Francesco Schettino, Costa Concordia Captain

The captain of a cruise liner that ran aground with 4,000 passengers on board has been detained along with his first mate on allegations of manslaughter and abandoning his ship.
Francesco Schettino was at least four miles off course when the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the island of Giglio, Tuscany, despite Italy's well-mapped sea lanes.
One passenger has accused the captain of drinking in one of the ship's bars on the night the vessel ran aground, before taking control after the crash.
Monique Maurek, 41, from the Netherlands, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'What scandalised me most was when I saw the captain spending much of the evening before we hit the rocks drinking in the bar with a beautiful woman on his arm.
'Most people didn't even have any idea of what the evacuation warning sound would be.

'It was only because some of us had already been on a cruise that we recognised that seven blasts of the horn was a signal to abandon ship.'
Phil Metcalf, whose daughter Rose was one of the last people off the ship, said she had revealed the captain allegedly abandoned ship in the early stages of the evacuation, leaving his staff onboard.


But witnesses claim that Schettino was allegedly inept in steering the boat through the rocky sandbar. Then, after the error occurred, Schettino is accused of failing to tell passengers of the deadly crash. At 8 pm during dinner time, passengers were informed merely that an electrical problem had erupted. But after a large thump, passengers looked outside and observed that the boat had a large void and was collecting water.


The captain is accused of failing to inform not just passengers but also local authorities about the trouble. “They didn’t send a mayday. The ship got in contact with us once the evacuation procedures were already ongoing” said Officer Emilio Del Santo of the Coastal Authorities of Livorno.


The trouble didn’t end there. Francesco Schettino is accused of abandoning ship and failing to take hours to evacuate passengers. Life boats were not ready. The death toll is being blamed, not just on the accident, but also the failure to take hours to evacuate the passengers properly.


“At the time of collision with a rock, the commander of the Costa Concordia was on the bridge,” said the director general of Costa Crociere President Gianni Onorato in a news briefing today. “It is incorrect to say that the ship was off course” said another official.

“Fear and panic are comprehensible in a ship long over 300 meters with over 4,000 passengers,” Del Santo said. “We can confirm that the ship has a breach on the hull of about 90 meters, and that the right side of it is completely under water.