Credit: Netflix

The 2012 Costa Concordia disaster, which is the subject of Netflix’s Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea, is undoubtedly one of the worst maritime tragedies in recent memory.

The Carnival Corporation-owned cruise liner regularly made its rounds on the Mediterranean Sea, as it did on January 13th that year, setting sail with over 4,000 passengers and crew members on board, when it hit a reef called the Scole Rocks near Giglio Island in Italy, deviating from its official route to perform a sail-by salute that resulted in the ship listing and partially sinking.

A six-hour rescue effort followed, and although the majority of passengers were safely anchored to the shore, the death toll rose to 32, with several more severely injured. Captain Francesco Schettino, who was accused of derailing the evacuation and abandoning the ship, was sentenced to 16 years of life imprisonment for his role in the tragedy (via ABC News).

According to Reuters, Costa Cruises was eventually fined €1million and ordered to pay compensation to the passengers and crew. However, the company never faced a criminal trial (via The MediTelegraph). So, that leaves us with the question: where are Shipwrecked survivors now? Well, let’s find out!

Inside the Shipwrecked survivors’ lives after the 2012 disaster

Captain Francesco Schettino

Captain Francesco Schettino was found guilty of multiple counts of causing a shipwreck, abandoning the ship while passengers were on board, and manslaughter, resulting in 16 years’ imprisonment on February 11th, 2015. In the same year, he published a memoir titled Le Verita Sommerse AKA The Submerged Truths. Although Schettino appealed his case for two years before surrendering to authorities in May 2017, the appeal was unsuccessful.

“He said: ‘I trust in the justice system. The verdict must be respected. I’m handing myself in right now,’” he said through his lawyer Saverio Senese (via The Guardian). The former captain is currently serving his sentence at Rebibbia Prison in Rome.

Stefania Vincenzi and Maria Grazia Trecarichi

Stefania Vincenzi was one of the Shipwrecked passengers who had to deal with an unimaginable loss during the tragedy. She was only 17 when she boarded Costa Concordia, but had to leave the ship without her mother, Maria Grazia Trecarichi. Trecarichi was killed in the shipwreck before her 50th birthday.

Trecarichi’s remains were found over the span of two years, according to divers in 2013. “My mother’s body was one of the last ones to be found,” Stefania says in the Netflix documentary. “Finding her body wasn’t comforting for me at all. It’s like Costa Concordia interrupted my life. She was my entire world.”

According to Firenze Post, Stefania competed in the 2013 Miss Italy contest, reaching the finale. In 2025, more remains were discovered, including a human skull believed to be Trecarichi’s, per Seatrade Cruise News.

John, Meghan, and Lila Scimone

John and Meghan Scimone also witnessed the Costa Concordia disaster first-hand when their daughter Lila was only 14 months old. But thankfully, once they returned, Lila “turned out to have a perfectly normal childhood.” As revealed by Meghan’s Facebook timeline, their daughter took a trip to Portugal for two weeks of ballet training in 2024. “She has this god-given passion for dance,” John explains in the Netflix documentary.

Lila is also now an elder sister to at least two siblings. The couple revealed in Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea that Meghan was pregnant when the incident occurred all those years ago. “One of the greatest gifts I could’ve been given was that pregnancy,” Meghan said.

Patricia Sandoval and Nicholas Taliaferro

Patricia Sandoval and Nicholas Taliaferro stood out as the heroes of the shipwreck, who selflessly stepped up to help fellow passengers when crew members failed to do so. In a conversation with The San Diego Union-Tribune in 2012 January, Sandoval revealed that the duo had been dating for a while when they took a week-long trip to Italy before boarding the Costa Concordia.

Sandoval and Taliaferro had taken notes of the lifeboats, which ultimately came in use when the crew didn’t immediately launch the rescue effort. “When you’re in that kind of situation, you become a completely different person,” she said. “I guess it’s just in our character to always try to think about what could come next.”

Taliaferro suffered extreme injury while already struggling with a bruised knee at the time. However, he shared with his father that he felt “fortunate.” “He’s happy to be alive and to have been of service to people,” his father said in the Hannibal Courier-Post in January 2012. As of now, Taliaferro works as a real estate agent in California.

Manrico Giampedroni

Manrico Giampedroni was the final survivor to be saved from the ship after he slipped and fell 20 feet through a doorway. The hotel cabin services manager faced several charges for multiple manslaughter, negligence, and causing a shipwreck. He was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison in July 2013.

Rose Metcalf

Also one of the last ones to be rescued from the Costa Concordia shipwreck, Rose Metcalf was found by a helicopter after she flashed distress signals to the aircraft. “When I flew away, I could see everything that I loved and everything that was my reality was gone. But I was alive,” she said.

As per her website, the tragedy negatively impacted her in more ways than one. “PTSD, survivor’s guilt and victim-mentality ensued, and it took me many years and healing modalities to find meaning, and I discovered the tools for finding true happiness,” the site reads.

Metcalf gradually restarted dancing, and her credits now include an ensemble member in The Producers and the Flying Enchantress in Beauty & Beast. She also ventured into an uncharted territory, becoming a life coach. “Having faced death, I developed a superpower for moving people into action on their dreams,” she said.

According to the website, Metcalf has also penned down her Costa Concordia experience in a book called Unsinkable.

Manoj Singh

Manoj Singh was a Costa Concordia chef who was working the night when the tragedy hit. “Can you imagine a thousand plates breaking at one time?” he says in the Netflix documentary, Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea.

Although Singh was a bit mad about being unable to retrieve the money he had saved under his bed, he survived the ordeal without ever knowing how to swim. Following the disaster, he finally took swimming lessons. Manoj also found the love of his life, Maya Singh, whom he married in 2015. But it’s safe to say that he’s not returning to the industry again.

“I will never work for the cruise industry again. All my money, I lost it. But I learned life is more important than money,” he says. “Every morning when I wake up, [the] first thing I do, I say thank you.”

Singh received the Long Service Award for his work as a senior chef de partie at the Hamilton Princess & Beach Club in 2025 (via LinkedIn).