‘Captain Coward’ releases book on Costa Concordia disaster
FRANCESCO Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia who was accused of abandoning thousands of passengers and crew to their fate when the cruise ship capsized, has released a book about the debacle.
He will present the 600-page book, The Truth Submerged, at an event in his hometown of Meta di Sorrento, south of Naples, where he was placed under house arrest in the months following the disaster. The book promises to give his version of events of the night of January 13 2012, when the cruise liner rammed into rocks off the island of Giglio, prompting a panic-stricken night-time evacuation.
Schettino, who was accused of being distracted on the bridge by a Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair, famously claimed that he accidentally “tripped” into a lifeboat that then took him to land.
He was sentenced to 16 years in prison in February after being found guilty of abandoning ship, multiple counts of manslaughter and causing a maritime disaster.
But he is appealing the conviction and under the Italian legal system remains free until the exhaustive appeals process, which is likely to take years, is completed.
Dubbed “Captain Coward” by the Italian media, Schettino has made good on a pledge made 10 months after the tragedy to reveal what he called the shocking truth of what really happened.
He has given a minute by minute account of what occurred that night, dedicating it to the relatives of the 32 people who died in the disaster, “because they deserve the truth more than anyone else”.
The book, co-written with Vittoriana Abate, an Italian television journalist, includes testimony given by passengers and crew members at his trial and will seek to expose what he alleges are failings in the investigation into the disaster.
“The book retraces, through my own account and evidence from the trial, the Concordia accident minute by minute.
“I have written in these pages my reflections, my judgments and emotional aspects that up until now have never been recounted,” he said.
Schettino, who has always claimed to have been made a scapegoat for the disaster, will hold a press conference in Rome next month.
His trial in Grosseto, Tuscany, in which prosecutors called him “a reckless idiot”, lasted 19 months.
Schettino steered the luxury liner perilously close to Giglio’s rocky shores, in a sail-past manoeuvre which was intended to impress his crew and provide a spectacle for passengers.
The ship rammed into a rocky reef, which he claimed was not marked on his nautical charts. As seawater flooded in, panic broke out among the 4 200 passengers and crew.
By luck, the wind and sea currents pushed the Concordia towards the island, where it keeled over and partially capsized close to shore.
The victims died when they were trapped in their cabins, fell into flooded lift shafts or were sucked under the massive ship as it collapsed onto its starboard side. – The Telegraph