Costa Concordia: How Engineers Pulled Off An Impossible Salvage Job
How To Salvage a 110,000-Ton Cruise Ship
On January 13, 2012, the unthinkable happened. A massive cruise ship ran aground, killing 32 people. The Costa Concordia struck a shallow sea bed and rolled over onto its side, treating the world to an unusual sight. Cruise ships rarely sink.
The sinking of the Costa Concordia was a disaster on multiple levels. It was a human tragedy that left numerous people dead. It was a failure of professionalism on the part of the captain. It was also a potential ecological disaster as the ship was filled with thousands of gallons of fuel and oil along with tons of litter, food, and debris. People were worried that the corpse of the ship would leak all of this into the pristine waters around Tuscany.
After the ship was evacuated, officials were left with a conundrum. What do you do with a partially submerged cruise ship? The ship was an ugly sight. It was an ecological time bomb. And it was a symbol of what could go wrong on the high seas.
The only solution was to try and salvage the ship. But the operation would be delicate — and expensive.
