South Korean ferry sinks. Nearly 300 passengers missing.

[Borgholio]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/worl ... s/7809913/

SEOUL — The captain of a sunken ferry apologized Thursday for the accident that has left nearly 300 passengers missing and a frantic search underway to find survivors.

Meanwhile, a little girl has emerged as a heart-breaking symbol of the tragedy.

Nine bodies have been recovered so far in the disaster that survivors say was made worse by the amount of time it took for an order to evacuate the Sewol after it lurched suddenly to one side Wednesday.

"I am really sorry and deeply ashamed," a man identified by broadcaster YTN and Yonhap news agency as the captain, 60-year-old Lee Joon-seok, said in brief comments shown on TV, his face hidden beneath a gray hoodie. "I don't know what to say."

Divers continued to search the frigid, swift-moving waters Thursday night for the 287 passengers still missing among the 475 people who departed from Incheon, near the capital of Seoul, for the 14-hour trip to Jeju island. The popular tourist destination features volcanic landscapes, beaches, golf courses and casinos.

The search was hampered Thursday by strong currents, rain and bad visibility. Part of the keel of the Sewol remained visible in waters off Mokpo, about 290 miles from Seoul.

Delayed by fog, the captain reportedly steered the Sewol for an alternate course to save time and was three hours from Jeju when passengers heard a loud bang and the ship listed to port, said YTN. The government has not determined the cause of the disaster but media here say officials are looking into whether the ship hit submerged rocks, or changed course so sharply that cargo shifted below and overturned the boat.

On-board safety announcements told passengers to stay where they were inside the boat and put on life jackets to await rescue, say survivors. Soon there were dozens of boats and helicopters on the scene but when the ship began tilting over in its side there was no time for some to escape.

Among those on board was a 5-year-old girl who has become a symbol of the tragedy.

Kyun Ji-Yeon was going to start a new life off the country's south coast. Tired of the urban struggle, her father Kyun Jae-Gyun had loaded a truck with their furniture and possessions to head to Jeju's mild climate. He planned to grow tangerines, one of the island's best-known exports.

The girl was among the survivors. She was taken with others to a Mokpo hospital on the southwestern tip of the Korean Peninsula and did not know where her family was.

She told nurses that her brother, age 6, and her mother, had put a life jacket on her and pushed her up and out of the tilted ferry with the help of other adults, reported SBS television network. Concerned nurses and others who knew she was alone started a social media campaign Wednesday, posting her picture online, to find her family members, reported the Korea Times newspaper.

Celebrities were among the many people who spread the word on social networks about the little girl, including TV host and entertainer Ha Dong-hoon, better known as Haha. They later learned they had the wrong spelling for the girl's name. After correcting it, a cousin of the girl tweeted that an aunt and grandmother had seen Kyun on television and were heading to the hospital.

Kyun showed little emotion in television footage but her aunt said she was showing stress and had thrown up the cookies she had fed her. A passenger surnamed Kim said he was the one who took her in his arms as he climbed up the tilted ship, said the Korea Times.

She was passed between four men before being taken from the ship. There has been no word on whether her father, mother and brother made it off.

Survivors blamed the high number of missing passengers on the ship's crew issuing repeated announcements that passengers should stay put even when the ship began tilting dramatically, said Yonhap.

Video clips taken by survivors revealed that the on-board announcements continued to instruct passengers to stay inside, despite the ferry tilting so far that people could not stand properly, said the Korea Herald.

"Go inside and wait, as the cabin is safer," a ferry staffer said in an announcement recorded on video by a passenger.

Relatives shouted, jostled and threw water bottles at Prime Minister Chung Hong-won when he visited them early Thursday morning at a gymnasium on Jindo Island, where many families of the passengers have gathered.

"How dare you come here with your chin up?" one relative screamed, reported the Korea Herald newspaper. "Would you respond like this if your own child was in that ship?"

One mother stopped Chung from leaving. "Don't run away, Mr. Prime Minister. Please tell us what you're planning to do," she said, according to the Korea Herald.

MORE: World's worst ferry disasters

The 480-foot-long ship was authorized to carry more than 900 people and 180 vehicles, according to Korea news media reports.

"A large hole caused by a submerged rock is the most probable reason why enough water poured into the ferry to cause it to capsize," Chung Yong-hyun, at the Korea Diving Industry Institute, told Chosun Ilbo newspaper.

"We're investigating whether the Sewol struck rocks while going off the course recommended by the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries to reach Jeju faster because it was about three hours behind schedule due to fog the previous night," the Ministry of Security and Public Administration told the paper.

Three students and two teachers were among the nine people confirmed dead. A mainland Chinese couple, headed to Jeju with their car, are among the missing, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported Thursday.

The married couple, ethnic Koreans from close to the North Korean border, were a Miss Han, 38, and a Mr Li, 39, reported the Chinese state television channel CCTV.

Some Chinese expressed their sorrow online, and made connections to the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 plane, which had 153 Chinese citizens on board.

"People from countries which have just experienced missing relatives can best understand and sympathize with the mood of South Korean people," wrote Bai Ming, a government economic researcher, on Sina Weibo Thursday. "I wish more people can be rescued."

Hope rose Wednesday that some of the missing passengers may be alive, trapped in an area with an air pocket. The father of one of the missing passengers said he received a text message from his child that said there were still passengers alive on board the boat, Al Jazeera reported.

The text message read, "I am alive, there are students alive, please save us quickly," according to Al Jazeera.

However, the timing of the text messages was not clear. As of Thursday night, the ship has been underwater for more than 24 hours.

"I'm afraid there's little chance for those trapped inside still to be alive," rescue official Cho Yang Bok told YTN television.

[Sea Skimmer]

It took over 2 hours to sink. It was calm, clear daylight. By the time it fully capsized two dozen fishing boats, coast guard cutters and a small freighter had already appeared within 500 yards as well as several helicopters with rescue hoists.

The captain survived and may have been one of the first to abandon ship, two hundred plus kids on the upper deck didn't make it because they were told to stay in place, indoors. On a sinking, listing ship. 1 of 46 life rafts was launched. In over two hours.

Not even considering criminal negligence that may have caused the sinking in the first place, as the cause is as yet unknown, the conduct of the captain and crew was recklessly incompetent to the point of being insane. Nobody should have died in this. There are no excuses.

The ship being small enough, heavy cranes are expected to arrive on Friday to begin raising the hulk. Survival in air pockets for weeks is plausible, but all passengers were on the upper decks. They are going to bring up a shipload of life jacketed child's corpses because the modern age lacks basic standards of maritime safety and responsibility. Maybe that will change when the next cruise ship to sink goes under in 10 minutes. Na... it wont.

[Broomstick]

What the fuck is it with so-called "captains" that abandon ship and leave passengers to literally sink or swim? We saw that with the Concordia - which also had a course deviation!

[Zaune]

What the fuck is it with so-called "captains" that abandon ship and leave passengers to literally sink or swim? We saw that with the Concordia - which also had a course deviation!

Getting promoted to captain requires more skill at corporate politics than at your actual job, I guess.

[Thanas]

No. I resent that as somebody who has a captain in the family.

Incompetence is just that. Just because some pilots kill their entire plane does not mean we slander the whole profession.

[Broomstick]

^ This.

I have a good friend who is a licensed ship captain for the Great Lakes. He was almost frothing at the mouth over this, really outraged over it. I got to hear at length and in great detail all that he felt was wrong about the matter.

The fact his daughter is currently living in South Korea, and is a teacher, probably allowed him to identify a little more than average with this accident as well. (No, she was not involved in this.)

[Highlord Laan]

What the fuck is it with so-called "captains" that abandon ship and leave passengers to literally sink or swim? We saw that with the Concordia - which also had a course deviation!

Personally, I think the tradition of publicly hanging derelict Captains needs to be brought back. After a swift and brutal ceremony where every bit of filigree, insignia, merit and rank are torn from their dress uniform.

[Esquire]

Was that ever a general legal policy? I thought it was just RN regulations.

[Kingmaker]

If I had to hazard a guess, this is, in fact, nothing remotely new and there have always been some captains who feel the best course of action is to direct evacuation from a secure and low-stress position. Hell, there have been incidents where the ship's crew nailed the the passengers into the hold before heading off.

[Thanas]

Look, anybody who knows anything about shipwrecks can probably cite a dozen examples right of the top of the hat where in the "good old times" captains abandoned their crew at first risk. The image of the good captain who goes down with his ship as the rule, not the exception, is a work of fiction. They are humans, they make mistakes, they get scared. No amount of golden links is going to change that, only competent training.

Heck, it probably was way worse in the times until the 19th century because until then, non-officers among the crew were considered to be the dregs of the sea and treated little better than scum by their officers. The Royal Navy was particularly cruel in that regard, with their requirement for strict discipline only being enforced with utter terror.

The 19th century - and especially newspapers changed that. Captain Smith of the Titanic confirmed the "right way to go". But centuries before? Heck, might as well have been the rule that the officers were the first in the boats. After all, they were worth something, whereas the uneducated savages that made up the most crews were not.

What the fuck is it with so-called "captains" that abandon ship and leave passengers to literally sink or swim? We saw that with the Concordia - which also had a course deviation!

Personally, I think the tradition of publicly hanging derelict Captains needs to be brought back. After a swift and brutal ceremony where every bit of filigree, insignia, merit and rank are torn from their dress uniform.

Sure, as soon as you can point out to me where that tradition ever existed and was universally enforced, except in fiction that is. And as soon as you can show the benefits.

Was that ever a general legal policy? I thought it was just RN regulations.

Given that "only asians" died the old RN probably would have cared less about this shipwreck and they also did not care that much in the numerous instances where captains abandoned their charges - even when those wrecks happened right off the British costs.

In conclusion:
There is a way to go about this and that is using the legal system to prosecute the incompetent cowards and to review the training procedures - if necessary, to redo the whole university where such idiots are allowed to graduate. Idolizing a past that never existed that way except for in the mind of romanticizing fools is not the way to do this.

EDIT: In fact, several of the facts of this case remind me a lot more about older shipwrecks. For example, the crew telling the passengers to stay put, the failure to coordinate, the failure to brief on emergency evacuation procedures because "there was just no time"....

[Zaune]

No. I resent that as somebody who has a captain in the family.

Incompetence is just that. Just because some pilots kill their entire plane does not mean we slander the whole profession.

^ This.

I have a good friend who is a licensed ship captain for the Great Lakes. He was almost frothing at the mouth over this, really outraged over it. I got to hear at length and in great detail all that he felt was wrong about the matter.

The fact his daughter is currently living in South Korea, and is a teacher, probably allowed him to identify a little more than average with this accident as well. (No, she was not involved in this.)

I apologise for any offence given, and never meant to imply that all or even most merchant navy captains are like that, but nevertheless I bet both those individuals have several work-related anecdotes about that sort of officer.

[Borgholio]

Looks like the Vice Principal of the school where 200 of the missing children are from was found hanging from a tree this morning. My first thought was suicide out of shame or guilt...even though I can't see how he actually had anything to do with it. Do the Koreans have a ritual form of suicide similar to the Japanese?

Oh, and the captain and a few of his officers have had arrest warrants placed for them. Good.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/04/18/world/asi ... p-sinking/

[mr friendly guy]

Apparently its because the Vice Principal had survivor's guilt, and felt guilty because his charges died while he himself survived.

[Kuja]

Some of the text messages that people sent to their familes before the ferry sank are floating around the net. It's fucking heartbreaking.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/south-kore ... -1.2612734

[Burak Gazan]

The problem with these 'captains' is that a very large percentage of them are fucking nothing of the sort. They get their licence from some shithole like Liberia or similar 'country', where getting your licence is accomplished by signing at the bottom and paying your fee. That this catastrophe happens in a country like South Korea is shocking. Since you would like to presume that their maritime agencies are up to snuff. Eh boy

**EJ going down with the Titanic was considered a good career move by most if not all professional mariners, btw

[Thanas]

Have you got anything substantial to support those allegations of yours? Because I am pretty sure Schettino did not get a print-diploma.

[Burak Gazan]

Have you got anything substantial to support those allegations of yours? Because I am pretty sure Schettino did not get a print-diploma.

Getting a proper licence is no guarantee that a captain is actually competent, even though thats what it says on the licence. There are plenty guys who come unglued at the first signs of a crisis.

IMO Fraudulent Certificates from 2001 but the more recent issues have been with security certifications. Likely since that is the latest surge in paperwork from IMO

[Broomstick]

You're always going to get a certain percentage of people who fail to perform as expected no matter what profession. You can simulate and rehearse all you want, but until the shit hits the fan you don't really know how people will react.

That said - you expect certain things from certain types of people. This captain failed in his duty, which is why he's being brought up on criminal charges now.

It's just heartbreaking because most likely those 275 missing people are dead. They're going to pull up a ship full of corpses in a few days or weeks. That's going to provide "closure" of a sort (and how I hate that word) but it's going to be horrifically devastating.

On the world news tonight they were showing shots of the school these kids came from. It's empty. Just tragic all around.

[Burak Gazan]

It really is eye opening, especially when you see it firsthand. To see someone you work with every day, standing there like a wax dummy while things just flow around them.

One fire I remember, my captain did a really smart thing when the alarm went off: first thing he said on the PA was "This is NOT a drill. This is NOT a drill. Fire in incinerator room...." and things went from there, knowing that this wasn't a "show up in lifejacket for headcount" deal but the real thing. Yet there was STILL a percentage who were not in the game mentally. Human reaction will always be an unknown factor

[Thanas]

Have you got anything substantial to support those allegations of yours? Because I am pretty sure Schettino did not get a print-diploma.

Getting a proper licence is no guarantee that a captain is actually competent, even though thats what it says on the licence. There are plenty guys who come unglued at the first signs of a crisis.

Sure. Now please provide evidence that false diplomas are the case here, because all I am seeing here is your say-so.

I thank you for retracting the assertion that false diplomas had nothing to do with the costa concordia crash though. Have you got any other evidence that serious accidents were caused by false diplomas?

[Burak Gazan]

Not enough information is clearly available yet. In any marine accident, checking the qualifications of all personnel is a top priority. But it is always a possibility. Given the captain and crew's actions, they certainly fall far below what you might consider acceptable standards for a ship carrying passengers. First rule in any accident is to get any passengers off to safety at once. Apparently they broke that rule straight off. Ferries are top-heavy to begin with and dont have the greatest stability. Once the vehicle deck gets any water on it, capsize is inevitable

[Grumman]

Has there been a recent example of a passenger ship sinking where the crew performed adequately? Obviously part of being a good captain is not sinking your ship in the first place, but has there been a naval US Airways Flight 1549 in recent history?

[Broomstick]

You'd have to do a little searching, "Ship sinks, all crew and passengers safe on shore" just doesn't seem to make the headlines for some reason.

[Thanas]

Not enough information is clearly available yet. In any marine accident, checking the qualifications of all personnel is a top priority. But it is always a possibility.

Please do not waste people's time with outrageous speculations like "LOLOLOL, the South Koreans are so stupid they might have forgotten to check the license of veteran employees."

You'd have to do a little searching, "Ship sinks, all crew and passengers safe on shore" just doesn't seem to make the headlines for some reason.

Well handled crews do not sink their ships generally, given how sturdy designs are nowadays. That said, in 2005 the crews of the Hanseatic conducted a very efficient evacuation of the entire ship after it had struck a rock though the ship did not sink.

[Sea Skimmer]

Calling the South Koreans stupid is starting to look really reasonable right now, as it has come out that the ship sank because it turned too hard and was unstable thanks to additional structure having been added onto her in 2012 to the tune of several hundred tons of topweight. The danger of full speed turns was known to the captain and long term crew, but apparently not to the third mate who was new to the ship, and illegally left alone at the helm. Said crewer then made a full speed turn and the ship heeled too much, cargo shifted and she was from that moment doomed as water immediately began to flood over the deck. The captain at no point ordered a general abandonment, but did it seem order the crew off after about an hour.