Cruise ship sinking - Italian coast guard transcript

[dimsum]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-09-24/costa-concordia-captain-blames-helmsman-for-steering-wrong-way/4976648

Glad to know the Captain didn't blame anyone else for the sinking....oh wait. 

 

[jollyjacktar]

An update. The POS was up to the very end trying to shift the blame on his crew.  I'm glad he went down like his ship, although 16 years isn't nearly long enough to me.

Shared under the fair dealing provisions of the copyright act.  Full story, photos and video at link below.

Costa Concordia Capt. Francesco Schettino found guilty of manslaughter

Captain sentenced to 16 years in jail after shipwreck that killed 32

The Associated Press Posted: Feb 11, 2015 10:46 AM ET| Last Updated: Feb 11, 2015 2:51 PM ET

The captain of the shipwrecked Costa Concordia cruise ship was convicted Wednesday of multiple charges of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in jail, Italian court officials said.

Francesco Schettino was convicted of manslaughter in the deaths of 32 passengers and crew in the Jan. 13, 2012, capsizing as well as of causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship while many of the 4,200 passengers and crew were still on the ship.

The verdict and sentencing brought an end to a trial that has been running since July 2013. Prosecutors had insisted Schettino was a "reckless idiot" and asked the court to sentence him to 26 years and three months in prison.

Schettino wasn't present when Judge Giovanni Puliatti read out the verdict Wednesday night in a Grosseto theatre, but the former captain told the court earlier he was being "sacrificed" to safeguard the economic interests of his employer. He then broke down in sobs immediately before the panel began deliberating.

"That's enough," Schettino said, unable to finish his statement to the three-judge panel.

Testimony put the spotlight on errors by other crew and equipment malfunctions after the Concordia smashed into a jagged reef when Schettino steered the ship close to the Tuscan island's shoreline while passengers were having supper in the main dining room.

Victims drowned

The reef gashed the hull, seawater rushed in, and the Concordia listed badly, finally ending up on its side outside Giglio's port. Autopsies determined that victims drowned aboard ship or in the sea after either falling or jumping off the ship during a chaotic, delayed evacuation.


Schettino said he was "a few hours from a verdict that should have involved an entire organization and instead sees me as the only defendant."

"My head was sacrificed to serve economic interests," the 54-year-old Neapolitan seaman told the court.

Lawyers for many of the survivors and victims' families have attached civil suits to the criminal trial to press the court to order Costa Crociere SpA, the Italian cruise company, to pay hefty damages.

While insisting Schettino deserves conviction and a stiff prison sentence, the plaintiffs' lawyers have lamented to the court that no one from the cruise company's upper echelons was put on trial.

© The Associated Press, 2015
The Canadian Press

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/costa-concordia-capt-francesco-schettino-found-guilty-of-manslaughter-1.2953257

 

[daftandbarmy]

From "The Wit and Wisdom of Winston Churchill" by James C. Humes:

Late in his life, Sir Winston took a cruise on an Italian ship. A journalist from a New York newspaper approached the former prime minister to ask him why he chose to travel on an Italian line when the Queen Elizabeth under the British flag was available.

Churchill gave the question his consideration and then gravely replied: "There are three things I like about Italian ships. First, their cuisine, which is unsurpassed. Second, their service, which is quite superb. And then — in time of emergency — there is none of this nonsense about women and children first."

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/humor/jokes/cruiseship.asp#GVI3gobH7tlk2F6a.99