P.I. Pulse: Carnival Triumph Incident was a “Disaster Waiting to Happen”

Carnival Corp., the company that owns Carnival Cruise Lines, is no stranger to news of catastrophes at sea. From disasters with the Costa Concordia to the Carnival Triumph, the company has been making headlines as of late with a number of their luxury cruise ships facing disgusting—and in some cases fatal—fates.

One of the more recent disasters took place aboard the apparently misnamed Carnival Triumph, which has been renamed by critics as the “poop cruise,” due to the sewage disaster experienced aboard the ship when the cruise liner lost power at sea. During this incident, when the Carnival Triumph lost power, sewage problems arose and, as a method of dealing with the problem, bio hazard bags filled with raw sewage lined the hallways of the cruise, providing a horrendous stench and revolting experience for paying customers.

In addition to being surrounded by human feces, the cruise customers were forced to remain in such squalor for days and days, because the power outage left them stranded at sea.

How could the filthy situation be made to look any worse? By an inspection of documents revealing that the ship’s owners actually knew of the problems on board the Carnival Triumph up to a year before the problem manifested itself in sewage-filled bags piling up against customer’s doors.

According to a report by CNN, the “fiasco on the Triumph” was a “disaster waiting to happen.” The documents also revealed that when the ship set sail, only 4 of the 6 power generators on board the Triumph were fully operational. Additionally, the crew operating the ship knew that Carnival had an “ongoing” fire generator hazard in ships across the Carnival fleet, including and especially the Triumph.

Lawsuits against Carnival in response to the disgusting events aboard the Triumph have pointed the finger at the company’s owners in Miami, who, the lawsuits claim, were aware of the problems and are therefore clearly liable for the manifestations of the problems. For example, the first generator to give way aboard the Triumph was the sixth generator, which was far overdue for maintenance repairs. Conveniently (and suspiciously), Carnival has maintained that the lack of maintenance was not connected to the breakdown of the generator.

While Carnival has maintained that they are not responsible for the events given that the incidents were the result of “accidents,” the company has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars to safety upgrades across the fleet of ships. Why upgrade all of the ships if the events aboard the cruise lines were all accidents? In an even more disingenuous move, Carnival has maintained in its response to lawsuits that customers were never promised a safe voyage.

Companies have a responsibility to take care of their customers, whether it is by ensuring that the products they sell are safe or by ensuring that the ships on which they place their customers are fully operational, up to code and safe. There are certainly incidents that take place in stores and on travel vessels that are not the fault of the company, but when there are documents detailing problems with the very mechanical components of the ship that eventually caused the disaster, there is cause for concern and clear evidence that the company acted with negligence when it chose not to repair the ship components in need of maintenance.

If you’ve been wronged by a company, you have rights. To find out how the personal injury attorneys at Aronberg & Aronberg can assist you, please reach out to us for a free consultation by calling 561-266-9191 or emailing daronberg@build.simple.biz.

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