Costa Concordia was a luxury cruise ship that sank in 2012 off the western coast of Italy . The ship was owned and operated by the world’s largest cruise company, the Carnival Corporation of the United States. Costa Concordia was built in Italy and launched at Genoa in 2006. It measured about 950 feet (290 meters) long and 115 feet (35 meters) at its widest. Costa Concordia was designed to carry 3,780 passengers in 1,500 cabins, served by some 1,100 crew.
In early 2012, Costa Concordia was on a week-long Mediterranean cruise. On January 13, it ventured too close to the Italian coast. It struck a submerged rock off Giglio, a small island northwest of Rome. The rock tore a long gash in the Costa Concordia‘s underwater hull (outer covering), causing the ship to lose power. The ship then drifted back toward the island and settled upon an underwater ledge. The Italian captain issued the order to abandon ship. But the evacuation took several hours and was not completed properly. Of the 4,229 passengers and crew aboard, 32 were killed. The captain was later convicted of manslaughter in an Italian court.
The ship came to rest at a steep angle on its starboard (right) side. It was declared a total loss. An international consortium of salvage companies developed a plan to line the hull with pontoons and pull the ship onto a sunken platform. From there, the Costa Concordia was refloated and towed back to Genoa for scrapping. The salvage operation—the largest in history—cost more than $1 billion.
