corp., the Florida-based company that owns the cruise line.
“Carnival is trying to put all the blame on the captain, and that’s not fair,” said Kane. “The crew was not well-trained in how to handle an accident like this. Usually when you board a cruise ship there is an emergency drill done almost immediately, but we spoke to people who had already been on the ship for three days and they never took part in a drill. This was a systematic failure, not just the failure of the captain.”
This trip was Kane’s eighth cruise, and her husband’s sixth. Kane said that they would eventually go on another cruise, but admitted being very nervous about ever being on a vessel at night again. She has had trouble sleeping since the accident, and has closely monitored media coverage of the aftermath.
“This isn’t about money for us,” Kane said of her decision to join the class-action suit. “This is about making a statement and having the people responsible for this being held accountable for what happened.”
“This could go on for years and years,” she continued. “We could end up with nothing. But, it’s not about that. You know that little expression, ‘Safety first’?”
Kane said she hopes the lawsuit will improve training and safety information presented to passengers, so that an experience like hers does not happen again.
The couple lost their passports, cell phones, clothes and shoes on the ship. Kane lost her makeup. Her husband lost all of his business contacts.
But that’s just stuff,” Kane said, her eyes welling with tears. “Stuff doesn’t matter.”
Additional reporting by Rebecca Fleisher and Tyler Usavich
Photo Credit: Ben Zank
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