Episode 112: Captain Calamity And A Whole Lot Of Titanic References (2012 Costa Concordia Disaster)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
America. I feel like there was other things, but I have.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
A Spider story, classic Spider story.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Did anything else happened that was stressful?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Spider and your towel, don't.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Tell the story before I tell it. I wrote Spider
up there. Hello, guys, welcome, Welcome. I'm Mabby and I'm Shanna.

(00:39):
This is Anxious and afraid true crime comedy, disaster podcast,
Anxiety all around for everyone involved. That's what we bring
and that's what you love. Mm hmm yep. So what's up, Bobby?
Was making you anxious these days? What's crack alacin? We

(01:00):
discuss just like America again as blanket.

Speaker 2 (01:03):
Yeah, so things have already changed drastically since our last recording,
and we're feeling light and hopeful.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Actually we're feeling better. I'm dipping my toe into hope.
I just I'm fucking jazzed. Okay, Shauna's cheerleading. I'm like,
I'm afraid to be hurt again.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
So I understand, I understand, but I am ready for
the ride. Now when I was dreading it, I don't know.
I still have my barf bag, like in my hand,
bring your barf bag. But let's go on this roller coaster.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Oof because she's queen. Oh my god. Okay, Oh, as
before mentioned, I have a spider story.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Oh yeah, as also Mike gold detailed.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
Yeah, but I feel like it's been pumped up too
much and it really wasn't that. It's gonna be stupid
and now it's a letdown no matter what I say.
But my spider story is I and it's always the
worst because I took a shower right your most vulnerable
times vulnerable and not only naked, but naked and wet

(02:04):
and wet, so both of those things are happening. But
I do have a towel on at this point, and
I have a separate little like microfiber towel that use
for my hair. Same girl, Yeah, I gotta treat those
curls right. So anyway, that's like on the hanging on
the hand towel rack. So I grab that and I start,

(02:28):
you know, using it on your hair. And then I
feel just right by your face, right by my face,
and then I see something just drop out of the
corner of my eye, and I first ignored it and
I was like, wait, what was that? And I looked
down big thick, big thick pig and thick it was

(02:48):
like it was like those really big, thick jumping spiders,
but it wasn't a jumping spider. Oh that's bad, because
you like the jumping spiders. I do kind of like
the jumping spiders. We've had this discussion. They're okay by me.
I did keep one as a pet in the house
for a little bit when like last year, Oh, you're
a little psychoe, only because I was kidding. I'm just kidding.

Speaker 4 (03:08):
I'm not.

Speaker 1 (03:08):
Only because it was in my plant corner and it
was like hanging out with all the plants I do.
You can see, I can see how they're cute.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
And I named it Harriet the Spider. Harry the Spider
is so cute. I feel like I know somebody else
who kept a little spider, don't they like last a
couple of.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
Weeks, I we we eventually just didn't see her again.
I don't know what happened to her. She might have died,
but she went to live her other best life. She's
like Charlotte. But so anyway, that was in the bathroom
in my hair.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Basically, she can't be hanging out in your hair towel.
That's not acceptable, I know. And there was one in
my bed a few weeks ago.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
I'm just like in your bed, really like invading, okay,
the most personal of spaces. I'm trying to be chilled.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Stay in the fricking corner, I know, just like your beds.
I mean, your place is outside, but at least be
in the corners where I cannot be.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah bothered.

Speaker 4 (03:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
I pulled back my covers and a spider ran absolutely
not from where my pillow was, where I lay my
sweet little head. Is that worse than the cockroach story?
I don't know. I just they're both pretty bad. Just
not in the bed, please, because now I will never
feel safe again.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
That's happened to Chad too. I think a spider in
the pillow horrifying. No, thank you anyway, Sorry that happened
to you.

Speaker 1 (04:15):
Thank you. I'll get over it. What made you anxious
or afraid this week or last week, whatever week you
want to pick.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
However many weeks there was, Well, let me let. I
lived my fantasy life and I got to see my
favorite teen band, blank Man me too.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
I don't care if you like them or not, Blank
one D.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
I feel like I get hate in love for it.
But whatever, they're controversial.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
I don't know what are they? I don't know. I
feel like people like hate them. I feel like everyone
I know hates I don't hate they're they're like, I mean,
they're totally a product of our like they're child. Yes,
that was what it was all about the ship back then.

Speaker 2 (04:55):
It was all about the nostalgia of it and them
being back together. Oh my god, I cried at the
It wasn't expecting it. Yes, I'm that much of a nerd.
It was so much fun.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Okay, it was in Portland.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, so I had a little girls get away that
was fun.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
So finally did that.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
And yeah, but I also have like kind of a
final destination story that I kind of linked you in already.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
But right, it's a perfect story for the pompk. It's
so good. I don't think I told my I don't
think I told Michael.

Speaker 2 (05:21):
Okay, well guess what homeownership?

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Yeay.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
So one of our cool things that we love about
our new house is that there's a ceiling fan in
the like outside backyard area where it's covered. Love that
for the summertime. Been using it.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yes, it's create the breeze. Love it.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
And it has light to it too. Anyways, it started
to get like squeaky, so I couldn't have it on
like the highest setting it anymore. So I put it
on medium setting and I was like, well, that's just
a fan, you now fans squeak?

Speaker 4 (05:49):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:49):
Sure.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
So then I mentioned it to Chad and I was like,
should we.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
Eventually be worried about that? Like should we wd forty?

Speaker 4 (05:56):
You do?

Speaker 2 (05:56):
He's like, no, I don't worry about It's nothing. I
was like, all right, you're probably right ceiling, but my
gut was like, no, it's coming after you. And the
after like a couple more days of me being sus
of it, I couldn't shake it. And I was like,
what's going on with this fan? Because like wobbling a
little bit more, And then it started screeching and wobbling
and like just making more sounds that shouldn't And then

(06:18):
I was like no, and I like, grab Ryland because
we're out there and enjoying ourselves, so I'm like not
taking chances.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
I grab her.

Speaker 2 (06:25):
We're going inside. And later on I turn on the
fan and lo and behold, one of the fan blades
just whips off the plane are the fan, And luckily
it wasn't like going fast or anything.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
But I was like, oh my god, women, comminguition is
no joke and you should always listen to it.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
I know, like what a silly like mundane thing. But
I was like, that fan is coming for me. I
just know it why And here we are so now
I don't have a ceiling fan outside, which is so silly.
It sucks you don't have a ceiling fan, but it's
good that you still have all of your limbs and
limbs yes alive.

Speaker 1 (07:02):
Yes, that's scary. It's a little bit scary, right it is,
because like what if it had been on high and that's.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
Blank, I could have could it actually like flew into
the like other neighbor's yard.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
It could have just been way harsher of a situation,
I guess.

Speaker 1 (07:17):
But just speaking of millennials, we grew up with final
or yeah, final the nation was a final fantasy, which
is also a thing, but not the same.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
But you don't drive behind a log truck if you
just naturally don't or you a major distance. Yeah, just
these like crazy phobias I think all subconsciously.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Just yep, dish what is it? The disposal the dishwasher?
You I'm terrified of what is that called that garbage?

Speaker 4 (07:43):
Wow?

Speaker 2 (07:43):
You disposal those? Yeah, terrifying, they are scary. I hate
putting my hand down and there.

Speaker 1 (07:49):
I hate it. I hate it.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
So anyway, anyways, that happened corner fear corner, but also
living my best life at the same time. So yeah,
he yay, stupid All right?

Speaker 1 (08:03):
Oh do we have a shout out? We do have
a shout out? Guess what? We have a new Fanny fan.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I love finding out we have little new fans. I know,
little new fans.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
We always I think my favorite is when somebody just
randomly tells us about it. Oh yeah, and because I'm
always shocked always, Michael, do you want to do the
shout out? Oh?

Speaker 3 (08:24):
Yeah, this is from a coworker of your sister Katie's, right.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
Yeah. Hey thanks Riley, Thanks Riley, Riley, thanks for listening.
Did you freak out just now you didn't know this
was coming? Yeah, thanks for listening, Thanks for supporting, appreciate it.
If you guys want a shout out, you just got
to ask. Sure, Yeah, you never deny? I think we
always right.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
Yeah, yeah, We'll do it absolutely a double dog. Dare
you please?

Speaker 4 (08:53):
Do?

Speaker 2 (08:54):
We love to feel loved anyways, AnyWho, do you want
to crush our dreams?

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yes? Oh, I'm here to crush your dreams and your mood.

Speaker 2 (09:03):
You do bring doozy So I'm kind of scared.

Speaker 1 (09:06):
I love it. Okay, So it's episode one twelve, one twelve.
I'm back on the evens. I've been a competition again.
I just love I don't know why.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
I mean, everyone does before evens, right.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
I like the even number of episodes until I do
another two parter, which I always screw myself over the
most part. Okay, So I have a story for you
that will make you feel a lot of things, and
for me at least, the overwhelming emotion I felt while
researching this case was fury and frustration. And you're gonna
see why. And this was actually I think you probably

(09:39):
know what this. We kind of talked about this, but
it was a very popular request. We've had multiple people
request this topic. Multiple people. Yeah, We've had a few
people okay say they want this one. Okay, okay, okay.
So yeah, so it's kind of been a popular request.
It's been on my it was already on my list,

(10:01):
like I've been percolating on this one okay, and I
think we have talked about it before, so you'll probably
trying to figure out some details. Okay, I'm trying to
figure out.

Speaker 2 (10:10):
I'm surprised you don't have multiple I have an idea,
but I don't know if I remember like multiple requests
for it.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Oh yeah, it's been at least at least three people
I think of asked three people. Yeah, I'm shook. Okay,
what is my sister? Okay, I forget one of my sisters, Hannah.
Hannah did Okay, So, without further ado, today we will
be discussing the twoenty twelve Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster.
I knew it. I knew it. That was the one

(10:35):
I was guessing.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
I don't remember other people. Okay, I must have forgotten
how much.

Speaker 1 (10:39):
It was requested. Well, I think maybe some people like
individually asked or like sent it to me personally, maybe
so you didn't see them.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
But okay, yes, we did get the request for this
recently where we both discovered, like I almost actually started
working on this exact topic, like I wrote it down.
I think I wrote down like maybe a paragraph, and
then I did my crazy decision, which I always do
is I quickly changed the subject and I did something else.
I don't know when I did that recently, but yeah,

(11:06):
oh my.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
Gosh, this is kind of fun because you actually know
a lot.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
I kind of did a little bit, and it's been
a little while since I've studied that this.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
It was probably one of the closest times we've ever
come to doing the same topic, honestly.

Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, because I actually wrote something, I wrote it down,
I actually started doing it, tried to do it wild. Okay,
So the Costa Concordia cruise disaster was a maritime catastrophe
that draws more than one parallel with the tragic sinking
of the Titanic, So get ready for those references.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Of course, I feel like I just always end up
talking about the titan somehow.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
I mean, because we really can find ways to always
bring it up.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
We just make her fit whatever we're talking about.

Speaker 2 (11:47):
I mean, this really is modern day like ship disaster
Titanic esque, yeah, that we've witnessed.

Speaker 1 (11:55):
And it's just crazy. It's because it's modern. There's just
all of this footage and like it was and videos
so beyond a preventable, like so beyond. Okay, So before
I struck the story. I I kind of already know
because we talked about it. But how do we all
feel about cruises? Yeah, would you ever go on one?

Speaker 2 (12:18):
I'm still very torn because you are very excited with
the idea of a cruise and I am very much not.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Scared. Michael, how do you feel? Never I guess I'm
gonna be going on this cruise?

Speaker 2 (12:33):
I mean okay again, like, yeah, I can picture like
a maybe a girl's trip, but I like, like, I
don't know, maybe Disney cruise would be fun. Don't make
fun of.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
Me, but like, which is like the opposite of what
I would ever want.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
I know actually, because yeah, all the kids, if it
was like an adult only, that'd be kind of cool. Yeah,
but then you're dealing with Disney people out with Disney adults.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
Anyways, Yeah, I don't know what's going to convince me
to go on a cruise.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
I really rather not. I know, I don't know why
I still want to go on when I literally only
cover like the worst of the worst disasters. But now
I know all the things that can go wrong, but
I still want to.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
I mean, okay, yes, if we were like, yeah, this
this one being like a Menditerranean cruise. I can so
see that being very nice.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
I want to do either something like the Mediterranean or
like an Alaskan cruise. I always heard Alaskan cruises. I
want to see the icebergs. I want to see the whales.
That would be cool. I'd be so pretty. I just
don't picture cold.

Speaker 4 (13:31):
Yeah, but you.

Speaker 1 (13:32):
Could be all bundled up in your little your little
cruise park. Oh sure, you know. I I'll talk you
into it. It's fine, I can be if you buy
the ticket. I might be. Oh yeah, if you buy
the ticket my presence, I guess I'll be forced to go. Okay, Well,

(13:52):
I guess it's just a hard note for Michael.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Yeah, I'm reminder that situation where some ship wasn't allowed
to dock or make port and they were just like
piling up buckets of human waste because they couldn't not
the COVID boat.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
Yeah, yeah, I think I watched an episode on that
and how that was very awful. Also, the rooms tend
to be really small.

Speaker 1 (14:12):
True, because I think a lot of times probably not
going to be in your room for the most part. Yeah,
you really are just kind of in there to sleep.
Mm hmm. But I don't know. Something about it gives
me claustrophobia. I get that, I totally get that. I
just it would probably I feel like the magic would
probably wear off pretty fast. But I just want to
wake up and look out and have nothing but ocean.

(14:34):
It would be eerie and beautiful.

Speaker 2 (14:36):
Well, no, I guess all the lights from the ship
would pollute the night sky, wouldn't it, because I would love.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
To see like just no lass hitch, Yeah, you're in
the middle of the freaking ocean. That would be really cool.
Well anyway, Okay, you're not gonna convince me with this
story either. That's true. I don't know why I just asked.
I'm about to dash all my hopes of getting a
cruise partner. Okay, all right, I will begin our sorry

(15:02):
today with a ceremony often performed when a new ship
is launched, a christening. Many of you are probably familiar
with this tradition, which involves breaking a bottle of champagne
over the new ship's bow. The tradition is said to
bring good luck to the boat and its crew. Also,
using champagne is significant because it denotes wealth and prosperity

(15:24):
and makes fun bubbles when the bottle breaks. Okay, true, Yeah,
in the past, people sacrificed animals or even people for
the same purpose. No, champagne was a preferable choice. Wow.
Can you imagine people just a random what people used
to get sacrificed for all kinds of stuff for a
ship's luck. I mean, wow, people are brutal in the past.

(15:48):
I guess I could see it because, like, you could
die so easily on a ship. It was probably a
lot more common back then. So maybe they thought blood
for blood kind of a thing. I don't know. Not convinced,
but yeah, convinced. I just imagined you. Oh ye, back
in the day. Not convinced.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
I'm just trying to bargain with Poseidon, Like, here's the
first one, so go ahead and give us a break
for a little while.

Speaker 1 (16:12):
Okay, there you go. See it's a bargaining chip. I
don't think it worked. Okay, Okay, I'm not sure if
this is still the case today, but you would be
hard pressed to find a more superstitious group of people
than sailors, especially in the olden times. It makes sense
that superstition was rampant when your life was at the
mercy of the sea. Which was very unpredictable. Yeah, oh

(16:34):
my gosh, totally can see that.

Speaker 4 (16:38):
All right.

Speaker 1 (16:38):
So sailors took their superstition, superstitions and traditions very seriously,
and while many of their practices have gone by the wayside,
the tradition of christening a ship is still a popular.

Speaker 4 (16:50):
One.

Speaker 1 (16:51):
Fun fact. I don't know if I think we might
have already talked about this before, but the Titanic was
never christened. Oh really, yeah, so do it?

Speaker 2 (16:58):
If I knew that, I forgot and that's interesting, right.

Speaker 1 (17:02):
Look what happened to her old stuff like that, then
then they're like, well, this is clearly like works. So yeah, okay.
So technically, the Costa Concordia launched in two thousand and five,
but it didn't come online until two thousand and six.
So in July of two thousand and six, a grand

(17:23):
ceremony was held in Rome to christen the mighty Costa
Concordia cruise ship after much pomp and circumstance, a large
bottle of champagne suspended by a rope. This was like
all captured on a video by.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
Every I do remember, so I am replaying it in
my brain.

Speaker 1 (17:40):
Yeah yeah, So there's this big bottle. It's suspended by
a rope and it gets hurled over the ship's bow.
It came swinging towards the side of the ship.

Speaker 2 (17:51):
And it just doinks off.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
You could watch it where there should have been like
an explosion of glass and bubbles. There's just this resounding
thud as the heavy bottle hit the ship and bounced off.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yeah, it's actually quite comical if I remember it.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
It is. It's like such an awkward video because like
you could hear like a groan come from the crowd.
But then they start awkwardly like playing the band, like
the Grand the music music that they Oh that's awkward.

Speaker 4 (18:21):
I know.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
They they try again, didn't they keep swinging it? I
think it. I mean it kept coming swinging back and
like bouncing against the ship, but it just wouldn't it break. No,
it didn't break. So awkward. That's quite the bottle man. Yeah,
and also a very bad omen.

Speaker 2 (18:38):
If Yeah, people reflect sketched out already.

Speaker 1 (18:41):
Yeah, not a good start. So for those who believe
in bad luck, there would be another sign of terrible
things to come. But before I get into that, let
me fill you in on some of the ship's history
and who captained it, the Costa. I can never say
this word Costa cross year. It's like, oh, lots of constanants. Yes,

(19:05):
they are a subsidiary of the Carnival Corporation, so they
owned the Costa Concordia. I'm sure we've all heard of
Carnival cruises. They're like one of the big ones in
the cruise ship industry. At that time, the Costa Concordia
was Italy's largest cruise ship at nine hundred and fifty
one feet, which is two hundred and ninety meters that's

(19:27):
larger than the Titanic and with a passenger capacity of
three thousand, seven hundred and eighty Much like the Titanic,
no expense was spared on the luxurious features included on
the ship. The ship cost five hundred and seventy million
dollars to build. That's that's assive.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
That's disgusting, and I'm also not shocked at all.

Speaker 1 (19:52):
No, I guess it's not shocking, but it's just so gross. Yeah. Yeah,
So the Costa Concordia had five ive spas, a casino,
five restaurants, a grand pre motor racing simulator, four pools,
a pool side theater, a huge gym that included a
fastle of This is another hard one, a fascle that

(20:13):
the last of a what phobia? It's yeah, that but
it's for therapy. Say it again, the last of therapy pool?
What is that?

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Fear of deep water?

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Oh, it's a deep, deep pool that you can dive
into like deep. It's a therapy pool, so maybe it
helps you with your fear of deep water. I don't see.
Didn't look it up, but I was like, ooh, that's
cool because like I totally follow like Subreddit's on that's thilasophobia.
What a word. I know, it's a hard one. I

(20:47):
feel like I can read it just fine, and then
when I try and get it out of my mouth,
it's just like the.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
Loss of therapy or seawater therapy as it is sometimes
known as the use of seawater and the seaweed for
a variety of cosmetic and medicinal purposes. For I like
that reducing the appearance of cellulite and relieving joint pain.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
That's right. I freaking actually did look this up because
I was like, what is that? Yeah, you get to
like float in seawater and stuff. I like that. I'd
be down for that. And the ship also had a
Turkish bath, just like the Titanic. Oh my, how fun
a Turkish bath. Okay, maybe I am tell you. I
don't know. It just sounds fun, right, So the list

(21:26):
honestly goes on, but reading about all of the excess
is kind of sickening. So let's move on to who
captained the doomed ship. This guy. This guy. Francesco Scatini,
no sorry. Scatino was born on November fourteenth, nineteen sixty
in a small coastal town near Naples, Italy. A Skatino

(21:49):
family had a seafaring history, so it only made sense
that he would also take up life on the sea.
Scatino would go on to attend a nautical institute in
Italy and then work for a ferry company. By the
time he was forty one years old, Francesco was hired
by Costa Crome the company. I'm not going to say
another word, Okay, okay, we get it. He's hired by

(22:12):
Costa as a security official. In two thousand and two,
after working as head of securities, Skatino was promoted to
second in command, and then in two thousand and six
he was promoted once more to the esteemed position of captain.
With this promotion came a command of the beautiful and sparkling,
brand new Costa Concordia cruise ship. In July two thousand

(22:34):
and six, the captain took the ship on its maiden voyage,
a seven day trip through the Mediterranean Sea with stops
in France, Italy and Spain, which would become the ship's
routine schedule before the major disaster. Scatino's career as a
captain had a couple hiccups, so in November two thousand
and eight, the Costa Concordia Boo was damaged while docked

(22:57):
in a city in Sicily. The high winds caused the
ship to slam into the dock, and while no one
was injured, the boat had to be repaired. I don't
really know how that one's his fault. Sure, it was
just Doc.

Speaker 2 (23:12):
It's just you know, I guess you know, history of
the boat being damaged.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
Yeah, like he was in charge, but like he's not
in charge of the weather. I don't know. Maybe he
could have we can let that one slide, meadys like,
we'll give him a pass on that one, but maybe
less forgivable. It was an event in twenty ten in
which Skatino was captaining a different carnival ship and entered
a port in Germany at two highest speed, damaging the ship.

(23:38):
Oh no, yeah, the claim was contested, but still doesn't
look great. Okay, are you ready for the other bad omen? Yeah?
So we are now jumping to the main event, which
took place in January twenty twelve on the thirteenth, which
just happened to be Friday Friday.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
What is up with these stories, with these creepy little
coincidences with Fridays the thirteenth and like numbers.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
It's freaky out. I feel like, normally I don't really
give it a lot of credence, but then we've had
so many episodes that were like, by the way, on
Friday the thirteenth, I don't know why. That's so eerie. Yeah,
so interesting. Yeah, that's another one. Okay. So the Costaic
and Cordia had picked up its passengers and crew in

(24:25):
Italy and was now embarking on its standard seventy crews.
On board were one twenty three crew members and three thousand,
two hundred and six passengers. Many of the passengers were
from German, sorry, Germany, France, Italy. But guests came from
around like forty countries, so there's people from everywhere everywhere

(24:46):
on the ship, including I think there's like one hundred
and twenty five Americans. Yeah. Fun fact it was reported
that one of the guests on board was a descendant
of a Titanic survivor. Oh really now, yeah, pushing your luck.
What are the odds out of all the cruise ships
and the things happening huh titan again, another eerie coincidence.

(25:07):
It's just there's a lot of just really weird little
tidbits in this story, like that. Ooh, that's that gives
you chills just like, But also it might have just
been one of those exaggerated reportings. I don't I couldn't
find any, Like, I didn't see a name or anything.
So sure, I mean, it's kind of like to believe it. Well, yeah,
we'll just say it. It's true. It's cooler that it happened.

Speaker 4 (25:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Uh. The ship again its journey with Captain Scatino at
the helm around seven pm and three hours later was
sailing along a small island off of Tuscany called Gilio.
At that time, it was surrounded by rocky outcroppings and
had fewer than two thousand inhabitants, so pretty small. At

(25:49):
this time, Captain Scatino decided to do something called a
sail by. I had never heard of this tradition, and
it seems wildly unsafe and unnecessary. Uh, it really is unnecessary.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
But if it's done right, I guess, yeah, maybe it's
maybe it's a cruise thing.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
I don't know. I don't know if it is. Maybe,
but it used to be a lot more common, at
least back then it was like a you know, the
company allowed it. It wasn't off limits.

Speaker 4 (26:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
Uh so a sail by is essentially a tradition where
the cruise ship gets ridiculously close to shore and toots
its horn to all the people on land. The cruise
people love it, the land people love it. Yeah, everyone
has a great time. I love that you're in a

(26:41):
big boat so close to land.

Speaker 2 (26:43):
I do you feel like that's a thing. Like I
feel like I've waved up people on boats like at
the coast, Yeah, and like we don't know them.

Speaker 1 (26:48):
But I'm like, oh, you're on a boat.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
I don't know why.

Speaker 1 (26:51):
It's just such a thing and all the movies.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Old people are a boat, fun little human thing.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
Yeah, they're like I think it's cute. It is cute. Okay,
we can stayed like not very close to the shore, sure,
I mean I can't imagine, like the Titanic cruised along
like so close. You'd be like three times the sun.
It's huge. Yeah, it would be crazy to see. And
this wasn't the first sail by that Captain Scatino had done.

(27:18):
He had done several before this, and had even done
one the week before. Okay, but apparently after that sail by,
the captain was determined to get even closer to land
and had assigned crew members to find a closer route,
which was the route that they were testing out on
January thirteenth, in the evening, by the way at night

(27:42):
in the dark. It was later reported that the ship
had come so close to land it was within the
area permitted for swimming. Oh no, that's not okay.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
You're like a hole, like you're a whole like skyscraper
on it side in the water, like like the Mall
of America, like floating like a thousand feet from it.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
Was all it's so crazy, that's wild. The island of
Giulio was also pretty used to seeing sail bys, especially
since the retired Costa Cruz captain named Mario Palombo lived
on the island. He had been a mentor to Skatino
for many years, and it wasn't uncommon for a sale
by to be conducted in his honor, although for this

(28:29):
sale by, it was reported that the retired captain wasn't
even on the island at the time. At around nine
thirty pm on that evening, the retired captain would actually
receive a call from Skatino asking about the rocks, you know,
near land, and letting the captain know that they were
going to be doing a sail by for him, and

(28:49):
then the retired captain was like, I'm not even I'm
not even there. And then apparently during that call the
line suddenly went dead and I wonder why sin had
to hang up. More on that later, Okay, On board
there was also a Maitre d who was from Gilio

(29:10):
and his family lived there, so the sailby was also
kind of for him. Lastly, though, though the captain would
later refute this, he was having an affair with a
former cruise ship employee named Dominica. Some Seymourtan. I think

(29:30):
she's like Russian. Oh well, Maldovan. Sorry, so she's a
twenty six year old Maldovan contemporary dancer who had worked
on the ship a month prior as a Russian translator.
The pair had evidently met on the ship and started
up an affair. She was on board this cruise as
a non paying passenger, not an employee, and it had

(29:54):
been widely speculated that the captain was also trying to
impress his new girlfriend with the sail by. Sure, she
was reported to have been on the bridge with the
captain at the time of the incident. Scandal. I mean,
I totally believe that right now, a sail by in
these waters, especially an untested route, could be extremely dangerous

(30:15):
due to all the rocks near the shore. Sometimes they
poked out of the water, sometimes they lurked just beneath
the surface. It was around nine point thirty in the
evening when the captain and his mistress, who was not
authorized to be there, stepped onto the bridge and let's
just take a quick break right here, go back, yep.

Speaker 3 (30:43):
Right one more time. I think I started recording too late.
Go ahead, whenever you're ready.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
Oh well, okay, welcome back. Oh from here, I guess
such a great great transitions around here are very smooth.
We know what we're doing. Anyway, we're back. Okay, here
we go. Let's do this all right. So the captain
was performing or sorry, preparing to perform the sail by,

(31:12):
and looked out to the seas. The water was calm,
almost like glass as they sailed through. Now, adding to
the danger of the maneuver was the necessary step of
turning off the alarm for the navigation system so that
they could manually deviate from the course in order to
perform the sail.

Speaker 2 (31:30):
By, because the boat itself would know like, no, miss.

Speaker 1 (31:34):
Dangerous, Yes exactly, that's what it would say.

Speaker 2 (31:39):
That's the alarms too dangerous, not miss dangerous.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
You know what I mean? Yeah, nah, nah na.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
Funny.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
I think we have a new business venture. We need
to make alarms, chill alarms rocks. Yeah maybe not though
maybe not, though it's a great idea. Okay, okay, So
alarm system is turned off because even the ship knows

(32:15):
that the seal by is a bad idea. Another element
that would add to the upcoming disaster was the language
barrier among some of the crew. Yes, so the captain
was Italian, the helmsman who would be executing the orders
was Indonesian. From what I could find, the orders were
given in English. So that makes so much sense, so

(32:37):
much sense. So in the aftermath of this event in court,
there were experts who said it wouldn't have mattered if
all the orders were perfectly understood and followed. But I mean,
Captain's Skatino definitely placed the blame on the helmsman for
not following his orders perfectly. Sure to take anything off him, right, right,

(32:59):
So the alarm for the navigation systems turned off and
Captain Scatino begins relaying orders to Jacob Bin, the helmsman,
to manually steer the ship. The captain gives an order
which is repeated back by the helmsman and the first officer.
And because this is a modern case, we have the
audio recordings of the orders being relayed and repeated back,

(33:23):
which you can go online and listen to. Yeah Yeah.
In these recordings you can hear Captain Scatino giving an
order which is sometimes repeated back correctly, but others not
so painful.

Speaker 2 (33:35):
It is.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
So in the confusion, one of the orders was misheard
or not executed properly, and the helmsman steered the ship
and the opposite direction from where he was ordered to
steer it. By this point, Skatino had spotted the rocks
that they were about to hit and was becoming frantic
as he demanded a course correction, which took thirty teen

(34:00):
seconds to execute. This is so Titanic. Yeah, I mean
thirteen seconds of icebergs. It's wrong, it's rocks. They did
not have time to turn the spa. No, they didn't
have a spare thirteen seconds. So in the recording you
can hear the captain basically saying, do this or we
will end up on the rocks as the ship approaches
the rocks that they are sorry. By the time it

(34:24):
was like about to hit, they had deviated from their
course by more than eight hundred meters and it was
too late to avoid disaster. And the moments before the collision,
the black box audio reveals the captain saying hard to port,
hard to port, but in the confusion, the first officer
shouts simultaneously, hard to starboard. So it's just like a

(34:44):
fucking mess up. Oh my god, that's so sad, I know,
so not unlike the Titanic. The bow of the ship
was able to clear the rocks, but the stern was
not so lucky. At approximately nine to forty five PM,
the massive ship collided with the reef, tearing into the
Costa Concordia's port side, ripping a one hundred and seventy

(35:07):
four foot or fifty three meters gash in the side
of the ship below the waterline. Wow chills. Fun fact
the Leaning Tower of Pisa is one hundred and eighty
five feet tall, so the rip in the ship was
almost as long as a leaning tower. WHOA, when you
say it like that, that's weird. Iver, I feel I
had to look up. I was like, what is this long?

(35:28):
Just to give some perspective.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Does that mean if I see the Leaning Tower of Pisa,
it's actually going to be really small building.

Speaker 1 (35:35):
Wait? Wait, I haven't been there. I haven't seen it.
It's tiny. I guess it's like, uh, like half the
length of like a football pitch. There was like other
things that I looked up if you want a sports reference,
but I mean, it's still way to bit. It's it's
a devastatingly long.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Okay, this is happening at night too, which also happened
with the Titanic. I want to know what I I
wanted to know what time the iceberg hit the Titanic
if it was.

Speaker 1 (36:03):
It was like just before midnight, I think, or later
in the night, eleven something. Okay, I think you're right,
all right, So it's honestly, it was that kind of
close at the same time. Ear Yeah, there's a lot
of weird similarities. So the ship hit the reef so
hard that a massive eighty ton boulder was lodged into
the side of the ship, where it remained until it

(36:23):
would later be removed like you know, years on and
made into a memorial. All the dragging impact. I know,
Roscoe's like doing a little dance right on the creaky
part and it's making me laugh. Rosco's doing a doggy
tap dance. I've never seen him do that. He was
just like twirling' oh is he spinning? Yeah, he was
kind of just like sometimes he has to spin to

(36:45):
find his spot.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Yeah, like a cat kind of spin, like trying to settle.

Speaker 1 (36:52):
You are not good for audio. Come on, there he
goes again, doing his turns. Yes, and we're down. Okay, okay.
The dragging impact resounded through the ship, knocking passengers about
and sending violent vibrations through the ship. Many passengers recalled
the horrible sound of ripping metal as the ship dragged

(37:15):
alongside the reef. Oh, that's would be so loud, like metallic.

Speaker 2 (37:19):
Ugh.

Speaker 4 (37:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:21):
One passenger recalled that the sound was eerily similar to
the sound made when the ship hit the iceberg in
the movie The Titanic. They're like, uh, you've seen this movie. Yeah,
They're like, you know that sound. It was like it
was like that, So it was pretty accurate in the movie.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (37:38):
Back on the bridge, immediately after the ship had struck
the rocks, Captain Skatino ordered the crew to close the
watertight doors in the bow. In the recording, you can
hear the alarms blaring on the bridge as Skatino desperately
tries to get a handle on the situation. He is
still barking frantic orders to steer the ship away, but
the gash on the side of the ship included the

(38:00):
engine rooms, which quickly became flooded. Mirror moments after striking
the rock, the engine rooms flooded and the ship lost power.

Speaker 2 (38:10):
Oh my gosh, that's so terrifying. You're immediately no power.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
It's so bad. It's so it's just immediately so bad.
That would be so dark and you're in a crowded boat. Yeah,
imagine if you're on in the interior rooms with no windows,
like how dark it would suddenly be mean. I guess
it's nights and you're like trying to you're feeling like
the vibrations of it hitting and like just like, oh

(38:35):
my gosh, no, instantly terrified. Uh. On the recordings, the
captain has heard asking, so are we really going down?
I don't understand, Oh my god. Hilariously, there's an officer
in the background who says our ass is dragging along
the seabed, and another officer says it's the salute he wanted, spicy.

(39:04):
That's some sack, so sass. Wow, So you can kind
of tell that he doesn't maybe have the most respect
amongst his piers. Quickly after this exchange, the captain can
be heard calling his lead crisis manager saying, Roberto, I
fucked up. Look, I'm dying here. Don't tell me anything.

Speaker 4 (39:24):
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (39:25):
So he calls this guy before anyone else, like he's
calling his car like the cost he works for Costa.
Basically he's like a higher up with costa, not the
coast guard, not anyone to save the ship any emergency.
Yeah wow. So a quick damage assessment was done and
it was found that five compartments, including the engine room,
were flooded, and the ship was now without power and

(39:46):
without steering, So the rudder was controlled by the end
you know whatever. So they don't have a rudder either
to steer the ship. Is it still moving? There is
forward forward momentum from when sure, because it's such a
you know, big So yeah, it's still moving, but they
have no ability to like manoeuver it. Okay. Yeah, So

(40:08):
with the rudder out of commission, the captain did his
best to use the forward momentum of the ship to
place it in a more favorable, favorable position, although experts
would later say that without power and control of the rudder,
Scatino had nothing to do with where the ship ended
up and was simply trying to take credit for placing
the ship in a safer spot than steering it out

(40:28):
to sea, like in deeper waters where it would have sunk.
So he's like kind of like later on, he's like,
but I it could have been way yeah, liqu what
I did to help, and they're like, it was literally
like that would have happened with or without you. How
about not having this happen at all in the first place.
Go back in time, tell yourselves to stop sucking so hard.
It's Katino. So the Costa Concordia ended up turning back

(40:51):
towards the island, which was good from a rescue standpoint,
but also resulted in the ship listing hard to starboard.
So it's basically parallel like with the shore, and so
like the waves and everything is like pushing it over
sideways like towards.

Speaker 2 (41:08):
Okay, so the momentum of the of the waves of
the shore because they're on shore is yeah, slowly tilting
this boat on its side. That is what listing means.
That is what I remember finding out.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
Yes, that is what listing means.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
Yes, which, yeah, having that happened like slowly too eerie.
And I don't like it because you're just kind of
feeling everything like move and shift at.

Speaker 1 (41:30):
The same time. Yeah, I mean, I mean you can
see I mean not stock by the Titanic again, but
like when it listed hard, everyone starts sliding down, Yeah,
the deck, so it's.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Just a bat it's just the other the other way
of the Titanic was what how do you you strive?

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Iter? Yeah, I guess it wasn't tipping to its side,
was it? It was tipping well it broke, So it
was tipping.

Speaker 2 (41:51):
Well it broke, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Oh no, I guess
it did.

Speaker 1 (41:58):
I think it did tip sideways a little bit and
until it broke because of the gash, is probably right side.

Speaker 4 (42:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
Anyway, go back to where other Titanic episodes to find
out more that we've already forgotten about. Okay, so just
let's see here. Okay. So, yes, it's listening hard to starboard,
and that's where you get those iconic photos of the
massive ship so close to the land. Like if you
look at the pictures, it's just crazy. It is wild,
and it's leaning pretty far over in the water. In

(42:25):
the end, the ship listed around seventy degrees, which is
pretty nearly all the way on its side. Yeah, it's
really crazy to see back on it. Just a fun fact.
It was reported widely and I don't know if this
is true, but it wasn't a lot of different sources
that when the ship struck the rocks, celem deon song

(42:45):
My heart was playing in one of the restaurants. Okay, yes, absolutely,
let's say that happened. I know I want that to
be I wanted to be real and this happened to
wait in what year? Twenty twelve?

Speaker 2 (43:01):
And wasn't it nineteen twelve that the Titanic happened?

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Ooh, I think you're right? Or yeah, I think I
am right because I think I'm a Titanic yenie a
little bit. But uh, that's eerie. I think this is
like happening again. Is that true? Twenty twelve? That sounds right?

Speaker 3 (43:19):
April April twelve.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
April that this is Titanic in just a different form.
This is so true. Crazy later and a Titanic descendant
was on the boat. Wow, Seleen is blaring her voice.

Speaker 2 (43:35):
Also good for her with the Olympics coming back and
being her best officer, stiff person going through everything ever
she has going through so much. Oh my gosh, I
just I'm rooting for her.

Speaker 1 (43:43):
I know she's a icon. We love her, loves Lane down.
Have you actually seen her in like inter reascent stuff.
She's actually like kind of batshit in a fun way,
in a fun way. She's kind of really off the wall. Okay,
So I don't know how true that is. Maybe it happened,
maybe it didn't. There was a couple of Swiss passengers
I think that were the ones reporting that that song
was playing. But we're believe Okay. Anyway, after the initial impact,

(44:09):
depending on where you were on the ship, the situation
seemed more or less dire. For some of the impact
was loud and jarring, making it pretty obvious that something
catastrophic had just happened. In other areas of the ship,
the impact was less noticeable, but the sudden swerve of
the ship followed by the list couldn't be ignored by anyone. Yeah, Quickly,

(44:30):
furniture and people began falling and sliding down the tilted floors,
injuring themselves with cuts, bruises, and in some cases broken teeth.
Oh ooh no. When the ship lost power, it became
evident to everyone on board that something was seriously wrong.
And remember, like I said before, this is all happening
at night, so it's very dark inside the ship. All

(44:52):
those poor people. Yeah, it seemed like there might have
been some auxiliary powers. Maybe it seemed like there was
lights coming in and out. So m I don't think
the lights were completely off the whole time, but still
that's almost more terrifying to have lights sometimes and then
to have it go out. Yeah uh okay, So much
like the Titanic, passengers were quickly told that the situation

(45:13):
was under control and that they should put their life
that's on.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
Everything's under control as we're turning on its side.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
You know, everything's everything's fine. Put on your line jacket
just for fun, not that you'll need it, and go
to your mustard station just for fun. Again, very downplay.
I don't understand. I guess not to incite panic, but
like sure, okay, yeah, but also but obviously it didn't
work out well for the Titanic, it's not going to

(45:42):
work out well for this. Just spoiler. So stop pretending
like everything is. At least be more honest in a way.

Speaker 2 (45:49):
I'm tired of the gas lighting. I'm tired of being
told lies, Like.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
You don't have to like run around a circle screaming,
but you could be like, hey, yeah, things are going down.

Speaker 2 (45:58):
We're aware of the situation and it's not looking good,
so put this on. Yeah, hello, and just be honest,
just be real, like oh god.

Speaker 1 (46:05):
Yeah, okay, so yeah, they're downplaying it. Not shocking, but
not great per the captain's orders. Announcements were made over
the intercoms that the ship was experiencing an electrical problem
and would be resolved soon. Yeah, because it turning on
its side is just an electrical it's the electricity. You

(46:25):
stupid passengers. You don't know how words.

Speaker 2 (46:27):
It's so fine, gravity doesn't. You don't know what's happening.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Okay, So if you're wondering how the fuck anyone would
believe that the ship is, I mean, while the ship
is literally tilting, you'd be right because nobody was buying it.
Captain Scatino, however, would continue to minimize the situation to
an infuriating degree. This is probably the most infuriating part.
It really is. He's just he is as bad as

(46:54):
everyone says he is, which doesn't happen often, but it's
true for this guy. He knew exactly the level of
deep shit they were in after being informed of the
damage and knowing that they didn't have engine power. But
you know, he couldn't hide the truth very long because
the ship was so close to land, so clearly everyone's
watching this. Yeah, and passengers begin they were so close

(47:16):
to land that they were using their cell phones to
call the authorities and family members on land.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Oh, like they were so close to land that they
the service. H Oh do you not get wait, never mind,
I don't know how technology works, but.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
Whoa yeah, so they're like calling people, They're calling the
authorities weird, like people are saying it's fine, but it's
I don't think it is. Yeah. Yeah, so they're not
believing any of the bullshit they're being fed, which is good.
About thirty minutes after the collision, Captain Skatino received a
call from the Italian Coast Guard at ten fifteen, after

(47:52):
they had received a call from a family member of
one of the people on board. Huh huh again. Even
though Skatino knew that they were taking on a devastating
amount of water and had last lost power, he told
the Coastguard that they were just experiencing a blackout. So
he lied. Dude, people have eyeballs. It's not just the

(48:15):
ship is on its It's such an embarrassing lie to
tell it. It's like a how, I don't know, It's
like a toddler that like messes up and then just
like like they break something and then just sit on
it to hide it like everyone knows, we all know
what's going on. You can't. It's it's it's so delusional. Delulu, Delulu.

(48:37):
I heard that recently.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
I yeah, it's just to commit to that bit when
like literally everyone has eyeballs.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I can like look at it from land.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
I mean, you're just making yourself look like an actual
crazy person.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, like a liar and a coward. I guess. So
the coastguard was like, Okay, do you need assistance or
do you plan on staying near the island? Was it
just the generator the person that called us said that
everything fell on his head during dinner. Electrical fuck out
doesn't do that. The captain was like, no, yeah, we're

(49:15):
just gonna stay near the island as a f had
a choice, and you know, we're working to confirm the
situation with the blackout. He didn't ask for assistance from
the coast guard and eventually hung.

Speaker 2 (49:27):
Up that It's it's amazing that he actually refused assistance.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
I just wonder what was going through his head, like
and what how did he think that he could weasel
his way out of the situation, Like how do you
not think about any one else? That's like your oath
as captain, Like, yeah, I feel like he was trying
to buy time because he thought maybe you can fix it.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
How like what, Yeah, there's no logic, Like why are
you just digging yourself into this hole? I don't Yeah,
I just I don't undersand it.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
I mean, and I've never I've never made a fuck
up to this degree, so I have no nothing to
compare it to.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
But I think maybe he's just like in shock and
shutting down and he can't. He just can't do the
right thing. I don't know, which is worrying for a
sea captain. But yep, yeah, yep, it is not really
a trait you want to have. He's definitely caring about
himself over the passengers refusing help. Like, I just don't

(50:27):
understand that part.

Speaker 1 (50:28):
Yeah, it's pretty wild.

Speaker 2 (50:29):
So I don't mean to be defensive if I stay
crazy person.

Speaker 1 (50:32):
Just how to put that out there? Oh, I was
overthinking it. I'm sorry, intrus if that's.

Speaker 4 (50:39):
All right.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
So meanwhile, chaos is happening everywhere. Guests are being told
it's just an electrical problem. Everything's under control. But you know,
go to put your life fest on. Go the must station.
The floor is tilting, you know, And there was other
cases where guests were told by crew members to go
back to their cabins. I don't understand. To add to

(51:02):
the chaos, there was a large number of guests on
board who had not yet completed the evacuation drills. So
I can only imagine the panic because I didn't even
learn what to do, right. So there was like a
rule at that point where I think with this ship,
like they were picking up people along the way, so
like there had been people on this cruise ship longer

(51:23):
than you know, just that day. Sure, so they probably
went through the safety training. I think they you had
to do it within twenty four hours of getting on
the ship. I see, sod these people had only been
on they just got off, yeh, Like this was happening.
So a lot of them didn't even know where to.

Speaker 4 (51:38):
Go, what to do.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
They're not even familiar with the ship. They just got on,
so they don't even know where's what, like the basic
where's what?

Speaker 1 (51:46):
They've been there for like a handful of hours. Wow,
I never I never thought of it that way. Can
you imagine, like just you're not even there for like
twenty four hours? Scary? Oh that's so awful. Okay, and yeah,
so obviously like the sheer size of the ship. It's
bigger than like a shopping mall. It's full of thousands
of people, like they're all clamoring to get to safety.

(52:08):
So the chaos was probably just insane the crowds. Like, yeah,
being stuck behind a crowd or something. I mean that
part makes me claustrophobic, like being in a big.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Tilting and like everything's just the furniture sliding and like
things are everywhere on the floor, debris everywhere.

Speaker 1 (52:27):
Okay. About ten minutes after the first phone call from
the coastguard, they call the captain again, and this time
he admits they're like a little bit of trouble, but
he only requests a tug boat. What a tug boat?

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Okay, I'm gonna get help, but like give me, like
just you know, a paper boat place.

Speaker 1 (52:48):
We just need a paper I don't know, we just
need like a little pull out of this of the
idea is to pull the ship out or I do it.
I try. I really don't know what about all these
thousands of people anyway, Yeah, one tugboat's going to fix
It's going to fix everything. Just send them uh yeah,
so that's obviously going to do fuck all for their situation,

(53:10):
and it's truly baffling how long he tries to deceive
the authorities. So okay, as crucial minutes ticked by, passengers
were receiving mixed directions from announcements and crew members. One
person would tell them to go to their muster station,
another would tell them to go back to their cabin,
which makes sense because many of the crew members weren't

(53:32):
even aware of the massive hole in the ship, so
like even the crew doesn't exactly know what's going on
because the captain isn't relaying orders like he should be.

Speaker 2 (53:41):
And I just feel like a lot of people really
do default to like listening to authorities. So if like
somebody on the ship is telling you to do like
go back to your cabin, I feel like a lot
of people would just naturally want to listen to them. Yeah,
which is not their fault at all, but it's also
just makes me really sad, like what if they Yeah,
I don't like it.

Speaker 1 (53:57):
And there was also language barriers happening because they're you know,
so many different people like from all over, so of course,
like not every language is gonna be spoken that would
be scary too, Like what if you get help but
then you can't understand each other. It just adds to it. Yeah, okay.
So there were some passengers who, you know, they clearly

(54:19):
saw the writing on the wall, and they demanded to
begin loading the lifeboats, but they were denied until orders
had been given to do so. Fortunately, there were crew
members who decided to just go ahead and start launching
lifeboats without the order good, which was technically considered mutiny,
but at that point, who cares. I wouldn't care. I'd
be like theancuff me, I don't care. Yeah, this is clear.

Speaker 4 (54:41):
I guess.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
There is an audio recording of like on the bridge,
and it came out in court and like one of
the officers was like, hey, like people are getting into
lifeboats and the captain was basically like whatever, Wow, what
a dude, I know you caused this? You okay? He's
so infuriating it. Yeah, he makes you read. So people

(55:03):
are getting loaded, but unfortunately many crew members were untrained
and manning or lowering the lifeboats, which only resulted in
more confusion and chaos.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
Sucks.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
I think there was one story where like there was
a former military guit maybe he was like in the
navy or in the service, but he like literally had
to shove an employee out of the way so that
he could lower the boat. Oh. Wow, they didn't know
what they were doing. Wow. It would take around an
hour after the crash for Captain Skatino to finally issue

(55:34):
the abandoned ship order. An hour after the crash, yeah,
but because he waited so long, the ship had begun
to list so severely that launching lifeboats became impossible. What
an idiot for? Like, well, I think a lot did
get launched eventually, but like it's like the Titanic when
it's tilting, you can't do some of it. The boat's

(55:56):
just going to hit the side of the ship, and
then if it tilts far enough the water.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Yeah, there's a whole side of ships that you can't use. Yeah,
or boats, I should say, Oh my gosh, that's infuriating.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Okay, So for for the lifeboats that were launching, the
area became chaos. It's just like I need saying it,
but it really is the same. The area became chaos
as the passengers rushed and pushed each other to get
on board, including crew members. People began to shout women
and children first. Many of the men followed this order

(56:30):
and were separated from their families. Oh my god, hoping
to ensure safety for their loved ones. Wow. Allegedly, the
captain's mistress was one of the first people off the
ship after he told her to gather her belongings and
save herself early on in the catastrophe. Wow, the priorities
and priorities. I bet she didn't talk to him after

(56:51):
this though. So embarrassing for you. Yeah, Oh, I bet
she dumped them so fast then. One of the so
this is also right out of the Titanic, but one
of the lifeboats that had about one hundred people loaded
in it was struggling to descend to the water as
they were on the uphill side of the ship. Crew

(57:11):
Members were trying to push the lifeboat away from the
ship with a long pole, but this caused the lifeboat
to suddenly drop, and everyone felt their bodies go airborne
as they fell several feet before catching on the rope
and slamming back down into the seats. That's so scary.
It's on video, no, yeah, or at least audio. I

(57:33):
listened to it. You can just hear everyone start to scream,
My god, eerie, it's so terrifying. That's so scary. The
crew members decided it was too dangerous to keep lowering
the lifeboat, so they pulled it back up and everyone
was forced to go back on the Oh my gosh,
that's so upsetting. As more and more lifeboats filled and launched,
people were becoming more desperate fighting for spots on the boats.

(57:56):
Some even jumped into them as they were launched, or
jumped into the water to make a swim for it,
which I can't blame them. They can literally see land, yeah,
like it's actually probably swimable. Yeah, it's one of the
wild things about this is like it can't even fully
sink because they're that close to land, and people do

(58:16):
die trying to swim like a thousand feet Like, yeah,
it's so sad. I mean, I would be tempted if
I couldn't get a spot, like, oh, that's not that
far right, Like I can, I sure, I can totally
see the logic, and it is. It's just up so setting.
By now, rescue ships had begun to arrive and pick
up passengers. The ship was listing so badly by that

(58:38):
point that passengers had to throw a rope ladder over
the side to try and climb down to the awaiting rescuers.
Navigating the cruise ship became incredibly treacherous as the floor
was so tilted it was almost a wall at this point.

Speaker 4 (58:52):
Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
Passengers recalled the eerie sounds of groaning metal as the
cruise ship ran aground and the winds pushed the ship
further onto its side. My gosh, all the sounds still,
it's just nature doing its thing. Yeah, like like just
the furniture slamming, glass breaking, like, I'm sure there'd be
so much going on, Yeah, so much noise. Rescue boats,

(59:14):
merchant vessels, and rescue helicopters began arriving on the scene
to rescue people from the cruise ship who were unable
to make it into a lifeboat. This was good, as
most of the crew members and captain were nowhere to
be found. By eleven thirty, there was still roughly three
hundred people in the cruise ship, largely abandoned by those

(59:36):
hired to staff it. In an excuse, This part, this
has got to be one of my favorite parts. So
in an excuse so outlandish it boggles the mind. Oh
my god, another one, Captain Scatino, said he had tripped
and fell into a lifeboat, which is why he wasn't

(59:57):
on board to help their inmading passengers. I just slipped
on a banana and got into a lifeboat. I found
myself in a lifeboat that I couldn't possibly get out of. Now, yeah,
I was in it, So I mean too late there,
Well here I am. I guess so I'm gonna hang
out with you, just going to continue the ride over
to shore. He's like, I'm the captain of this lifeboat.

(01:00:23):
So yeah, that's that's You couldn't even like, that's the
worst excuse. Like, you couldn't even come up with a
better excuse as to what, Like, I mean, what are
you gonna say? Honestly, what other excuse? I don't know
except for the truth.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Man. Yeah, that's bad. I know, that's very disgraceful. Leaving
the ship, captain, leaving the ship.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
You're the captain. You're literally supposed to go down with
the ship.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
This this ship will literally supposed to be the last last,
the very last one.

Speaker 1 (01:00:52):
Yeah, it's it's bad.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
What's even worse is that there's there's video evidence of
the captain waiting page on the side of the ship
to board a lifeboats. I do remember that he's like
on a side door. He's just like waiting. He's just
like blah blah lah. I'm just watching. We're just getting
ready to trip his lifeboat. So he's a piece of shit.

Speaker 2 (01:01:13):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Uh. While on the lifeboat, Scatino received a call from
a captain of the Italian Coastguard who is my hero.
His name is Captain Gregorio de Falco. Okay, and now
we will present to you, yes, a dramatic reading of
this phone call, performed by Michael and myself. This is
genius because I do remember listening to this and I
love this phone. And before we do that, we're just

(01:01:37):
going to take a quick break. All right, welcome back, yep,
so leave. I don't know what to say, yep. All right.
So Michael and I are going to read the transcript of.

Speaker 2 (01:01:58):
This phone yea's right. I'm very excited for this.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
Yes, So I will be reading for Captain DeFalco, and
Michael will be reading for Captain Scatino.

Speaker 3 (01:02:08):
Captain Coward, got it, Yes, Captain Coward. That was one
of the nicknames they actually gave him in the tabloids afterwards.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Yeah, I'm gonna say that later.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
So again, Michael on the other ones, Captain Calamity, just
in case you're going to say.

Speaker 1 (01:02:21):
That one, I wasn't gonna say.

Speaker 4 (01:02:22):
What was it, Captain Calamity.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
I think I might like that? Okay, So here we go.
I'm Debalca. This is DeFalco speaking from Limorno. Am I
speaking with the commander?

Speaker 4 (01:02:36):
Yes, Commander to Falco.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Please tell me your name.

Speaker 4 (01:02:40):
I'm Commander Scatino.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Commander Scatino, who listened?

Speaker 4 (01:02:44):
Scatino?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
There are people trapped on board. Now you go with
your boat under the prow. On the starboard side, there
is a pilot ladder. You will climb that ladder and
go on board. You go on board, and then you
will tell me how many people are there? Is that clear?
I'm recording this conversation. Commander is Skatino?

Speaker 4 (01:03:02):
Come, commander, let me tell you once.

Speaker 1 (01:03:03):
To speak of Put your hand in front of the
microphone and speak more loudly. Is that clear?

Speaker 4 (01:03:08):
In this moment, the boat is typic.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
I understand that. Listen, there are people that are coming
down the pilot ladder of the prow. You go up
that pilot ladder, get on that ship and tell me
how many people are still on board and what they need.
Is that clear? You need to tell me if there
are children, women, or people in need of assistance, and
tell me the exact number of each of these categories.

(01:03:31):
Is that clear? Listen, Scatino, that you saved you or
you saved yourself from the sea. But I'm going to
I'm going to do something bad to you. I'm going
to make you pay for this. Get back on board.

Speaker 4 (01:03:43):
Damn it. Commander, Please no, please, you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:46):
Now get boat? Sorry, no, please, you now get up
and go on board. They are telling me that on
board there are still.

Speaker 4 (01:03:55):
I'm here with the rescue boats. I'm here. I'm not
going anywhere. I'm here.

Speaker 1 (01:03:58):
What are you doing, commander, I'm here to coordinate the rescue.
What are you coordinating there? Go on board, coordinate the
rescue from a board the ship. Are you refusing? No,
I'm not You're refusing to go a board. Commander. Can
you tell me the reason why you are not going?

Speaker 4 (01:04:15):
I'm not going because the other lifeboat is stopped. You
go on board.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
It's in order. Don't make any more excuses. You have
declared abandoned ship. Now I am in charge you go
on board. Is that clear?

Speaker 4 (01:04:27):
Do you hear me?

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
Go and call me when you are on board. My
rescue aircrew is there. Where are your rescuers? My air
rescue is on the prow. Go there are already bodies, Skatino.

Speaker 4 (01:04:39):
Not how many bodies are there? I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:04:41):
I have heard of one. You are the one who
has to tell me how many there are?

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
Christ But do you realize it's dark here, We can't
see any.

Speaker 1 (01:04:50):
And so what you want to go home? Skatino? It
is dark and you want to go home, Get on
that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder, and
tell me what can be done and how many people
there are and what their needs are. Now I'm with
my second command, So both of you go up. Then
you and your second go on board. Is that clear?

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
And I want to go on board? But simply then
the other bone here there are other rescuers, and just stopped.
It's waiting.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
It has been an hour that you have been telling
me the same thing. Now go on board, go on board,
and then tell me immediately how many people there are there?
Go immediately and see.

Speaker 5 (01:05:32):
Oh my god, he is such a little turd. What yeah,
massive turd.

Speaker 1 (01:05:42):
I mean, it just sounds like it sounds like a
parent to a teenager, like, oh, absolutely, like just the beyond.
It's just so beyond. I can't imagine the fury of
that man.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
I love that he just went in and twisted and
I was just like live eating it up.

Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
I know, He's like, you might have saved yourself from
the sea, but I'm gonna make you pay a little fucker.
Why is that so glorious? So good? Oh okay, So,
despite the rousing call to action, Skatino refused to return
to the ship and instead returned to the land like
the coward. He was. Wow, And after all that, I know,

(01:06:26):
after that dressing down, he still was like that's just
oh my gosh, I just want to shake him, I know.
And the fact that all of his like his like
top brass officers are in the boat with him, that's yeah,
everyone just left, dude. Like there's people who stayed behind
that were like waiters, like low level people are the

(01:06:48):
ones trying to save people on the ship, and the
captain and all of like the top people left in
a lifeboat. Boggling, It really is boggling. Yeah, it's it's
so shameful. It really is so. In the aftermath of
this event, I mean, obviously, this audio gets leaked and
Captain de Falco became an instant sensation as he shall

(01:07:11):
I know. So the phrase get back on board damn
it was also translated as get the fuck back on
board and get back on board for fuck's sake. All
of it is great.

Speaker 2 (01:07:21):
Actually, I definitely love a fuck word in there.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
I'm a fan of the sake version of it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Yes at the end, Yeah, yeah, I like it too.

Speaker 1 (01:07:29):
I mean, it became such a thing that people got
it on T shirts. Oh, I honestly probably would have
bought one for fox's sake. Oh that's great.

Speaker 4 (01:07:37):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:07:38):
Uh oh, here we go. So Captain Scatino was also
granted the name Captain Coward after this. M hmmm. Later,
the captain claimed he asked the people in the life
boat to turn back, but you know, he was told no. Oh,
so helpless, he just wouldn't do it. However, there were
reports from land officials who offered to take the captain

(01:07:59):
back to the ship up in a boat, but he refused.
He reportedly didn't even get his shoes wet during the
whole ordeal. Why is that detail so extra offensive disgusting.
I don't know, it's just like I'm imagining his stupid
shiny shoes and I'm just.

Speaker 2 (01:08:15):
Like, ew like, he just like still looks clean, cat,
and you don't.

Speaker 1 (01:08:19):
Deserve to be slippery and slimy. It just seems like
if you look at pictures of it, you're just like, oh, yeah,
it's keazy, okay. So, to add to the captain's shame,
even the deputy mayor of the island had shown up
to help and had gone to the listing cruise ship
to help people off.

Speaker 3 (01:08:38):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:08:39):
So the mayor of the island was like, I'm gonna
step up.

Speaker 4 (01:08:42):
Wow. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:08:44):
By almost one am, twenty three of the twenty six
lifeboats had launched. The others couldn't be launched. They were
either inoperable or underwater. The twenty three boats I think
should have been enough to fit all of the passengers,
but the loading of the life had been so disorganized,
but that by the time they were all gone, hundreds

(01:09:04):
of people were still on the ship. At least one
lifeboat ended up dropping off passengers and turning back to
pick up more people, along with several Coastguard ships and helicopters.
Oh well yeah, okay, yeah, but as I said before,
the list of the ship was now so steep that
the floor had basically become the wall and people were
having to crawl along the exposed hole so the side

(01:09:27):
of the ship. Yeah, to get to safety. There were
a few brave crew members who stayed behind to help,
including the ship's priest an officer and the ship's doctor,
who remained until the rescue operation was temporarily stopped at
around five am. Wow, five am.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
Back on land, the tiny island with a population of
about one thousand people suddenly needed a place to find,
like to house all of these stranded cruise guests who
like outnumber them, like yes, four to one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Yeah, yeah, that's crazy to think about this, and so tiny,
so that the cruise ship has double the people.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
More than double. Yeah that's yeah. Wait where do they go?
So hotels open their doors, you know, with like beds, food, water,
A nun opened up her convent to house a lot
of people, and then just regular citizens let people stay
in their houses, just like, very cool of them, very cool.

(01:10:25):
The next day, the rescue operation resumed and a dive
team was sent inside the ship to search for people
who had become trapped inside. The conditions were treacherous, with
floating debris and furniture, not to mention how dark it was,
and visibility was extremely low. Three more people would be
rescued that day, including a Korean newlywed couple who had

(01:10:48):
somehow slept through the initial wreck and had woken to
find that they couldn't open the door to their cabin.
How do you sleep through? Like, how does their bed?
How did they not fall out of the bed? Well,
I don't know, I really don't know how many questions,
but like, can you imagine waking up to that kind

(01:11:09):
of like you could probably hear what's going on, but
you can't open the door to your cabin, I don't like.
And then the ship is listing, and then it probably
gets eerily silent after everyone leaves. Ooh yeah, just waking
up a no, and you're like, what's happened? And ooh
that would be terrifying And is their honeymoon? Like oh yeah,
they needed to do over. There was also another person

(01:11:32):
who was rescued, an employee who had broken their leg.
In the following days, rescue operations were hampered by dangerous
weather conditions causing the ship to shift on the rocks.
No more people would be found alive, and the mission
switched to body recovery. Several former crew members and passengerers

(01:11:53):
were found inside the submerged section of the ship and
on the sea bed. Because of the treacherous conditions of
the search effort, the task eventually went to robotic equipment
to search for the remaining two bodies, a female passenger
and a male crew member, which wouldn't be found until
September twenty thirteen and August twenty fourteen. WOW. The final

(01:12:17):
victim found, Russell Rebello, was not recovered until the ship
was uprighted and removed for salvage. And I'll talk about
that more in a minute. Russell was a waiter who
lost his life after giving his life jacket to a
passenger and had been attempting to get passengers out of
the ship when he was trapped and subsequently drowned.

Speaker 4 (01:12:38):
Said.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
In total, thirty two people lost their lives in the disaster.
WOW twenty seven passengers and five crew members was almost
half drowning as they came trapped inside trying to cross
through the ship to reach lifeboats on the other side.
Two victims of this scenario were a dad and his
five year old daughter. I think she was the youngest victim.

(01:13:02):
With the dramatic list of the ship, the connecting corridors
essentially became long like deep holes to fall into. If
you think about like all the way running through and
then the ship tips on its side, that's not a
hallway anymore, it's a hole. Oh my god. Uh can
you imagine fall Ooh that's so people. I mean they
went through these corridors and then they got trapped with

(01:13:23):
the rising water and drowned. Thirteen diseased people were also found.
It was my nightmare, trapped inside of elevators. Oh yeah.
Some drowned trying to swim to shore. Others drown after
they became trapped in just other sections of the ship.
There were also several stories of the crew members who
stayed behind to help who lost their lives. Some gave

(01:13:46):
up their life jackets to help passengers, others gave up
their seats on lifeboats. And of course, all of these
deaths were arguably extremely preventable and just like really hundred percent.

Speaker 2 (01:13:57):
Actually I would actually argue one hundred sent preventable.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
I just don't know how you live with yourself, like
as a captain, knowing you got off on a lifeboat
and people, your people on your crew gave up their
literal life jackets and died saving people. Yeah, it's just
it's unreal. Okay. So one hundred and fifty seven people
were injured during the disaster, with more than twenty requiring hospitalization. Yeah,

(01:14:26):
that broken leg. Oh can you imagine, like you can't
you're now like kind of in mobile. Yeah, and you're
trapped inside of a ship that could or could not
just be sinking and you can't move. Oh my gosh.
After the recovery of most of the victims within the ship,
the next pressing matter was the looming environmental disaster of
the ship itself. As luck would have it, the ship

(01:14:47):
rammed into an area that was a protected or protected
wildlife sanctuary. Because of course, just add murdering the environment
to the list. And to make matters more intense, bad
weather and rough waters can continued to shift the cruise ship,
and it was feared that the ship could dislodge and
sink to deeper waters where it would like fully sink. Yeah,

(01:15:08):
that's so wild to think that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:09):
The like, you know, mother ocean is still you know,
just tossing the ship around.

Speaker 1 (01:15:13):
It's such a big it's crazy. Ah. The nearly full
fuel tanks were of the deepest concern, and defueling the
ship became a top priority. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:15:25):
By March, most of the fuel had been removed, and
the next monumental task would be to seal up the
ship and attempt to refloat it with enormous buoyze so
that it could be taken to a port where it
would be salvaged for materials.

Speaker 2 (01:15:38):
This part is actually I find interesting too, Like I
like seeing like the pictures and the graphs of it
because it's like so sciencey and I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:15:45):
Know why, I just it's fascinating. I all like, how
do you, Yeah, how do you fix this massive ship?
It's honestly so impressive what they come up with and
what they accomplish, Like, yeah, it's really cool. It is
really cool. It honestly went on but as good as
it could have I think, well not all the way
I'll talk about it. So, this would be one of

(01:16:07):
the largest operations ever undertaken of its kind, and the
steps to complete the task were as follows per Wikipedia. So,
first secure the hole to the land using steel cables
and stop it from falling deeper. Build a horizontal underwater
platform below the ship. Well I know just that part.

(01:16:28):
Attach Let me see, I don't know what this word is. Sponsons.
I'm guessing like some kind of cable to the port
side of the whole. Bring the hole to vertical by
winching or parbuckling the hole onto the platform. Attach sponsons
to the Can you look up what sponsons.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
On it?

Speaker 3 (01:16:51):
Projections extending from the sides of land vehicles, aircraft or
watercraft provides protection, stability, storage locations, mounting points for weapons
or other devices, or equipment housing.

Speaker 1 (01:17:02):
So am I right, that's basically cables.

Speaker 4 (01:17:04):
Yeah, it's a spot to like connect cables.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Okay, So attach sponsons to
the starboard side of the whole, refloat the hole in tanks,
no big deal, recover or sorry, recovery toe to an
Italian port. So basically, they build this platform, they somehow
tip the ship onto it after sealing it all up.
They have these huge buoys that refloat it and then

(01:17:28):
they are able to tow it to a port. And
they do this, Yeah, they do. It's crazy against all odds,
like because they said, like it got really dicey because
when they started to pull it, they realized that it
had been there so long, I mean years at this
point that like it it attached itself to the coral,

(01:17:49):
the coral or I guess the coral attached itself to
the boat, right, Okay, true? And obviously yeah, obviously wasn't
there for a few years. How long was it there for?
I don't think they pulled it into like twenty fourteen.

Speaker 2 (01:18:03):
Okay, so like a couple of years, yeah, which makes sense.
But it's also just like so weird to think about
that it had to stay that way for so long.

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
People are just living on this island, like walking past this.

Speaker 4 (01:18:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:15):
I actually I remember when this happened. I remember like
news clips, like watching live on the news of people
going like it's such an unsightly Yeah, they like they
were at the beach and you know, it's just there, and.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
It's like it became like a tourist attraction. I can
see that happening.

Speaker 2 (01:18:31):
Yeah, but like obviously the locals hated it, and obviously
you don't want to see a boat tipped over.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
It's eerie and it's like disrupting their fishing. It's like
ruining their environment.

Speaker 4 (01:18:41):
Is yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
I never thought about the whole coral thing. Yeah, I
would just think it would kind of like disintegrate. No,
the corel like was like your mind now, oh no.

Speaker 1 (01:18:52):
Yeah. And it was also in like a wildlife protected
area too, so you're also just like ruining the habitat
for these poor animals.

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
Ask like, what a massive dick this guy really did
ruin all aspects of a lot of things.

Speaker 1 (01:19:07):
So many things, so so so many Uh yeah, so
an end against incredible odds. The venture was successful, but
ended up costing one point two billion dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:19:19):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:19:21):
Wow, and the operation would claim one more life unfortunately.
Really Yeah. A Spanish diver cut his leg on some
sheet metal and he was able to swim back to
the surface, but he later died of his injuries. Oh
that's sad. That's really sad. I mean, that's a really
dangerous job what they were doing. Oh my gosh. Yes,
it's the video footage.

Speaker 4 (01:19:43):
Just have to do that.

Speaker 1 (01:19:45):
It's so eerie, but it's also so cool, Like swimming
through this abandoned cruise ship underwater, it's wild. That would
be kind of cool. Yeah, I guess there's actually a
really good PBS documentary I want to watch on the
salvage operation. So that's cool specifically on that, Yeah, I
think it's a NOVA documentary. I think there's national grid,

(01:20:05):
there's I mean there's probably several sure. Also fascinating to
me was the amount of looting that happened between the
crash and the salvage, like people wanting to go actually
take parts of the ship. Yeah, there was people trying
to loot. I mean, yeah, it's so close, it's so close,
and just imagine, like there's so much stuff on board.

(01:20:26):
I mean they stole jewelry, they still cash, there's everything
on board, everything behind. Honestly, I kind of don't blame
that idea, I know. I mean it got shut down
obviously pretty fast. Sure because we're in modern times, so
they can install it cameras and stuff. Yeah, that makes sense.
But so things did get stolen or did I put it? Okay,

(01:20:50):
the craziest thing that they stole, which I don't know
how they did this, but somebody stole the ship's giant
brass bell with the ship's name and launch date raped
on it. How do you conic? Have you sneak away
a bell. I just don't understand. That's I am assuming
it's pretty big, big and heavy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:10):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):
I don't know how they did that, but it's gone.
So as you could probably guess the legal ramifications of
a disaster like this, we're vast so messy. The Costa
Cruises company offered the uninjured victims eleven thousand euros, which
is about fourteen four hundred dollars sure and reimbursements for

(01:21:33):
any expenses related to their ordeal, including travel medical bills.
They also offered counseling services and would try to return
valuables kept in room safes if they could. But if
the victims took the compensation package, they weren't allowed to sue.

(01:21:54):
And if you think about it, that's not a lot
of money, right. Costa didn't give us for the people
who had lost you know, their lives or family members,
or the ones who had been injured. They said that
they would pay those out case by case, you know,
depending on what the situation was. So I don't really
know how much those people got paid, but assumably more. Yeah, probably,

(01:22:17):
I mean a lot more, I would hope, but you
would hope it. It's like, what amount of money Yeah,
how do you measure it? Yeah, how do you measure that?
Not everyone took the money, though, and plenty of them
sued Costa, even after Costa offered no penalties if people
wanted to cancel their future cruises with them, most people
still chose to go on Costa cruises and their sales

(01:22:37):
only dropped like ten percent, Oh, only ten percent after
that fiasco. Yeah, and that wasn't even their first I
think later on, like maybe even not long after this,
there was another issue with the Costa cruise ship. But
there's still alive to this day doing well, dang doing cruises.

Speaker 2 (01:22:55):
Not even a little den I know, you would think
that they would just at least suffer a little bit,
at least.

Speaker 1 (01:23:01):
For a short time. Yeah, but nope, people still want
their cruises. And as for Captain Slindball, he was quickly
put on house arrest on charges of manslaughter, abandoning ship,
and shipbrick, which was not a thing I knew you
could be charged with, but I guess shipbrick is a crime.
The trial was a media circus and it was held

(01:23:23):
in this giant space so that lots of people could
come and watch. Oh I bet it was like the
hot thing. Oh yeah, and watch it was the thing
to go to and they just I mean people were
eating it there for it. They wanted to see Scatino
get ripped a new asshole. They hated him. It's not
hard to see why he was widely vilified and given

(01:23:44):
the name Captain Coward, Captain calamity. Like Michael said, so
he had to have known that he wasn't gonna get
like a plea deal. Five other employees, including the helmsman
and the Costa crisis coordinator that Skatino had called, you
know before anyone else, they all were charged with manslaughter,

(01:24:06):
but they all pled guilty basically a plea deal, and
they were only given a couple of year sentences and
their sentences were suspended, so I don't think any of
them did jail time. Okay, wow. Costa Cruises also got
out of legal like any legal trouble by agreeing to
pay a one million euro fine, which is it's just

(01:24:28):
that doesn't seem right. It's always the rich assholes they
can just pay their way out of.

Speaker 2 (01:24:32):
Literally, and I honestly doesn't even seem like high enough,
no high enough to a million dollar get out of
that a million like come on, Oh my gosh, it's infuriating.

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
It's disappointing for sure. So they pay their their million
dollars or million euro fine and they don't they don't
get legal trouble. They basically just shove Skatino forward for sacrifice.
So there was so much damning evidence against him, with
all the audio recording, cell phone footage, recording a phone call.

(01:25:07):
Beyond witness testimony, his mistress, Dominica also testified to being
a non paying guest who was on the bridge when
she shouldn't have been. Skatino was also accused of slowing
down the ship to have a romantic dinner with her
and then speating it up to make up time. Oh
my god, I did sail by, adding to the catastrophic

(01:25:28):
fil for real. I should have looked it up if
that was actually found to be true. But that's that's
so one of the things levied against him. It wouldn't
shock me. It was just the calculation, I mean yeah.
So in the end, Skatino was found guilty obviously and
sentenced to sixteen years in prison. He has since appealed,

(01:25:52):
but the ruling was upheld and he is still serving
his sentence. He gave a half assed apology and continued
to minimize his role in the disaster. So he just sucks.
He really does, Like he doesn't really seem to be
it's just so wild if you listen to his or
like read his apologies, they're just like he minimizes his
role so much.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
You're like, doesn't you can get it, like you know
what captain means, Like did you know what you did?

Speaker 1 (01:26:17):
Like you clearly don't seem to have like like any
remarks or yeah, it's just it's weird, like it's cold,
it's very Yeah, it's just like, are you just dissociating
like from the situation you're in anyway, So he's still
serving his sentence. Hopefully we'll serve the whole thing. Sixteen

(01:26:38):
years doesn't seem like enough either, I don't know, I
don't know. Costa Cruises was also forced to make a
lot of changes, like no more sale buys, better trainings,
and the requirement that safety drills be done, you know,
with passengers right away. Makes sense. In the end, the
final tally for Costa came to about two billion dollars,

(01:26:59):
and that doesn't even include buying a new ship to
replace the Concordia. Wow. So yeah, it's I'm just really
sad for everyone who lost their lives. It was just
the most pointless disaster. Yeah, and I'm done. Oh when
is he supposed to get out? Do we know what year?

(01:27:19):
I don't, Michael, you should look that up. But good job.
I'm glad you did that. Very proud of you. Oh,
thank you. It was. It's definitely very interesting to research.
Well done. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:27:33):
Sentenced to sixteen years in twenty fifteen after a nineteen
month trial.

Speaker 1 (01:27:41):
So thirty one, yeah, two and thirty one less than
ten years from now.

Speaker 2 (01:27:51):
Wow, there's no way he can still work as a captain, right, Like.

Speaker 1 (01:28:00):
No, they must have pulled his license, right, you don't
get to do that anymore. Go cook in the kitchen.
You shouldn't even be allowed on a boat anymore. Yeah.
I did hear a story that I think between the
time he went to prison he was invited to this
like crisis training to lead or like make a speech.

(01:28:21):
I don't know. He was like invited by this place
to lead a training.

Speaker 2 (01:28:24):
On christ almost because he's like an expert. Because what
that's so opposite?

Speaker 1 (01:28:29):
Well it makes sense, I'm an expert. This, Oh my God,
the backwards thinking of it all. I've never met someone
so unaware of themselves. That's so it was wild. I
think the place ended up apologizing for bringing him in,
but I'm like, what, you literally get him out of prison.
I don't think he was in jail yet. Oh but okay,

(01:28:51):
but he went to jail. But still it was it
was crazy out of all the people. Okay, Wow, that's it.
I hope you guys liked it. Yeah, cruise cruise, Shi disaster.

Speaker 4 (01:29:03):
It was.

Speaker 1 (01:29:04):
It was time to do it. It was time to
do it. Thank you for doing it. You're welcome. But
let's let's do a city of the week.

Speaker 2 (01:29:12):
Yes, and that goes to Santa Clara, California.

Speaker 1 (01:29:27):
Hey, thank you for listening, thank you for binging, thank
you for telling your friends.

Speaker 2 (01:29:33):
Love and appreciate you and your support. Yes, shout out
to you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:38):
What else? What else? I mean? We got to get
our little kiddos to bed because we plan to go
to the fair. Leaders. Oh yeah, naptime is eminent and
we're trying. This is gonna be the first time we've
taken THEO to the fair. How we go, Excity. I'm
excited and scared. It'll be fun. It'll be fine, it'll

(01:30:00):
be fun. There's animals. He can't go any rides obviously,
which is fine because they're apparently so expensive now ridoculously Yeah,
like several dollars to ride one rickety ride.

Speaker 2 (01:30:12):
Yeah, it's like fifty tickets to do one Ride's changed
a lot since we since we were kiddos.

Speaker 1 (01:30:18):
They're still fair food. Ah, that's still animals. Shaved ice,
shaved ice, A bet you would like shave dice. Oh,
so good.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
Gotta figure out what we're gonna feed him, Sam. I
have the picky child though, so she's probably just gonna
eat an elephant ear. Hey, that's a good choice, though,
I'm hoping she does because she hasn't tried it yet.
But they're so good and it's not gonna be like
insanely hot today, which.

Speaker 1 (01:30:41):
Is really nice.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
Noctud be really nice, yeah, which has not been the
case for the last several years. Yeah, it's been like
like nineties, like just hotter than haities, full of people
hate it terrible. So yeah, we're gonna have some fun.
We're gonna live life as family, do it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:58):
Okay, okay, good eb, good night.

Speaker 4 (01:31:04):
Jesus.

Speaker 1 (01:31:11):
All right. For my sources, I went to Britannica dot com,
Wikipedia dot com, The Independent dot co dot UK, The
Guardian dot com, CNN dot com and stuff you Should
Know podcast. Our music is by brook Free and we
are edited by Michael and sorry go ahead and Mad

(01:31:32):
Edwards also do some music.

Speaker 4 (01:31:33):
Thanks bad All right?

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
Should I list our social media please do? We have
a lot of our things that Anxious and Afraid thepod,
so that's our handle for both of our Facebook page
and group, along with our Instagram and Gmail.

Speaker 1 (01:31:50):
We have a Twitter at AA Thepod.

Speaker 2 (01:31:52):
You can support us on Patreon dot com, forward slash
Anxious and Afraid.

Speaker 1 (01:31:56):
I could you do that? You get some pretty nice
per to get ad free episodes that are released a
whole day early, and you get a free sticker.

Speaker 2 (01:32:06):
You can also support us for free if you can't
do any of that by leaving a rate review, subscribe
to the show, tell your friends

Speaker 1 (01:32:13):
Yeah, we would appreciate all of it right now

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 112: Captain Calamity And A Whole Lot Of Titanic References (2012 Costa Concordia Disaster)

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce

Dateline NBC

All Episodes

Episode 112: Captain Calamity And A Whole Lot Of Titanic References (2012 Costa Concordia Disaster)

Stuff You Should Know