to get on the life boat of course what is the protocol. so we felt safe on our first cruise. >> did that happen for this cruise? >> no. at no point were we told where the master stations were, what we are supposed to do, who we are supposed to contact, i mean, we luckily do not have any kids. i mean, grateful we don't of course because a lot of times the kids are separate from the parents, so, i mean, we had no information what to do. >> is it fair to say that you feel that you were not properly communicated to regarding safety requirements and standards for -- on the ship while you were on the ship? >> correct. >> and then, can you just talk a bit about once -- i'm trying to understand what was communicated to you while you were on the ship, versus what was communicated to you after you were on safe ground, in terms of

what was occurring. >> so, at any point while we were on the ship the crew member were kept waiting for someone else, a speaker that never came from the captain. and only time they let us on to the boat because now people were enraged and angry as the ship had tilted enough, and every point, it was -- we were told that it's electrical issue and everything is under control. and we do not is have to get off the boat at this point. >> so this is coming from either the crew or the staff on the ship? >> yes, it was somebody on behalf of the captain. >> on behalf of the captain. >> yes. >> how long was that type of message communicated to you and other -- other customers on the

ship? for what length of time? >> so, from 9:30 to 10:54 p.m. while we were on that life boat that is the same message that was being presentsed to us. the only reason i know the specific times is because i had taken few photos and i'll go back, they had recorded the timing on the pictures. >> in the final question, can you convey to this panel when you were first notified or aware of actually damage that occurred, were you on the ship or was it when you were off the ship? >> when we were off the ship. and as i said before, it was the first time i guess, we got to see the length of damage and what actually had happened, or etch that the captain was not on the ship, was when we were in the u.s. embassy getting our emergency passports, that is

when we came to know that the reason why the announcements were made on behalf of the captain was because the captain was not there. >> and then, one final question, can you convey since this -- the completion of this had tragedy how has the company handled communicating with you in terms of either offering you -- what have they offered you? have they compensated you or refunded your trip, what kind of experience have you had since? >> so we had made a lot of independent plans beyond the cruise ship for our vacation, so, immediately the cruise line has refunded us for what was charged by them. and they had requested us to send them other charges that occurred and they will be refunding that as well. so the communication, all the

communication happened via mail. >> okay. well, thank you again for coming and testifying and sharing with us your experience and again, my apologies to you. >> thank you. >> ms. brown? >> first of all, thank you so very much for coming. this is truly a teachable moment, because everything that you were saying is what it is that went wrong and how we can improve because from step with one throughout the entire process, you know, everything absolutely was not handled properly. was this, did you all embark there or some other place because i understand the ship, this was not the first sailing. so, did you -- had you just interior entered the ship? >> yes, that was the first day, that was another thing we noticed, we got outside the room and like all the other people

that had paperwork in their mailbox and my husband happened to ask our state room attendant, what is going on? why do they have the paper and we don't and she said because it's a nonstop cruise so for the people who are in the other room, it's their last day and they are disembarking but since you came on this is your first day. >> and we were in four hours this our cruise, we had just gotten on to the cruise. >> you got on around dinner time? >> yes. >> yes. so, i understand the new procedure is that regardless of, before they sail, they will give you the safety information. you know, this is really, like i said, step one, two, and three, we need to record everything that happened, to make sure that it never happens again. i'm so happy for your safety and coming here to enlighten us as

to what happened, step by step. you know, i've heard so many different stories but there's no excuse that the captain was not there. that he did not stand up in his responsibility, he was dining understand, but you did not see him at dinner. >> no, we didn't. >> he was not at the captains table? >> no. >> okay, i mean, this is, i'm trying to make a joke of it, but it's not a joke. clearly, if you are the captain of a ship, you have a responsibility to make sure that you're passengers are safe, but, you know, it goes back to this is one person i cannot imagine anyone spopding in that mannerism. and so i'm happy that you are all safe and thank you so much for coming and i yield back the balance of my time. >> mr. cummings. >> thank you very much, mr. chairman. the -- i agree with ms. brown,

this is indeed a teachable moment. and i too am sorry this happened to you. it was a fifth anniversary? >> fifth. >> wedding anniversary so? >> yes. >> i'm sorry you went through this hell and hopefully nothing like this will happen again. going back to the teachable moment, i know you thought about this, and i want to thank you for your testimony, it was clear. but, when you look back, are there things that you said, you have been on cruises before, i think you said you got the some kind of information about safety and there's going to be testimony later on, you may be already aware of this, that on

february 9th, 2012, members instituted a new passenger muster policy requiring mandatory drills for embarking passengers prior to departure from port. this is a new policy that exceeds existing legal requirements but to those people from the cruise industry that may be in the room, what would you -- i mean, what would you like to make sure is in that drill? in other words, when they, just like when you get on the airplane, they sell you how to fasten the seat belt and all that, having had this experience, and none of us spept some other people that may have been on the ship with you all have gone through this type of the experience, i mean, looking back on it, what kind of information would you have loved to have seen or have heard when

you got on the ship? >> so, the first thing that we would have liked to have seen, is basic information. in our previous cruise while we were signing in, they were saying proceed to this deck, this is where the security drill is going to be. as soon as you hear ur we went the cruise, with we trust today crew members and the captain that they know what they are doing. nobody deserves die on their vacation, let alone go through all this trouble. but, we would have really loved to see some kind of assurence or saying where the life jackets are, where the life boats are, who is supposed to do what? and like in our previous experience, they had somebody responsible for group a, somebody responsible for group b.

so we need who to contact and they were supposed to stand there. something like that would have been really nice to see. language was another barrier that we felt was there. the majority of the crew members that did not speak english or had difficulty in communicating so that made it a bit more frustrating because we had to wait for somebody to translate it to english. once the nflgz passes from one person to another, it starts to change and i think that also added to the aggravation and confusion on the concorida. >> and a lot of times, we tried to find people that spoke english and other languages that were announcement being made to let us know what was the message. so we relied on third parties to tell us us what was happening. the life jacket location would

have been nice because we had no idea -- i actually had no idea if it was not for our team work, that she knew where the life jackets were, and we would not have to go all the way from the third deck to to nine deck to g get our life jackets. that was a lot of time and energy wasted. we did not care at this the point for any other luggage or things in the room to leave behind. it was only for the sake of the life jacket that we had to go up there. >> let me ask you this, you said that you had contact with the cruise folks, and you said that you -- i think understand that

they -- i think i understand that they compensated you for losses you may have sustained? >> so directly for what we paid for the cruise alone, so we had made our arrangements to get to the port and stay in a hotel, book our flights separately, which was not done with the c concorid concorida, it was done with other company that we flew with. the only thing they refunded immediately was the charge on the credit card from the cruise ship. >> to your knowledge, i need just another minute, to your knowledge, have you now released them from any future liability or is this etpaid up to a certa point and if there are -- in other words, if you wanted to, if you had other expenses or you wanted to claim any kind of damages, have you signed

anything that says the company is no longer liable? >> no, no we have not at this point. they sent us a claim form for all the things that we had lost in our cabin, but we have not signed anything that releases them for further liabilitieliab. no. >> and also, they had mentioned in one of their letters that they will try to recover our belongings and get back to us and they would like to know the estimate of the valuables that we have left behind in case they were unable to get those to us. >> i got to ask you this. would you take a cruise again? >> not in this near future, no. >> no. >> no. >> thank you very much. >> thank you. >> ms. brown? anything else? >> mr. larson? well mr. and mrs. sharma, thank you for being here very much.

it was very detailed and compelling and i'm sure very difficult, but it helps us to piece together what our mandate was for, getting a complete picture here, i think for myself and my colleagues, it again points to one individual whose incredible lack loss of judgment has resulted in a lot of anguish and much worse for others. so, we believe we will be following up with investigation as it continues but you're being here today was helpful. we thank you very much. we don't have any more questions so we are now going to take a brief adjournment to go to the third panel. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> we will come back to order and recognize our third witness panel. first is christine duffy who is president and ceo of the cruise line international association, she is accompanied by the vice president president, michael crye and marine operations at princess cruises, mr. wright is accompanied by vicki ray, guest services at carnival cruise line and next is captain evans hoyt who is the captain of the norwegian's cruise lines. and our final witness is mr. brian shunaman who is the legislative director for the sea farer's legislative union.

ms. duffy you are free to proceed. >> thank you, mr. chairman. members of the sub committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today -- i'm president and ceo of clea, sitting with me is any vice president. michael is a retired captain who served 24 years in the coast guard. bring begin my remarks, let me just state also that the cruise industry and clea work closely with and depend to coast guard and we wish to express our sympathies for their loss they had last evening. i would certainly prefer to be

with you today on very different circumstances. the concardia incident has had a pro found impact on our entire industry and i speak for all of our cruise line members in expressing our deepest condo condollences to everyone effected by this accident. we are commitmenting to working to make sure that recommended measures are adopted. my remarks today will not focus on speculation over the causes of the concardia incident. there are on going investigation ises by italian maritime and law enforcement authorities and we hope to have their conclusions as soon as possible. clea represents 26 major cruise lines aserves more than 16,000

agencies across the united states. last year, our member lines served 16.3 million passengers up from 7.2 million in the year 2000. safety is this industry's number one priority. it is absolutely essential to our business, nothing is more important than that. every aspect of the cruise experience is heavily regulated and monitor ee eed under both u and maritime law. the international maritime organization or imo mandates global standards for the safety and operation of cruise ships. the most important of these standards are detailed in the international convention for the safety of life at sea. or solas, which provides the uniform worldwide set of mandates regarding safety equipped, crew training and

evacuation, and emergency procedures and navigation safety standards. a vital part of solas is the international code, which has safety and procedures so that every member of the on board crew and cruise lines understands and is trained in his or her precise responsibilities, especially in the event of an emergency. the standards embodied by the maritime organization, solas and the ism code have multiple layers of enforcement at the international, flag state, and port state level. in the united states, as we heard earlier the u.s. coast guard enforces all regulatory requirements through the announced and unannounced inspections, and a rigorous annual inspection of every ship that embarks passengers in the united states.

at any time the local coast guard captain can prevent any cruise ship from if a serious n of any regulation is found. because of the cruise industry's commitment to safety, supported by strict regulations and vigorous enforcement mechanisms, cruising is, as we heard from vice admiral salerno, one of the very safest forms of recreation and travel in the world. in the decade prior to the grounding of the concordia, there were a total of 28 fatalities on cruise ships related to operational casualty out of 223 million passengers and crew who sailed during those years. 22 of those fatalities involved crewmembers, and six involved passengers. now let me be very clear. not a single fatality is acceptable to our industry.

and we have and will continue to work hard to prevent such incidents. we treat every one of these tragedies as a profound reminder of our duty to continuously improve our practices, procedures, and performance. the concordia incident is no different. almost immediately following the accident, clea member cruise lines launched a cruise industry operational safety review, which is a comprehensive assessment of the critical human factors and operationals s s a aspects of maritime safety. this is underway and will allow our crews to share best practices, consulting with independent experts and collaborating closely with governments and regulatory bodies to implement necessary changes to enhance safety. i am pleased to report that on

february 9th, clea members instituted the very first of these recommendations announcing the new muster policy requiring that mandatory muster drills for embarking passengers prior to departure from port. this new policy, which has been undertaken voluntarily by clea members both here and abroad exceeds existing legal requirements and became effective immediately. as additional best practices emerge from our review, recommendations will be made on an ongoing basis. this continues a long tradition in our industry to focus on continuous improvements to proactively improve safety procedures. the cruise industry also has a strong record of working with congress to initiate and enact new laws that are dedicated to advancing passenger safety.

clea worked with many members of this subcommittee to assist in the development and enactment of the cruise vessel security and safety act of july 2010, bringing consistency and clarity to the security and safety regulations for the cruise industry in the united states. clea member cruise lines are already in compliance with all effective provisions, including required crime reporting and logging the use of latch and computerized key technology, maintenance of 42-inch rail heights in all passenger areas, and peepholes in all cabins. we will continue to work with law enforcement agencies both in the united states and around the world to ensure that all of the bill's provisions are fully implemented. thank you again for the opportunity to provide this testimony and for us to detail

the substantial oversight and accountability of cruise lines both in the united states and internationally. we remain fully and deeply committed to continuous enhancement of the safety of our guests and crewmembers as it is without question our most important priority. i look forward to responding to your questions. thank you. >> thank you, ms. duffy. mr. wright, you're recognized. >> mr. chairman, ranking member larsen and members of the subcommittee, my name is george wright. i'm the senior vice president for marine operations for princess cruises. which is a subsidiary of the carnival corporation. on behalf of the entire carnival family, i want to say first of all that we are all deeply saddened by this tragic accident involving the costa concordia. our thoughts and our hearts are with the passengers, the crew,

and their families. the safety of our passengers and crew are our top priority. and every day we strive to achieve high levels of safety, and we are committed to intensifying this effort as much as we can. prior to joining princess cruises, i served in the coast guard for 27 years. retiring in the rank of captain. my last assignment was the coast guard captain of the port los angeles/long beach. and we were responsible for all coast guard operations in southern california. my duties varied widely from field operations to headquarters, including serving as a member on the u.s. delegation to the international maritime organization where we

were committed to progress the emphasis and focus on the role of the human element in preventing maritime casualties to the coast guard's prevention through people program. my focus at princess is to lead a team to provide safe, secure, and environmentally sound operations. in compliance with the rules and regulations of the imo, the united states, and other countries as well as with local state and regional requirements. we accomplish this through the establishment of policies and procedures that meet or exceed national and international requirements, and through training, audits and inspections both internal and external. with respect to vary vying compliance externally, the coast guard is the ports authority in

the united states can board and inspect our ships at any time. regular coast guard inspections are conducted on cruise ships operating out of the u.s. ports at least twice a year. training is an integral part of safety. and we have strict standards for the qualifications of our captains and our deck officers, which include formal training and years and years of experience. prior to being hired, our deck officers must be licensed to perform the functions required for their level of responsibility on board. officers and crewmembers undergo regular safety and emergency training. our crewmembers focus on the mission of safe and secure and environmentally sound operations every day. every crewmember is given a safety briefing and instruction as to their emergency duties based on their specific position on board when they sign on to the ship. they also participate in onboard

safety drills, including fire and abandon ship drills, and attend at least one fire and abandoned ship month. specific life-saving and firefighting training is also programs.n either shore-based we regularly inspect our life-saving and other safety equipment, including lifeboats king condition.s to ensure w educating passengers regarding safety procedures is equally important. regarding musters, clea announced a new muster policy voluntarily adopted by all members lines, including princess which exceeds international calling for an s prior to departing from port. during these musters, key emergency procedures and where to go in case of an emergency are explained to the passengers. and finally, the carnival group

of companies have engaged outside industry-leading experts in the fields of emergency response, training, and implementation to conduct an audit of all of the company's emergency response and safety procedures and to conduct a thorough review of the concordia accident. this company-wide initiative will identify lessons learned and best practices to further ensure the security and safety of all of our passengers and crew. we are committed to taking the results of the internal audit and providing the recommendations to the industry-wide operational safety review so that the entire cruise industry can benefit from our learns. i appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today and look forward to answering any questions you may have for me. thank you. >> thank you, mr. wright. captain hoyt, you're now recognized.