Unless you've been hiding under a rock somewhere near Italy, you would have heard by now that the Costa Concordia cruise ship, carrying 4,200+ passengers capsized off the coast of Italy on Friday. This all sounds like an unavoidable tragedy due to circumstances beyond the Captain's control, such as terrible weather and/or rough seas, right? You couldn't be more wrong.
Captain Francesco Schettino, 52, is being investigated for charges including manslaughter after the confirmed deaths of 11 of his passengers so far and about 2 dozen still missing.
Here are several reasons why Captain Francesco Schettino should be jailed for a very long time:
1) He deliberately steered his ship off-course and towards the coast to apparently "show off" and "salute" a friend who was on-shore at the time. Excellent. The Telegraph reports that during a three-hour interrogation, the Captain admitted steering the ship off-course to salute a colleague: "It’s true that the salute was for Commodore Mario Palombo, with whom I was on the telephone," Schettino reportedly said. Excellent behavior for a Captain in charge of 4,200+ passengers. You can cut the sarcasm in this article only with a very sharp knife.
2) He decided that leaving the deep ocean to head perilously close to shore in much shallower waters was a fun idea, where there was a great possibility of encountering sharp, jagged rocks...in a steel ship. Had he not seen that "mildly" popular movie...what's the name of it again? Oh, right..."Titanium"...no, wait..."Titanic." Eerily enough, survivors reported that very theme song was playing by Celine Dion while the Costa Concordia was sinking...what are the odds? No, seriously I'm asking...what are the odds of this? Did he decide to head closer to shore due to an emergency? Did someone on-board need urgent medical attention? NO. He put the lives of his 4,200+ passengers at risk in order to "show off" to his friend and prove he was both "an excellent Captain" and quite "manly" to pull off this feat. Unfortunately for this Captain, he ended up proving to the world the opposite, on both counts (see # 3 below).
Costa Concordia Sinking
3) He abandoned ship before all his passengers were evacuated, claiming in a new report that he "tripped" and fell into a rescue boat (insert scandalous LOL here). An Italian Coast Guard had to even plead for him to get his @$$ back on the ship to co-ordinate the rescue efforts - to which he practically refused.
In a recently released conversation between Schettino and the Italian Coast Guard, the Captain can be heard waffling as the Coast Guard barks orders to return to the ship to oversee its evacuation, claiming that the vessel was tipping dangerously and that it was too dark. Excellent - the Captain is not only moronic, but he's also afraid of the dark. Now, the Captain has explained at a hearing just how he ended up ditching the Costa Concordia for the safety of a lifeboat in the first place: "Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60-70° angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats," Schettino said, according to The Guardian. "That's how I found myself in the lifeboat."
Think about this for a minute...after all his misguided judgments, this Captain still cannot come to grips and admit his grave mistakes, instead relying on the old "I tripped and fell" routine. This sounds a lot like me in my school days: "I tripped and fell on my dog...he then ate my homework." Unlike my school days, however, my alleged "tripping" didn't involve betraying the trust of 4,200+ people who placed their lives in my hands.
I have a feeling Captain Schettino will be best advised to *not* trip so much when he's in jail for a very long time...especially when he's holding a bar of soap...everyday.
Sources: Huffington Post, The Guardian, The Telegraph.
Update (21/01/12): Italian Coast Guard divers have found a woman's body in a corridor of a submerged section of the capsized Costa Concordia, raising to at least 12 the number of dead in the cruise liner accident.
