ITALY -- The captain of the Carnival Corp. ship that ran aground off Italy was granted house arrest hours after an audio recording emerged showing he’d abandoned the cruise ship that ran aground.
On Jan. 13 the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the island of Giglia and tilted on its side with 4,200 people on board. The position of the ship complicated efforts to lower lifeboats forcing passengers to scramble across the exposed hull to reach rescue boats from Giglio.
Francesco Schettino failed to return to his damaged ship and oversee rescue efforts when a Coast Guard official ordered him to do so.
Schettino may face criminal charges including manslaughter. According to his lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, he was granted house arrest Tuesday night by a judge in Grosseto, Italy.
The ruling came hours after divers discovered five more bodies on the ship, bringing death toll to 11. Twenty-eight people are still missing, according to Italy’s Civil Protection agency.
Passengers described the incident saying there was no leadership guiding them. One family that appeared on HLN’s Dr. Drew show Tuesday night described the horrifying hours they spent helping to rescue others and try to make it off the ship alive. They were forced to hang onto small pipes that were found outside some of the ship’s windows.
Recording
Coast Guard Commander Gregorio Maria DeFalco repeatedly ordered Schettino to get back on the cruise ship. He even swore at the ship’s captain at times, frustrated that he refused to take his orders.
“There are people climbing down a rope ladder on the bow of the ship. Take a lifeboat and climb up that ladder up on to the ship and tell me how many people are there,” De Falco told Schettino. “Tell me if there are women, children, and people in need there.”
When the captain hesitated to reply De Falco said there were fatalities and again ordered him to return. “You realize it’s dark and we can’t see anything?” Schettino said, adding that “other rescue workers” were now in place.
“You’ve been telling me that for an hour, now get back on board!” The Coast Guard official shouted. A Coast Guard spokesman confirmed the audio is authentic.
Schettino joined the company in 2002 and was promoted to captain in 2006. He has never had a prior accident, according to Pier Luigi Foschi, chairman of Carnival’s Italian unit, Costa Crociere SpA.
His lawyer Leporatti said in a statement Jan. 16 that the captain is “shattered, dismayed, saddened for the loss of lives and strongly disturbed.”
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