Thread: Captain arrested, 41 missing after Italian cruise disaster AFP

By Dario Thuburn | AFP – 6 hrs ago



The captain of a luxury cruise liner that keeled over off Tuscany, killing at least three people was on Saturday arrested as survivors told of scenes "like the Titanic".

Terrified passengers rushed to get into lifeboats and 100 people had to be rescued from the sea. Forty-one passengers are still unaccounted for. The Costa Concordia with more than 4,000 people on board apparently hit a reef, tearing a 70- to 100-metre (230- to 330-foot) gash in its hull, just hours after setting off on Friday from Civitavecchia a port near Rome.

The ship quickly listed, leaving it half submerged in shallow waters near the island of Giglio off the west coast of Italy. Within 24 hours of the accident, local prosecutors announced the arrest of the captain, Francesco Schettino, and first officer, Ciro Ambrosio. Italian media reported they could face charges of multiple homicide and having abandoned ship before all passengers were rescued.

The captain "approached Giglio Island in a very awkward way, hit a rock that stuck into its left side, making (the boat) list and take on a huge amount of water in the space of two or three minutes," Grosseto prosecutor Francesco Verusio told reporters. Fire chief Ennio Aquilino told AFP his men had "plucked 100 people from the water and saved around 60 others who were trapped in the boat."

At least 42 are injured, including two seriously -- a woman with a blow to the head and a man struck in the spine. Medical sources said most had suffered broken limbs and hypothermia. Coastguards meanwhile said divers had recovered the ship's "black box" which should contain records of the precise route and conversations among the crew. The search for survivors was suspended late on Saturday.

But 41 people who had been on board were still missing, said Grosseto governor Giuseppe Linardi and port officials, although it was not clear whether they had made their own way to safety without checking in with authorities.

But he told journalists: "There are three certified dead."

France's embassy in Rome said two French passengers had died, and ANSA news agency reported the third victim was a Peruvian member of the crew. As passengers were sitting down for dinner Friday, they felt an impact as the cruise liner hit something.

Passengers said they were initially told the ship had shuddered to a halt for electrical reasons, before being instructed to put on their life-jackets and head for lifeboats. "The captain was saying in five, six languages 'Don't panic'," recalled 74-year-old Joel Pavageau who was with his wife in one of the ship's restaurants when the ship hit something and the room was plunged into darkness. "I got the feeling I was living my last moment," he said.

"There were scenes of panic like on the Titanic. We ran aground on rocks," passenger Mara Parmegiani was quoted by Italian media as saying. "We were very scared and freezing."

"We heard a loud noise, the plates and cutlery fell on the floor and the lights went out, but the staff told us not to worry," said Roberto Bombardieri, a hairdresser.

Another survivor, cruise ship worker Fabio Costa, described the rush for the lifeboats. "Everything just started to fall and everybody started to panic and run," he was quoted as saying by the BBC.

"We had no idea how serious it was until we got out and we looked through the window and we saw the water coming closer and closer. Everything happened really, really fast," he said.

"Everybody tried to get on the boats but people started to panic so they were pushing each other and the crew was trying to help. A lot of people were falling down the stairs," he added.

Indian Mondal Mithun, a 26-year-old restaurant manager who was on his first cruise with the ship, said that in his area there was only "one lifeboat for 150 passengers".

Earlier Saturday, Captain Schettino told Italian television that the vessel had hit a rocky spur while cruising in waters which, according to the charts, should have been safe on Italy's west coast.

"As we were navigating at cruise speed, we hit a rocky spur," he told Tgcom24 television station.

"According to the nautical chart, there should have been sufficient water underneath us," he added.

An executive with the company that owns the Italian cruise ship also insisted that the vessel had not strayed off course.

"It is not correct to say that the boat was off its route," Gianni Onorato, managing director of Costa Crociere, told reporters on Porto Santo Stefano island, a resort town near the site of the accident.

But according to Giorgio Fanculli, a journalist on Giglio island, the vessel was too close to shore.

"It was the classic passage, the cruise liners do it often, all lights lit up... but here, he went too close, a lot more than usual," said Fanculli, who saw the vessel sink and also witnessed the rescue operation.

Among those on board were about 52 children under six.

While some 60 nationalities were represented among those on board, nearly a third of the passengers were Italian and most of the others French and German.

The boat was carrying 4,299 people, more than 3,000 of whom were passengers, including 989 Italians, 569 Germans, 462 French nationals and 177 Spaniards.

Officials at the US State department said 126 US nationals were on board.

An environment ministry official told AFP the risk of an oil spill was minimal, because of the vessel's double-hull design. An estimated 2,380 tonnes of oil remain in the ship's tanks.

After being put up in Giglio islands hotels, a local church and sometimes at the homes of local people, many of the passengers were making their way home Saturday.

The ship had been headed for the port of Savona in northwest Italy and had been scheduled to visit the French port of Marseille and Barcelona in Spain.

The cruiseliner boasts 58 suites with balconies, five restaurants, 13 bars, five Jacuzzis and four swimming pools.

http://news.yahoo.com/cruise-ship-ag...235744825.html

Italian cruise ship's "unlucky" history
Reuters – 2 hrs 25 mins ago

ROME (Reuters) - When the Costa Concordia was launched on September 2, 2005, the traditional bottle of champagne hurled against the luxury cruise ship's side failed to break - a sign seafarers consider to be a harbinger of bad luck.

On November 22, 2008, the ship tried to enter the port of Palermo, Sicily in a storm and was damaged when it hit the dock.

The Costa Concordia has made world headlines since hitting a rock and running aground off the west coast of Italy, killing at least three people and leaving about 40 still missing.

The date of the incident was Friday the 13th, a day some consider unlucky. "It was born bad and ended up worse," the Italian newspaper Il Giornale said in a headline on Sunday.

http://news.yahoo.com/italian-cruise...025634069.html

Cruise Captain Says He 'Tripped' Into Lifeboat, Couldn't Get Out
by PHOEBE NATANSON and LEE FERRAN | ABC News – 2 hrs 21 mins ago

The captain of the Italian cruise ship gave a slapstick explanation of how he ended up safely in a lifeboat instead of going down with his ship, saying he tripped and fell into the boat as it was being lowered into the sea, Italian media reported today.

"I had no intention of escaping," Francesco Schettino, 52, said during his first court hearing Tuesday, according to Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"I was helping some passengers put the life boat to sea. At a certain point the mechanism for lowering it, blocked. We had to force it. Suddenly the system unblocked itself and I tripped and I found myself inside the life boat with a number of passengers."

Once in the lifeboat that was lowered into the sea, Schettino insisted to the court that it was "impossible to go back onboard."

The captain also reportedly admitted to the court that he lied at one point when he assured officials that he had dropped anchor shortly after the Costa Concordia slammed into a rock to stabilize the luxury liner.

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However a video by the Guardia di Finanza who arrived onsite 10 minutes after the disaster clearly shows that the anchor had not been lowered. Schettino admitted Tuesday that he lied about the anchor, the newspaper reported.

The luxury cruise ship was carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew when it struck rocks Friday evening near Giglio off the coast of Tuscany, during a close pass to shore. At least 11 people were killed in the aftermath when the ship keeled over. Nearly two dozen people are still missing, including an American couple from Minnesota.

Schettino reportedly admitted that he made mistakes that led to the crash and afterwards, but said the ship's course, including the now-controversial close pass, had been set from the beginning. The cruise line previously said Schettino had made an unauthorized deviation from the programmed route.

Schettino, who is currently under house arrest, is under investigation for potentially causing the wreck by steering into the rocks and then abandoning the panicked passengers for a lifeboat as the ship plunged over on its side. In recorded radio transmissions released Tuesday, Schettino is heard telling Italian Port Authority officials he and other officers abandoned ship.

"And with 100 people still on board, you abandon ship? [expletive]," the Port Authority officer says in response.

Schettino appears to correct himself, saying, "I didn't abandon any ship... because the ship turned on its side quickly and we were catapulted into the water."

TRANSCRIPT: 'Get Back on Board for [Expletive] Sake!'

The recording goes on to show the Port Authority official repeatedly berating Schettino for not going back to the ship to coordinate rescue efforts, and at one point ordering Schettino to "get back on board for [expletive]'s sake!"

Italians appear divided on how to view the embattled cruise captain. Some, like Schettino's neighbor, said he "is a hero who saved over 4,000 people," Italy's ANSA news outlet reported. Schettino's wife said Tuesday her husband made some quick decisions after the initial impact that helped save passenger's lives.

"It is for this reason that we feel the need to strongly reject any attempt to delegitimize him and ask you to understand his tragedy and personal drama," Fabiola Russo told reporters Tuesday.

In editorials in Italian newspapers, however, Schettino was heavily criticized, one calling him the "coward captain" and another saying the incident shows the Italian national character with its greatness and "all its shortcomings."

Online Facebook groups have reportedly emerged on either side of the argument.

http://news.yahoo.com/cruise-captain...-abc-news.html

Divers find bodies from spot of Italy cruise ship wreck
DNA tests must confirm the identities of two bodies found where the Concordia had capsized,
but officials say they are "consistent" with the missing people.
8 hr ago | By Reuters



Divers found two bodies Thursday, Sept. 26, consistent with the last missing people after searching the spot where the capsized Costa Concordia was raised from Giglio harbor in Italy.

ROME — Divers Thursday found what they believe to be the last two missing bodies from the sea where the Costa Concordia cruise liner sank last year off the Italian island of Giglio. The huge ship was carrying more than 4,000 holidaymakers and crew when it capsized after striking rocks on Jan. 13, 2012, killing 32 people, including two whose bodies were not recovered.

The head of the civil protection agency, Franco Gabrielli, told reporters the remains discovered on Thursday were "absolutely consistent" with the two missing people, an Indian man and an Italian woman.

However, their identities could be definitively confirmed only after DNA testing, he added.

After lying on its side in shallow water ever since capsizing, the Costa Concordia was hauled upright last week in a complicated 19-hour salvage operation.

Recovering the submerged bodies after 20 months under the weight of the more-than-126,000-ton vessel was "almost a miracle," Gabrielli said.

It is due to be towed away from the Mediterranean holiday island, probably by next spring, and eventually broken up into scrap.

http://news.msn.com/world/divers-fin...snews11&stay=1