http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/greek_cruise_accident Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:48:41 -0800 pixel-app en http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12765 Fri, 13 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12765
The Merchant Marine Ministry said the recorder could reveal details of the sinking of the Sea Diamond, information they hope to use in the prosecution of crew members.

Two French tourists remain missing from the ship, which struck well-marked rocks April 5 and sank off the main port of the Greek holiday island of Santorini. Nearly 1,600 people were rescued, including hundreds of Americans and groups from Canada, Britain, Australia, France and Spain.

The ministry and the cruise line have blamed the sinking on human error. The ship's captain and five other crew members have been charged with negligence and are expected to testify next week in the ongoing probe.

Costas Thoktaridis, the head diver at the site, told state-run NET television that a location transmitter helped locate the recorder.

Ministry officials said they would try to pluck the recorder from its resting place 280 feet below the surface with one of two remote-controlled submarines.

Most of the sunken hull, which has settled on a slope of a submerged volcanic crater, is more than 325 feet below the surface.

"On the orders of the Coast Guard, only mechanical means will be used to recover the date recorder so that it is delivered to the authorities, and it will not be touched by human hand," a ministry statement said.

NET said divers could be used if that effort fails.

The submersibles, operated by the Hellenic Center for Marine Research, are also being used to try to locate the missing French passengers and to stop a leak that has sent more than 120 tons of fuel about a quarter of the total amount into the submerged crater.]]> http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12759 Wed, 11 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12759
The Sea Diamond struck well-marked rocks on April 5 and sank near Greece's Santorini island. Nearly 1,600 people, most of them Americans, including two dozen students from North Carolina, were safely evacuated. An unmanned submarine is searching the sunken ship for a missing French tourist and his daughter.

"The incident was a result of human error - but so are 75 percent of all accidents at sea," said Giorgos Koubenis, a representative of Cypriot-based Louis Cruise Lines.

It was the company's first comment on the probable cause of the accident.

The captain and five other crew members have been charged with negligence.

The Greek government stepped up efforts to stem an oil leak from the Sea Diamond, which has already spilled more than 26,000 gallons of fuel near Santorini, known for its soaring cliffs and black sand beaches.

Nearly 119,000 gallons of oil are still inside the ship, threatening environmental damage at the onset of the busy summer season. The remote-controlled submarine was trying stop the leak.

Efforts were hampered by the ship's unstable position. The 10-story-high vessel is face-down on an undersea slope, with most of the hull more than 325 feet below the surface.

"Santorini must return to the way it was before the accident," said Merchant Marine Minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis, adding that additional resources had been made available for the cleanup. "The situation is under control for the moment."

In a statement to the Cyprus stock market, the Louis Cruise Lines said it was fully cooperating in efforts to investigate the accident and had hired a private firm to help prevent environmental damage. The company said it was fully insured, including for possible environmental pollution.

The captain has told investigators he was caught unawares by a sea current that swept his vessel onto the rocks minutes before it was due to dock. If convicted of negligence, the captain, first mate and four other crew members face a maximum five-year sentence.

The Greek captains' association spoke out in defense of the crew.

"Once again, the captain has been made a scapegoat and has been blamed even before his account (was heard," the Masters and Mates Union of the Greek Merchant Marine said in a statement.

"The captain is a very capable and highly regarded colleague," the union said. "Of course the fact that two passengers were not found fills us with sadness. (But) the evacuation was carried out successfully."

The association cited a 2003 study by the National Technical University of Athens, which listed Santorini of one of 17 Aegean Sea ports lacking proper docking facilities.

The Sea Diamond sank in Santorini's sea-filled volcanic crater - known as a caldera - about 15 hours after the rocks tore a hole nearly 100 feet long in the side of the ship.

Missing French tourists Jean-Christophe Allain, 45, and his 16-year-old daughter Maud had a lower deck cabin near the position whether reef struck.

Allain's wife and son survived the accident.]]> http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12751 Tue, 10 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12751
The minister was speaking after he gave Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis an update on the search operation in Santorini harbor, where the cruise liner Sea Diamond hit rocks and foundered early Friday.

Nearly 1,600 people were rescued during a three-hour operation late Thursday, but the bodies of two French tourists are believed still trapped in the wreckage.

Merchant Marine Minister Manolis Kefaloyiannis said: "The mechanism of the rescue worked out perfectly. Our attention is now focused on the question of the environment and, of course, to find the missing two."

"There was human error" involved in the accident, he said.

The missing pair Frenchman Jean-Christophe Allain, 45, and his 16-year-old daughter Maud are thought to have been trapped in their flooded cabin. Allain's wife narrowly escaped.

Naval divers and a robot submarine on Tuesday were searching the wreckage for the missing pair along with the vessel's voice data recorder, which could provide clues to the accident.

The submarine will photograph the position of the vessel which lies an estimated 70-130 yards below the surface and determine its stability before divers are allowed to enter the wreck.

Meanwhile workers struggled to prevent more oil from spilling from the stricken vessel and harming the coastline of the island, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Greek archipelago.

Over the weekend the ship's captain had told investigators he was caught unawares by a sea current that swept his vessel onto the volcanic rocks just minutes before docking even though his vessel carried state-of-the-art positioning equipment and the rocks were well marked. Six crew, including the captain and chief mate, have been charged with negligence.]]> http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12747 Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12747
Despite initial assertions on Thursday by the Cyprus-based Louis Hellenic Cruise Lines, the company that owns the sunken Sea Diamond, that all 1,156 passengers had been rescued from the ship within four hours of it striking a reef, it later emerged that two passengers had not been accounted for.

They were named as 45-year-old Frenchman Jean-Christophe Allain and his 16-year-old daughter Maud from Doue-la-Fontaine in western France. The missing man’s wife and the couple’s son managed to leave the sinking ship safely.

The woman told authorities that she had escaped the family’s lower deck cabin as it began filling with water and thought that her husband and daughter were right behind her.

Navy divers attempted to find the bodies of the two tourists but were unsuccessful. Authorities are planning to use a remote-controlled submersible today to establish whether the ship’s hulk, which is lying at a depth of some 120 meters, has come to rest and if it is safe for divers to search inside the wreck.

The Sea Diamond hit a charted reef at about 4 p.m. on Thursday while on its way to dock at the port of Athinio. The 143-meter ship soon began to list and a rescue operation was mounted.

The passengers, mostly from the USA, Spain and France, were evacuated with the help of local vessels. Some passengers complained that the crew failed to provide assistance during the evacuation.

The operation, in which 391 crew members also abandoned the ship, took between three and four hours. The Sea Diamond sunk in the early hours of Friday morning.

The ship’s captain and five crew members have been charged with causing a shipwreck through negligence, breaching international shipping safety regulations and polluting the environment. All the offenses are classified as misdemeanors and the six men have been released pending the investigation.

The captain is reported to have told a prosecutor on Naxos that a sudden current had pushed the vessel off course. Authorities are investigating claims that he delayed asking for help after striking the reef.

Santorini Mayor Angelos Roussos is expected to file a suit today against the ship’s owners in connection with the pollution caused by the sinking. There are some 430 tons of fuel in the ship’s tanks, which authorities want to drain as quickly as possible, fearing that the vessel may sink to a deeper depth.]]> http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12748 Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/articles/read/12748
Two French tourists are missing and feared drowned following the three-hour rescue effort during which passengers on the Sea Diamond had to scramble onto lifeboats, cross narrow gangways and climb down rope ladders to safety.

At the site of Thursday's accident, meanwhile, crews worked to contain more than 50 tons of oil that has spilled since the 469-foot vessel sank. Plans were made to seal off or remove the remaining 400 tons from the hulk, which has settled on an undersea slope.

Most of the hull is 320 feet below the water's surface inside a sea-filled crater caused by a volcanic eruption 3,500 years ago. But officials fear the ship's position is not yet stable.

Six crew members of the Sea Diamond, including the captain and chief mate, were charged with negligence Saturday but not taken into custody, pending further testimony.

Members of Santorini's boatsmen association played a key part in the April 5 rescue of the passengers mostly American tourists after the ship foundered on the submerged rocks near the island's main port.

The ship sank about 15 hours after striking the well-marked and charted reef in fair weather.

Rescuers have repeatedly cited delays in their ability to contact the crew of the ship, which is operated by Louis Cruise Lines, part of a Cyprus-based tourism group. Many passengers also complained of being poorly informed by the crew.

Sea Diamond engineer Stelios Peroulis denied the rescue was mishandled.

"The captain is very experienced and he followed all the necessary procedures correctly," Peroulis said Sunday.

The engineer said that after the ship hit the rocks, "the engine room flooded and I was called upstairs to prepare the life boats."

One official involved in the cleanup, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said as much as 100 tons of oil may have leaked from the ship.

Although the spill appeared to pose no immediate threat to the beaches on Santorini, one of Greece's most popular holiday destinations, the fate of the remaining oil on board was a concern.

"The oil is continuing to leak from the vessel. The situation is being contained in the present conditions," said Vassilis Mamaloukas, who is leading the clean-up operation for private Greek contractor Environmental Protection Engineering SA.

"Our priority is to pump the oil from the source of the leak, because it is difficult to control oil from a leak from such a depth. ... If the weather conditions are not favorable, we may lose that control."

Coast guard divers continued to probe the hull to prepare for a search scheduled for Tuesday by a remote-controlled submersible to look for signs of the two missing passengers.

Frenchman Jean-Christophe Allain, 45, and his 16-year-old daughter, Maud, were believed to be trapped in a flooded cabin in the lower decks. Allain's wife, who survived the accident along with her son, told authorities she had narrowly escaped from her flooded cabin located near the area where the rocks tore a hole in the side of the ship.

A total of 1,156 passengers and 391 crew were on the four-day Aegean Sea cruise, and included groups from Canada, Britain, Spain, France, Australia and the Dominican Republic. The Americans included nearly 100 students from North Carolina.
]]> http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/greek_cruise_accident Mon, 09 Apr 2007 00:00:00 -0700 http://www.yourlawyer.com/topics/overview/greek_cruise_accident Greek Cruise Ship Sinks in Santorini

The captain of a cruise ship that sank off an Aegean Sea island, sending more than 1,500 passengers and crew onto rescue boats, was charged on April 7, 2007 with causing a shipwreck through negligence. The 469-foot Sea Diamond cruise ship sank into the sea after hitting a well-marked and charted reef in fair weather, inside the Greek island of Santorini. The ship's captain has blamed Thursday's accident on sea currents that swept the Sea Diamond onto a charted reef off the island of Santorini, tearing a hole in the ship's hull.

Additionally, the ship's Greek captain was also charged with violating international shipping safety regulations and polluting the environment, a Merchant Marine Ministry spokeswoman said. Five other officers were questioned, but the spokeswoman was unable to confirm a state TV report that they also had been charged. The ship was minutes away from docking under the spectacular cliffs that make Santorini one of Greece's top tourist destinations. The ship was carrying 1,154 tourists, most from the U.S., and 391 hundred-crew members. Dozens of American high school students were among the passengers.

Many passengers complained of an insufficient supply of life vests and lifeboats, little guidance from crewmembers and being forced into a steep climb down rope ladders to safety. One passenger said she and her friends clung to the deck railing as the ship started sinking. "It was the most horrifying experience in the world. There weren't enough life boats," said, the 18-year-old from Boca Raton, Fla., who returned home on April 7, 2007. "We had to walk a plank from the ship to a ferry boat." Passengers said water quickly filled the bottom floors and spilled from the pools. Several people had broken arms, and many passengers didn't even have time to put on shoes after crewmembers started banging on doors yelling for people to put on their life jackets.

A spokesman for the ship's Cyprus-based operator, Louis Cruise Lines, said the company was working closely with Greek investigators.

Legal Rights for Victims of Cruise Ship Accident
If you or a loved one were seriously injured or suffered a wrongful death as a result of the Greek cruise accidents, you may be entitled to compensation, please fill out the form at the right for a free case evaluation by a qualified cruise ship accident lawyer.]]>