A cruise ship crew member has described the steps she took to survive the Costa Concordia disaster, one of the deadliest passenger shipwrecks of modern times.
Rose Metcalf appears in the Netflix documentary Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea, which uses survivor testimony and previously unseen footage to revisit the 2012 tragedy. Netflix added the film to its July 10, 2026 lineup.
The vessel departed Civitavecchia at 19:18 local time on 13 January 2012, carrying 3,206 passengers and 1,023 crew members.
During the journey, Captain Francesco Schettino directed the ship to pass unusually close to the island of Giglio, a decision that ended in catastrophe.
At 21:45, a little over two hours after setting sail, the Costa Concordia struck a rock. With more than 4,000 people aboard, the liner began flooding and listing heavily in the water.
In all, 32 people lost their lives, including 27 passengers and five crew members. Schettino left the ship at around 23:30 local time.
Metcalf, who was working as a dancer on board, survived the disaster and later recounted what happened.
As the ship tipped further, she joined other crew members in guiding passengers off the vessel and into lifeboats.
Once others had made it across, Metcalf and four more people found themselves trapped because the angle of the ship had become too steep.
Speaking in the documentary, she said:
“It felt like being marooned on a desert island.”
“I definitely felt like I’m all alone. Nobody’s coming to rescue us.”
Metcalf explained that she could hear rescue helicopters overhead, but the position of the ship blocked them from being seen clearly.
“I couldn’t get down to the water level, I couldn’t get back inside the ship,” she recalled.
“At this point we were sinking, and that was the moment when this little reel of my life started playing in front of my eyes.”
She said that was when survival instinct took over.
Remembering that she had a flashlight in her pocket, Metcalf started signaling toward a nearby boat, despite not knowing Morse code.
In the film, rescuers can be heard saying:
“We have a signal from someone. We’re going to assist them.”
Metcalf then described the dramatic rescue.
“All of a sudden, this man floats down like James Bond,” Rose recalled.
She and the others stranded with her were lifted into a helicopter and flown to Grosseto Airport, where they received first aid treatment.
The Costa Concordia was later righted in 2013, refloated in 2014, and eventually towed away for scrapping in Genoa in 2014; dismantling was completed in 2017 as part of one of the largest maritime salvage operations in history.
Reflecting on the moment she left the wreck behind, she said:
“When I flew away, I could see everything that I loved, and my reality, was gone,” she emotionally recalled during the documentary. “But I was alive.”
Schettino was later arrested, tried, and convicted on multiple manslaughter charges as well as abandoning ship. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
He admitted making a navigation mistake, telling investigators he had “ordered the turn too late”.
Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea arrives on Netflix on 10 July.