Almost 15 years have passed since the Costa Concordia disaster off the coast of Italy on 13 January 2012, a night of death and destruction captured in a new Netflix documentary.
Titled Shipwrecked: Nightmare At Sea, the Netflix documentary reveals new footage and accounts from the survivors of the tragedy that claimed 32 lives.
The ship had left the port of Civitavecchia in Rome on a tour of Mediterranean destinations. It was carrying 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew.
Within hours, the Costa Concordia collided with a small reef, which ripped a huge gash into the port side of the hull, eight metres below the surface.
After an hour, with the ship taking on water and listing to starboard, a huge rescue operation taking several hours rescued all but 27 passengers and five crew.
The captain was accused of escaping into a lifeboat while hundreds of passengers remained on board.
The subsequent criminal trial of the 51-year-old captain, Francesco Schettino revealed that the Costa Concordia was performing a “sail-by salute” – a longstanding maritime practice of passing close to shore, often to wave hello to those on land.
In this case, Antonello Tievoli, the ship’s maître d’, came from Giglio, where the ship capsized, and had asked the captain to attempt the manoeuvre.
Schettino was charged with manslaughter, causing a maritime disaster and causing injury to 150 people.
In February 2015, he was handed a 16-year sentence that he is still serving in a Rome prison.
The vessel was eventually towed back to Genoa, where it was built, and scrapped.