Pleiades Captures Massive Salvage Operation of Costa Concordia

The 50,000 ton Italian cruise ship, Costa Concordia, which ran aground last year due to error made by its Captain was righted after massive salvage efforts by a team of engineers and mariners. This has been the most expensive salvage operation in marine history.

The very high resolution Pleiades satellite, captured the refloating on 17 September of the Costa Concordia, wrecked off the Island of Giglio, Italy.

On July 12, 2013 the Pleiades image shows many ships busy around the liner lying on its side. Preparations for the recovery include white metal boxes (caissons) filled with water to assist in the refloating operation.

The image taken on 17 September 2013 shows recovery operations in full swing with the ship almost standing upright and nearing the project completion.

 

Pleiades image showing Costa Concordia Wrecked off the coast of Giglio, Italy. Image was captured on July 12th, 2013.
                             Image: © CNES Distribution Astrium/SPOT Image

 

Re-floating operation of Costa Concordia. This Pleiades image was captured on September 17th, 2013.
                             Image: © CNES Distribution Astrium/SPOT Image

 

Below are more resources on the incident.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Concordia

http://www.buzzfeed.com/gavon/33-jaw-dropping-photos-of-the-costa-concordia-disa

Here is an interesting Time Lapse video of Re-Floating of the ship:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/17/costa-concordia-time-lapse-video_n_3940660.html?ir=World