ITALY/FILE: Costa Concordia's former captain explains through graphics his belief that the helmsman steering the cruise liner did not follow his orders and caused the ship to crash

Record ID: 345135

  • Title: ITALY/FILE: Costa Concordia's former captain explains through graphics his belief that the helmsman steering the cruise liner did not follow his orders and caused the ship to crash
  • Date: 10th July 2014
  • Summary: GIGLIO, ITALY (FILE - JUNE 2014) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF COSTA CONCORDIA WORK TAKING PLACE AROUND WRECK VARIOUS OF DAMAGED CRUISE LINER VARIOUS OF COSTA CONCORDIA
  • Embargoed: 25th July 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
  • Reuters ID: LVA83O6VI17CYHF7Q7XKJBETHTJ2
  • Story Text: Former Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino said in an interview in Rome on Thursday (July 10) he believed his orders were not carried out the night the ship ran aground and because of this lives were lost.
    The Concordia was carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew the night it struck a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio on January 13, 2012. Thirty-two people died in the catastrophe.
    Consumer agency Codacons, a civil party in the ongoing trial against Schettino, conducted the interview with the former captain and used graphics to illustrate what the movements the cruise liner actually made the night of the shipwreck against the movement Schettino believed he had ordered.

    "We can clearly see from the black box that the helmsman went twenty degrees to the right, so rather than taking the helm twenty degrees left to try and stop the collision of the back of the ship and avoid the rocks, he went to the right," Schettino told lawyer and Codacons President Carlo Rienzi in a televised interview.

    "I wish my instructions were carried out because my orders were clear, timely and just needed to have been followed," he said.
    Stripped of his maritime licence, Schettino is the only person on trial facing multiple charges including manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship. Four crew members, including the helmsman and an official of the ship operator Costa Cruises were sentenced to terms of up to 34 months in prison after pleading guilty.
    When asked what had been his greatest fear on the night, Schettino explained:
    "When I was faced by the rocks I was afraid that some people could die, this was the thing that gave me the most fear," he said.

    "My biggest fear was the potential numbers of victims," he told Rienzi, before adding: "This is my memory and then we know how things turned out but if the ship hadn't hit the rocks in this manner it would have kept upright when it ran aground and everyone would have got off safely."
    The crushed and twisted side of the Concordia revealed the scale of damage to the ship's structure when it was raised out of the water last year.
    Salvage workers are currently making final preparations before the wreck is refloated in mid-July and then towed away to Genoa port where it will be scrapped.
  • Copyright Holder: FILE REUTERS (CAN SELL)
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2016. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register