20 CAPTAIN FRANCESCO SCHETTINO

The key to the night’s tragic events lies in the actions of the captain (pictured above, with crew), now under house arrest and facing charges of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.

At around 9.05pm, he was seen leaving the Concordia Club on Deck 11, in the company of Domnica Cemortan, an off-duty Moldovan member of the crew, and another officer. A witness said the party had drunk at least a decanter of red wine, raising questions over Capt Schettino’s insistence that he drank no alcohol that night. Prosecutors have established that the captain was at the controls of the Concordia 37 minutes later, when he steered the huge cruise ship on to rocks off the island of Giglio as he was allegedly trying to perform an inchino – or sail-past salute – for a former Costa Cruises captain and for the ship’s chief steward, Antonello Tievoli.

By 9.45pm, the ship was listing by seven degrees and some passengers made phone calls to relatives, leading to the coastguard in Livorno being notified.

Mr Schettino only called his employers at 10.05pm – 23 minutes after the collision. However, when the Livorno harbour master’s office radioed a minute later, the ship said it had suffered a “blackout”.

Twenty minutes later, Livorno radioed again and Captain Schettino, 52, admitted water was entering the hull – but said there was no emergency. By 10.30pm, the ship was listing by 20 degrees and he finally issued a May Day signal at 10.58pm – before ordering the ship to be abandoned.

Witnesses saw Captain Schettino wrapped in a blanket getting on a lifeboat just over an hour after ordering the evacuation.the captain told magistrates that when he did get on to a lifeboat it was only because he had “tripped” and fallen into the rescue craft while trying to help with the evacuation.

At 1.46am, he picked up another call from the port authorities and was angrily ordered to return to his ship by Gregorio De Falco, the Livorno harbour master. However, he was later spotted by a police patrol boat heading towards land in a lifeboat.