But these decks, near the top of the 17-story ship, have been nearly impossible to access.  Not only are they now submerged at the very bottom of the 140,000 tonne wreckage, the decks are also smashed into rocks now cracking under the ship’s immense weight.  A recent video shows clean breaks in the rocks that are widening under the ship’s massive weight.

Families of some of the missing are now wondering if the suspension of the search for survivors was not due to weather alone, but also to allow the salvage crews to begin the delicate process of defueling the ship. The Costa Concordia was carrying 500,000 gallons of gas and oil when it hit the rocks off Giglio. Defueling efforts began the first week of February, with the first phase completed on February 20, the day the search for victims resumed.  During the first phase, almost two-thirds of the fuel was extracted from the above-water tanks and taken back to the mainland. The fuel belongs to the Costa Crociere cruise company, which is paying for the salvage operation.  A worker with the SMIT salvage company in charge of operations told The Daily Beast the fuel could easily be reused in other cruiseships.  The next phase of the defueling process is far more delicate because it involves tapping the underwater tanks. It is expected to take three weeks to remove the remaining fuel from the ship, and only then can a different salvage crew, yet to be named, begin the process of removing the wreckage, which may take up to 10 months to complete.

Italy’s civil protection agency has always maintained that defueling operations and rescue efforts could be carried out in tandem, yet none of the dive team leaders agreed, which is why the underwater search was suspended when the defueling began and resumed only when it ended. Above the water level, fire fighters have continued to search the cabins, even pinpointing a stateroom by its room number and retrieving a teddy bear that a young Italian boy had left aboard the ship the night of the crash.

But a handful of lawyers working on individual and class-action lawsuits say the “conventions” Costa refers to are actually null and void. Most passengers either bought their tickets over the Internet or through travel agents who did not go over the fine print and explain what rights they were forfeiting, and that lack of disclosure alone may be enough to negate the contract as a whole. The ticket fine print says all eventual lawsuits must be filed in Italy, but the legal teams involved so far agree that the United States—where Carnival is based—is a far better battleground. And because the captain is facing criminal action in Italy, passengers may also benefit from both a personal lawsuit against the parent company and from criminal justice through the Italian court system that could result in additional restitution. Prosecutors in Grosseto, where the criminal case will eventually be heard, are planning to charge Schettino with multiple counts of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning up to 300 passengers on the ship—and he faces an astronomical 2,967 years in prison after all the charges are tallied up. Schettino is currently under house arrest while the criminal case is pending, and prosecutors in both France and Germany have also opened criminal dossiers on behalf of their hundreds of nationals who were passengers—meaning that even if Schettino skirts the law in Italy by entering a plea bargain or otherwise bargaining a lighter prison term, he may still face additional criminal charges in France and Germany.

“There are really two separate issues,” said Mark Clark of Traverse Legal, who is consulting with a handful of clients about how to proceed with action against the company. “Passengers will be able to select their remedy, either through compensation and restitution on a civil level or justice through the criminal process.”

The Ribbeck Law Firm in Chicago, which specializes in aviation tragedies, has already filed a class-action lawsuit in the state of Illinois on behalf of crew member Gary Lobaton. Ribbeck attorney Monica Kelly told The Daily Beast that the firm is working on behalf of the passengers in hopes of nullifying the various international conventions that would restrict both jurisdiction and payout ceilings. “Ribbeck Law filed a class action not only on behalf of the crew members but also on behalf of the passengers regardless as to whether they were or not registered passengers aboard the cruise ship,” Kelly explained to The Daily Beast. “When you file a class action, you only need to name one plaintiff in the complaint, who in this case was Gary Lobaton. Our other clients and anyone else who wants to participate in this class action can be added to this suit.” She blames the obviously negligent captain for the disaster, but she says the responsibility is not only his alone. “Some of the crew members have indicated to us that this was not the first time that the cruise ship went so close to the island. It appears that Costa not only knew that the captain deviated from the navigation plan, but that Costa encouraged the captain to do it.”

Since the wreck, Costa says its representatives in more than 60 countries have been in touch with survivors to offer counseling and to register the value of the possessions they lost when the ship went down. In addition to the settlement, Costa will reimburse the cost of the cruise ticket, cover passengers’ flights home, and pay for additional receipted expenses incurred in Italy in the days after the crash. It will also return all passenger items found in the cabins on the ship when the wreckage is recovered.

The settlement would cost the Carnival Cruise Lines subsidiary more than $45 million. It was reached through a hasty negotiation between Costa and the Italian travel-consumer group Astoi Confindustria, along with parties from Spain, France, and Germany to try to stave off individual lawsuits.

Private lawyers are urging survivors not to take the bait. The Italian environmental group Codacons, an umbrella group for a number of agencies, has posted a notice on its website urging survivors to instead join a class-action lawsuit it is coordinating with U.S. and Italian law firms, which could fetch each passenger as much as $165,000. “All those who were on board the ship are entitled to be compensated not only for material damage (cost vacation, personal property lost or damaged, and any physical damage), but also to moral ones, such as fear and terror suffered, and the risks related to physical integrity. It is inadmissible, despite the sophisticated equipment on board such vessels, installed in order to avoid clashes aground, such accidents occur.” Codacons has even posted an interactive form for survivors to fill out to join the class-action suit.