The fallout for Costa Cruises, a subsidiary of Carnival Corporation, continues three days after the Costa Concordia disaster that injured hundreds and claimed an unknown number of lives. Investors reacted by selling off Carnival shares on the London Stock Exchange, which fell more than 16 percent by closing. U.S. stock exchanges were closed for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and it remains to be seen how the markets will react to Carnival Corporation on Tuesday.
Rescue workers have also found another victim, that of a male passenger, inside the ship, and the Italian Coast Guard upgraded the number of missing passengers to 29 as of Monday evening, according to the Associated Press. Reports from the scene indicate that there may be fuel leaks in the ill-fated ship, which spells trouble for surrounding ecosystem.
At a January 16 press conference, Costa Cruises president Pier Luigi Foschi appeared shaken and sighed heavily throughout the conference. He asserted that Captain Francesco Schettino, currently under arrest for manslaughter, committed gross navigational errors that caused the ship to capsize, but Foschi appeared to exonerate the ship’s crew by saying that they acted as responsibly as possible given the circumstances. His statement contradicts passenger accounts that the crew was slow to respond and offered inadequate assistance to help them get off the ship quickly.
Although Schettino insists that he remained on the ship for some time before leaving, his legal problems won’t go away any time soon. Italian navigation code requires him to have remained on the ship until all passengers were rescued, and while remaining on the ship may not have worked out in the captain’s favor, ANSA, the Italian news agency, reports that leadership did not begin evacuating the cruise ship soon enough.
Several question marks remain, including what promoted Schettino to navigate the Costa Concordia so close to shore, why he left the ship before the passengers and why the crew was slow activate the ship’s emergency evacuation plan. Costa Cruises might take a lesson from Captain Sullenberger, the celebrated airline pilot who remained on board the downed U.S. Airways Flight 1549 until the last passenger exited the plane safely.