Enforcement of Safety Standards

As rescue efforts off the Tuscan coast wind down, the Dutch salvage company SMIT is standing by to stabilize the Costa Concordia by securing the vessel against further capsizing on rocks adjacent to the port city of Giglio.

Costa Concordia tragedy shows need for enforcement of safety standards
By Jim Young and W. Bradford Gary

Special to the Daily News

As rescue efforts off the Tuscan coast wind down, the Dutch salvage company SMIT is standing by to stabilize the Costa Concordia by securing the vessel against further capsizing on rocks adjacent to the port city of Giglio. What is left unanswered is the full operating record of the Italian ship’s safety procedures and, most notably, actions of the ship’s master and his officers during the accident.

In the past several decades, three major foreign flagged cruise ships have foundered because of the incapacity and neglect of safety standards, resulting in substantial loss of life.

M.V. Morro Castle, a liner engaged in the Havana-to-New York cruise trade, caught fire on Sept. 1, 1934, on the inbound approach to New York harbor. The vessel burned out of control and drifted onto a public beach near the boardwalk in Asbury Park, N.J.

On July 25, 1956, the MV Andrea Dorea, the pride of the Italian Line, was running at high speed in dense fog on the approach channel to New York harbor. Off Nantucket Lightship, it collided with the Stockholm, a passenger vessel with an ice-strengthened bow that knifed through mid-ship passenger sections of the Dorea, where passengers were trapped.

Although the Dorea was equipped with newly installed ………[access full article]