Greek American Family Survives Cruise Ship Crash

 

More than 4,200 passengers and crew were on board The Costa Concordia when it crashed off the island of Giglio near the Italian coast on January 13. The Associated Press reported that Capt. Francesco Schettino “made an unauthorized maneuver from the ship's programmed course — apparently to show off the luxury liner to the island's residents.” Among the terrified passenger were the Annanias family, Greek Americans living in Downey, California near Los Angeles. Jonathan Garcia, speaking of his newlywed wife Debbie’s family told CBS News they “described the experience as something like “being on the Titanic…His wife’s parents and two sisters — respectively Dean, Georgia, Cindy and Valerie Ananias,” were on the cruise liver whose parents company is Carnival Cruises, when “it hit a reef, suffered a gash to its hull, took on water, and began sinking. CBS reported that according to an account in USA Today, “the Ananias clan were among the last people off the ship.”