Cruising The Past Cruise News 
- On board a ghost ship: Inside the eerie wreckage of the Costa Concordia four years after the luxury cruise liner sank killing 32 people
- Four years ago, the luxury cruise liner Costa Concordia hit a rock and sank while passing the island of Giglio
- Now a photographer who swam out to its remains has captured the ship’s interior as it looks covered in rust today. Jonathan Danko Kielkowski’s photographs show its haunting interior is slowly corroding due to the salt water.
- Some 32 people died during the disaster, which a court heard was caused when it passed too close to the shoreline
Rusted and rotting, these ghostly photographs show the brittle remains of the Costa Concordia – the once grandiose cruise liner that sank off the coast of Italy in 2012, killing 32 people.
The luxury liner, which was carrying 4,200 passengers at the time, ran aground off the island of Giglio after an ill-judged ‘salute’ by the ship’s captain.
Inside the ship’s theatre, only the metal supports of what were once comfortable seats remain, while the stage is in pieces and speakers are covered with rust.
For more than three years the doomed ship lay on its side where it had crashed, a chilling reminder of the 32 lives lost.
These stunning images are contained in a new book, named Concordia, which has been published by White Press, and features photos by Jonathan Danko Kielkowski and words by Christoph Schaden.
The haunting photographs show how corridors once filled with thousands of people have become unrecognisable after the harsh salt water which filled its rooms corroded its interior.
Inside its stairwells, what appears to be coral gives off an illuminating green glow as it spreads over the ceiling, while debris still lies scattered nearby.
Another photograph shows an empty bar with a row of stools where merry drinkers once sat and chatted are now covered in orange rust.
Thirty-two people were killed when the ship ran aground in the seas near the Tuscan island of Giglio in 2012, making it Italy’s worst maritime disaster since the Second World War.
After a rock carved a hole in the side of the ship and flooded its engines, the 144,500-tonne liner listed a trapped passengers inside. The captain of the cruise ship was sentenced to 16 years in jail for manslaughter.
Francesco Schettino, dubbed ‘Captain Coward’ after he fled the ship before the 4,200 passengers were safely ashore, was handed the sentence last year in Grosseto, Tuscany.
A court heard that Schettino was a ‘reckless idiot’ who had been showing off to a waiter on board the ship, and a friend on Giglio island, when he steered the ship close to the shore on the night of January 13.
maritime history, disaster, sea, cunard, rms lancastria, world war 2, cruise, cruise ship, rms titanic, British maritime history,Titanic, Lusitania,Winston Churchill. cover-up, cruising,
Cruise History, CRUISE LINE HISTORY, cruising the past, CUNARD LINE, ellis island, FRENCH LINE,HOLLAND AMERICA LINE,liners, Normandie, Red Star Line, RMS TITANIC,SOCIAL HISTORY, ss united states, Titanic, world war 2,AMERICAN EXPORT LINES,bill miller, cruise, CRUISE SHIPS, CUNARD LINE, deck plans, HISTORY OF CRUISING, HOLLAND AMERICA LINE, liners,Normandie, ss france, ss normandie, ss united states, william miller Cruise History, CRUISE LINE HISTORY, cruising the past, CUNARD LINE, ellis island, FRENCH LINE,HOLLAND AMERICA LINE,liners, Normandie, Red Star Line, RMS TITANIC,SOCIAL HISTORY, ss united states, Titanic, world war 2,AMERICAN EXPORT LINES,bill miller, cruise, CRUISE SHIPS, CUNARD LINE, deck plans, HISTORY OF CRUISING, HOLLAND AMERICA LINE, liners,Normandie, ss france, ss normandie, ss united states, william miller. costa concordia
