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Costa Concordia Disaster Repeat Unlikely In B.C.

First Posted: 01/15/12 09:04 PM ET Updated: 01/17/12 10:27 AM ET

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Officials in the Canadian cruise ship industry are confident a disaster similar to that on Italy’s Tuscan coast would not happen in B.C.


The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran aground Friday night, sending its 4,200 passengers and crew scrambling for lifeboats. Six people are confirmed dead and at 16 people are missing.


Authorities are investigating the ship's Italian captain, who is being held for suspected manslaughter, for abandoning ship and causing a shipwreck.


The deadly accident has some wondering if such a disaster could happen in B.C., where Port Metro Vancouver, for example, is a major destination for cruise ships.


The Pacific Pilotage Authority, which oversees the coastal waters of B.C., requires that all large vessels within three kilometres of shoreline take on a pilot to help manoeuvre the vessel through the area’s extensive inside waterways and intricate passages.


That rule means cruise ships require two pilots with one on the bridge at all times.


"They work with the master. They work with the senior bridge team and they check the navigation position of that vessel and they actually give the instructions to manoeuvre the ship around our waters," explained Kevin Obermeyer, the authority’s president and CEO.


Up to 230 cruises visit Vancouver port


Not all jurisdictions around the world require pilots.


"I can't say cruise ships are unsafe. I think, like any type of transportation, it has a degree of risk and that people need to go on cruise ships recognizing that they have the same degree of risk as they do on an airplane, on a bus or on a train," said Ross Klein, author of Cruise Ship Blues, from Ottawa.


Up to 230 cruise ships stop in Vancouver every year, bringing an average of one million passengers. The season starts in early May and sails through to the end of September.


"It's incredibly important to us to do everything we can to protect our passengers and our crew and the billions of dollars of assets invested in ships in this business to keep them safe," said Greg Wirtz, president of the North West & Canada Cruise Association.


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View of the Costa Concordia taken on January 14, 2012, after the cruise ship ran aground and keeled over off the Isola del Giglio, last night. Three people died and about 70 were missing Saturday after an Italian cruise ship with more than 4,000 people on board ran aground and keeled over, sparking scenes of panic. AFP PHOTO/FILIPPO MONTEFORTE
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Officials in the Canadian cruise ship industry are confident a disaster similar to that on Italy’s Tuscan coast would not happen in B.C. The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran ...
Officials in the Canadian cruise ship industry are confident a disaster similar to that on Italy’s Tuscan coast would not happen in B.C. The Costa Concordia cruise ship ran ...
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John Holyk
2 Fans
01:36 PM on 01/23/2012
It Already happened...12:25 am on Wednesday, March 22, 2006 While travelling from Prince Rupert to Port Hardy, the Queen of the North sank after running aground on Gil Island in Wright Sound, 135 Kilometres south of Prince Rupert.
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Whistlejackett
Hey stop doing that
977 Fans
 
02:16 PM on 01/17/2012
This isn't about human error, it's about arrogance; the captain of that ship was arrogant enough to put sanity aside, in order to take command, and perform a totally self centered act to make himself look like "The Man On The Bridge" no less than God, who does things because he can. This happens more than you can guess. Human error? No, human self aggrandizement.
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Rob Vann
Hope for the best,Plan for the worst,Take what cms
206 Fans
01:10 PM on 01/16/2012
Of course it can.. human errors happen all the time. Now think Enbridge Northern Gateway and 300 two way annual tanker trips. These tankers are massive and require precision guidance through narrow channels with lots of currents..A disaster waiting to happen.
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lotechman
1 Fans
11:26 AM on 01/16/2012
It all comes down to discipline on the bridge. Technically locations and course lines are supposed to be plotted as the vessel travels. The best preventative measure is having a third party ( ship pilot) on the bridge.
The biggest errors I have seen are from people not realizing that there are tidal currents running ninety degrees to your course. People take a sighting on a landmark forward or a compass reading and fail to take a sighting rearward. Half an hour later they are a mile off course with just a 2 knot current
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Skookum1
truth can't be bought, but lies sure can be sold..
193 Fans
11:54 AM on 01/16/2012
The BC Coast is full of saltwater rapids and outflows from the big inlets (of both wind and water). The opening of fjords typically has a shallows at the mouth, left over from glacial moraine, which the deep waters of the fjords have to gush out of; the most famous of these, which historically have been called skookumchucks (strong waters), is THE Skookumchuck at the opening of Sechelt Inlet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skookumchuck_Narrows

Tidal outflow from an inlet the size of Knight or Bute - or Douglas Channel for that matter - is incredibly large and fast; Douglas Channel doesn't seem to have the shallows at its mouth, a complex of sounds which is shared with the outlet of various smaller inlets and cluttered with islands; and various reefs and shallows, meaning that the saltwater rapids are everywhere, and chaotic.

My point is on the BC Coast we're talking about a LOT faster than 2 knot currents.....and more currents, in some areas, than it would be easy to count/chart.....a good long hard look at a map of the region gives a clear demonstration this is not a tame bit of water, and the underwater terrain is just as rugged as what's above the waterline (submerged mountaintops everywhere).
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Jay from Ottawa
sovereignty sale, 1.3T OBO
352 Fans
09:50 AM on 01/16/2012
I'm going to guess that the following four ever so famous words were said before the crash ...
"Now check this out".
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hunted
35 Fans
09:34 AM on 01/16/2012
It already has. B.C. Ferry ran aground and sank with loss of life.
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island cynic
77 Fans
 
12:21 AM on 01/16/2012
You can never get rid of the possibility of human error. Never.
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Maryanne Slater
20 Fans
06:56 PM on 01/16/2012
“In view of the fact that God limited the intelligence of man, it seems unfair that He did not also limit his stupidity.”
- Konrad Adenauer, former Chancellor of West Germany
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SiameseTrainer
...we are Sia..mese if you don't please..
874 Fans
11:58 PM on 01/15/2012
"Unlikely" to happen? Which Ouija board are they consulting? BC coastal waters are some of the most dangerous in the world, a moments lapse in vigilance will put you into serious trouble in the blink of an eye. In 2006 a BC Government Ferry, "The Queen of the North" with 101 passengers and crew traveling the Inside Passage struck a reef and sank in about an hour, two of the passengers have never been found. For those of you who do not know the BC coast these are the exact same waters that Enbridge wants to use for giant supertankers filled with Alberta tar. I suspect they will be one he!! of a lot less manouverable in tight spaces than a BC Ferry.
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stanschurman
240 Fans
11:25 PM on 01/15/2012
Presumably the ferrie captain whose ship ran aground off the coast of BC awhile back knew the waters as well as any pilot. That didn't prevent the accident. Of course the cruise ship industry is going to say it's safe and it probably is 99% of the time.
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Skookum1
truth can't be bought, but lies sure can be sold..
193 Fans
11:16 AM on 01/16/2012
The captain wasn't on deck, can't remember the rank of those on the bridge at the time but there were only two of them and they were distracted, so it's said, by a "personal conversation" and forgot to turn the ferry at this certain point, which would have got them around Gil Island; instead they ran straight into it in the dark, rainy night etc......Human error is "one of those things", like the Exxon Valdez's captain being drunk at the wheel.......sounds like on the Costa Concordia it may have been something like "human folly".........

It's a miracle there HAVEN'T been many major marine disasters on the BC Ferry system, or in the few decades before that in the days of Union Steamships and BC Steamships and Black Ball, which ran the coastal shipping/passenger service between them for many years. One notable and really scary one was the Russian freighter that nearly cut a BC Ferry in half in the middle of Active Pass - a tortuous s-bend, very narrow and strong-watered, between Galiano and Mayne Islands; though there was a pilot, he'd chosen to take the Russians for a tour of the Gulf Islands instead of staying in the main shipping channel (Haro Strait-Boundary Passage) which connects the Strait of Juan de Fuca to Georgia Strait, and forms the international boundary.
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Skookum1
truth can't be bought, but lies sure can be sold..
193 Fans
11:23 AM on 01/16/2012
I think the worst-ever on BC shipping lines, though in Alaskan waters, was the Princess Sophie during in 1918; 343 lives lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Princess_Sophia

Another very bad one, though in Washington waters despite Victoria being the port for the voyage, was the SS Pacific in 1875....rammed on the high seas off the Olympic Peninsula, bound for San Francisco, by a ship that didn't even notice, or stop, in the heavy fog.....275 lives lost.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Pacific_%281851%29

I'm unaware of any losses on that scale in BC waters, though there have been some notable collisions and sinkings (though not of BC Ferries).
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