Captain Coward: The skipper who fled sinking cruise liner
On this winter night nine years ago the Costa Concordia cruise liner with more than 4,000 souls on board capsized and sank just off the Italian coast.
Thirty-two passengers and crew lost their lives and scores more were injured in a tragedy that was to see the cowardly and incompetent captain – who fled the Mediterranean cruise ship leaving people still on board – sentenced to 16 years in jail. There were 37 Britons on the ship. All survived.
Tragedy struck less than three hours after the liner left the port of Civitavecchia when skipper Francesco Schettino ordered the ship be steered close to the island of Giglio in what the vessel’s owners Costa Cruises later said was an “unapproved, unauthorised” deviation to show the ship to locals.
Below decks, passengers – including children – were at dinner, enjoying on-board entertainment, or relaxing in the cabins.
At 9.45pm local time, the 850ft luxury “floating palace” hit rocks that left a 160ft gash in its hull, flooding the engine room and knocking out the power.
Survivors later revealed the horror, with passengers jumping into freezing waters as the ship rolled over. Others claimed some crew members ordered them back to submerged cabins.
Dancer James Thomas, 19, of Sutton Coldfield, was among those helping passengers to emergency points and lifeboats. Fellow dancer Rose Metcalf, 23, from Dorset, said: “It was just terrifying…people were crying, screaming.
“Because of the listing we knew they wouldn’t be able to deploy all of the life rafts on the port side.
“We were creating human chains to try and pass people over gaps that if they dropped down there was no recovery from. What was vertical was becoming horizontal.”
Helicopters plucked 50 people to safety but at midnight dozens of passengers remained, many clinging to the exposed side of the ship. In a conversation recorded at 12.42am, a coastguard commander ordered the captain, who had left the ship, to get back on board. He did not, and went ashore.
Divers searched for missing people inside the vessel as it rested on a ledge in 65ft of water.
The rescue continued over the weekend with the ship’s safety officer, Manrico
Giampietroni, being discovered and evacuated with a broken leg at 12pm on the Sunday. A South Korean couple were also rescued.
Victims’ bodies continued to be recovered over the ensuing weeks and months – the remains of the last were taken from the ship in November 2014.
Schettino, dubbed “Captain Coward”, was arrested and charged
with multiple counts of manslaughter and abandoning the ship. In February 2015, he was convicted and handed 16 years in prison, his sentence upheld despite two appeals, including to Italy’s Supreme Court.
Five others were found guilty of manslaughter, negligence and wrecking in July 2013. Roberto Ferrarini, the company’s crisis director, was sentenced to two years and 10 months, while Manrico Giampedroni (cabin service director) was given two and a half years.
Three crew members – first officer Ciro Ambrosio, helmsman Jacob Rusli
Bin and third officer Silvia Coronica – were given sentences between one and two years. Costa Cruises was reported to have avoided a trial by agreeing to a
€ 1 million fine.