Cruise co. blames captain as 6th body found

The Costa Concordia cruise ship lies in the harbor of the Tuscan island of Giglio, Jan. 15, 2012, after it ran aground and keeled over after hitting underwater rocks on January 13. / Getty

ROME - The jailed captain of the cruise ship that capsized off Tuscany made an unauthorized deviation from the programmed course, a blunder that led to its deadly crash against a reef, the ship's Italian owner said Monday.

Rescue operations were halted temporarily after the Costa Concordia shifted in rough seas and fears mounted that any further shifts could cause some of the 500,000 gallons of fuel on board to leak into the pristine waters off the island of Giglio that are a protected dolphin sanctuary.

Search efforts resumed later Monday, according to Reuters.

The confirmed death toll rose to six after searchers found the body of a male passenger wearing a life vest in the corridor of the above-water portion of the ship. Sixteen people are unaccounted for, including two American passengers.

Cruise ship family: "Pandemonium" on board
Grounded ship may have been too close to shore
Ship disaster raises cruise safety questions

Chances that they would be found alive three days after the ship was speared by the reef and toppled to one side grew slimmer.

The Concordia's captain, Francesco Schettino, was arrested and jailed early Saturday, a few hours after Friday's night shipwreck a few hundred meters off Giglio, a tiny island of fishermen and tourist hotels near the Tuscan coast in west central Italy.

Prosecutors who are investigating the captain for manslaughter, abandoning ship and causing a shipwreck stepped up their scathing criticism of his conduct.

"We are struck by the unscrupulousness of the reckless maneuver that the commander of the Costa Concordia made near the island of Giglio," prosecutor Francesco Verusio told reporters. "It was inexcusable."

A judge on Tuesday is expected to decide if the captain should be charged and remain jailed in Grosseto on the mainland.

Nate and Cary Lukes, who were on the Costa Concordia with their four daughters, describe the "pandemonium" on the ship.

Costa Crociere SpA chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi said the company would provide him legal assistance, but he disassociated Costa from his behavior, saying it broke all rules and regulations.

"Capt. Schettino took an initiative of his own will which is contrary to our written rules of conduct," Foschi said in his first public comments since the grounding.

At a news conference in Genoa, the company's home base, Foschi said that Costa ships have their routes programmed, and alarms go off when they deviate. Those alarms are disabled if the ship's course is manually altered, he said.

"This route was put in correctly upon departure from Civitavecchia," Foschi said, referring to the port outside Rome. "The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a maneuver by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorized and unknown to Costa."

82 Photos

Luxury cruise ship runs aground

Schettino claims the rock that tore open his ship was not marked on his charts and that he was not too close to shore.

Foschi didn't respond directly to prosecutors' and passengers' accusations that Schettino abandoned ship before all passengers had been evacuated, but he suggested his conduct wasn't as bad in the hours of the evacuation as has been portrayed. He didn't elaborate.

The Italian coast guard says Schettino defied their entreaties for him to return to his ship as the chaotic evacuation of the 4,200 people aboard was in full progress. After the ship's tilt put many life rafts out of service, helicopters had to pluck to safety dozens of people remaining aboard, hours after Schettino was seen leaving the vessel.

The captain has insisted in an interview before his jailing that he stayed with the vessel to the end.

Foschi defended the conduct of the crew, while acknowledging that passengers had described a chaotic evacuation where crew members consistently downplayed the seriousness of the situation as the nearly 1,000 foot-long ship lurched to the side.

"All our crew members behaved like heroes. All of them," he said.

He noted that 4,200 people managed to evacuate a lilting ship at night within two hours. In addition, the ship's evacuation procedures had been reviewed last November by an outside firm and port authorities and no faults were found, he said.

Costa owner Carnival Corp. estimated that preliminary losses from having the Concordia out of operation for at least through 2012 would be between $85 million and $95 million, though it said there would be other costs as well.

Why the ship sailed so close to the dangerous reefs and rocks that jut off Giglio's eastern coast is not clear, but there have been suspicions the captain may have ventured too close while carrying out a maneuver to entertain islanders and passengers.

Residents of Giglio said they had never seen the Concordia, which makes a weekly Mediterranean cruise that passes the Tuscan coast, come so close to the dangerous reef area near the southern tip of the island.

Foschi said only once before had the company approved a navigational "fly by" of this sort — last year on the night of Aug. 9-10. In that case, the port and company had approved it.

The rescue operation was called off briefly at midday Monday after the Concordia shifted a few inches in rough seas. Just beyond where the gashed ship lies, the seabed drops off quickly by some 65-100 feet; if the Concordia suddenly drops, any divers participating in the rescue operation could be doomed.

There are also rising fears that any significant movement could send some 500,000 gallons of fuel into the pristine waters around the island of Giglio, which is a protected sanctuary for dolphins and other sea creatures popular with scuba divers.

Even before the accident there had been mounting calls from environmentalists to restrict passage of large ships in the area.

Costa executive Costa said that the Rotterdam, Netherlands, based Smit, one of the world's biggest salvagers, will try to salvage the 1,000 foot cruise liner and would provide a study by Tuesday on how to extract the fuel.

Smit has a long track record of dealing with wrecks and leaks, including refloating grounded bulk carriers and securing drilling platforms in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. A spokesman for Smit, which is part of dredging and maritime services giant Royal Boskalis Westminster NV, did not immediately return calls seeking comment on the Concordia salvage.

[smittyc]

Pretty crazy accident. My sincerest condololences to those families that lost a loved one. I just won a free cruise and turned it down. This article was a great read. They take your passports so in an emergency like this you have to prove what country you're from. The captain and the crew abandon the ship leaving everybody to fend for themselves. They don't provide a emergency evacuation drill. Wonder what else they didn't do and are not telling us.

[jackette-2009]

Just a point - cruise lines do not take your passport. You are required to show them and include your number upon boarding but your physical passport remains in your custody. I've sailed many times and am looking at booking my next cruise soon, even after this.

[piercetheval]

Cue Music: "I'm Getting Closure To My Home", Three Dog Night.

[rsmik]

While technically the captain is always held responsible for anything that happens to the ship, in this case the company won't even bother to do any kind of investigation, because this idiot jumped ship before the passengers, which is incomprehensible behaviour for a captain in any situation. He will now get the blame for everything, even if by some miracle what happened was not his fault to begin with.

[Mungam44]

Cruise Line blames captain! Gee, you think?! The captain or his understudy was "sailing" and he screwed up, pure and simple. Unless the captain had displayed previous episodes of endangerment while "at the wheel", I can't fault the cruise line but since they have the deep pockets, that is where blame will fall. Get out the checkbook!

[retiredgustav]

From previous stories I have read, it was not uncommon for cruise ships to come close to the shore for the benefit of the people on the shore. As far as blame, It is almost always the captain's fault, just like "Pilot Error". Here we now have to look at "corporate culture". Does the company condone behavior like this, were the executive crew members properly vetted? These are the thing that need to be brought up at the hearing.

[parisdakar]

It's the Captain's fault? Ya think?

[Truth--Tracker]

Just a bunch of self-serving cruise-line industry tripe -- touting how safe, over-all, cruiseline travel is.

This crew was not at all adequately trained to handle predictable emergency situations like this -- probably because the 'industry' dishonestly trivialized the likelihood of such emergencies ever arising. And contrary to the cruise line's and industry's claims, the passengers never received meaningful instructions about what to do in case of an emergency. Countless passengers have stated that the only instructions they received pertained to how to conduct themselves safely at ports they visited. There were no instructions about what to do if the ship started sinking, because cruise-lines don't even want to acknowledge such a thing is possible.

Hence, the cruise-line and their passengers were unprepared for this catastrophe because they rested in a false sense of security. It's the Titanic story all over again --- cruise-lines operating on a patently false premise that this ship is unsinkable. Humans have no learning curve like other animals have. It's a dishonest hubris and arrogance unique to human idiots.

[ampsanne]

All the more reason I would never go on a cruise ship. In a way lucky they were close to shore, as I guess some of them swam to shore. I wouldn't want to be in the middle of the ocean and have this happen. So the captain is getting the blame, I would say however was at the helm is responsible. Won't blame anyone until all the facts are in.

[ampsanne]

I meant to say "whoever," not "however."

[ralphing]

EmpireGeorge, that was the same thing the captain of the Titanic said before hitting an iceberg in the middle of the ocean. Very unusual but yet it happened.

[Jhihmoac]

Doesn't matter who's to blame...It's still going to cost plenty...

[baileyccc]

So easy to blame the captain and try to shift blame away from the billions of the corporations.

[parisdakar]

The Captain is responsible for the ship. What part of "responsible" don't you get? It's not an office job.

[andacar]

The role of Captain on a ship has been established for centuries, and the authority and responsibility of a ship's captain are quite clear. A captain has the absolute final word in pretty much everything that happens on a ship, particularly on a big one. Captain Kirk had a great comment on this when a junior officer suggested he do something, "I'll take that into consideration when this becomes a democracy." It also means that when a disaster like this occurs, the final responsibility always rests with the captain. I know of no nation now or in the past in which this is not the case. To top it all off, the captain clearly abandoned his ship, which is the final damnation for this guy. A captain is supposed to be the last man to leave the ship. Period. I don't doubt the company is anxious to toss the captain to the wolves to avoid liability (which won't work anyway). But maritime law and custom are abundantly clear in this matter. Even if this wasn't his fault (which it obviously was), it was still his responsibility, a word we don't hear about much anymore.

[Ms_Charley]

CBS - contrary to your shoddy reporting and non-existent editing (let alone proof-reading), this ship did NOT "capsize."

To capsize is to OVERTURN in the water.

Is it upside-down, as in over-turned?

No. It's not.

And the captain is NOT FRENCH. He is Italian.

Are your reporters 12 years old with no clue? If these simple facts are wrong, what hope can readers have for the accuracy of the rest of the article?

[ralphing]

Uhhhh, a boat that is not sitting upright has capsized, which is when a boat has tipped over and is no longer maneuverable. As I look at the pictures of this ship, it doesn't seem to be sitting upright to me. If it was in deeper water, it would turned upside down and sank to the bottom well before everyone could safely get off the sinking ship.