Coast guard pleaded with captain to get back onboard
Source: Agencies |
January 18, 2012, Wednesday
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Print Edition
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Italian coast guards pleaded angrily with the captain of a stricken super-liner to return to his ship, according to recordings released yesterday, as divers found five more bodies in the half-submerged wreck of the Costa Concordia.
Taking the known death toll to 11, that left 24 people unaccounted for four days after the giant cruiser carrying 4,200 passengers and crew was ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.
Captain Francesco Schettino is in jail, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship.
Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before his passengers and crew managed to scramble off.
Newspaper Corriere della Sera released what it said was a recording of ship-to-shore radio communications in which the enraged coast guards repeatedly order him back on board.
"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!" one coast guard says.
The owners of the 114,500-ton vessel accused their captain of causing the disaster by sharply deviating from the charted course.
He has denied the charges and was questioned by magistrates yesterday morning.
Rescuers used explosives to blast through the watery maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas yesterday, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive.
Before the five bodies were found, those missing were 14 German, five Italian, four French and two American passengers and four crew from Italy, Peru, India and Hungary.
Three controlled blasts were detonated early in the morning to allow firefighters and scuba divers to enter inaccessible parts of the ship.
Most of the passengers and crew survived despite hours of chaos and confusion after the collision. The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.
Video taken from a helicopter in the early hours of Saturday showed an extraordinary scene of dozens of passengers being gingerly lowered on ropes down the upturned hull of the ship into rescue boats.
The ship foundered after striking a rock just as dinner was being served on Friday. The owners said the captain swung inshore to "make a bow" to the islanders.
Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi said company vessels were forbidden to come closer than 500 meters to the Giglio coast.
Taking the known death toll to 11, that left 24 people unaccounted for four days after the giant cruiser carrying 4,200 passengers and crew was ripped open by rocks off a Tuscan island.
Captain Francesco Schettino is in jail, blamed by his employer for risking thousands of lives and half a billion dollars of ship.
Schettino is accused of multiple manslaughter, causing a shipwreck by sailing too close to shore and abandoning ship before his passengers and crew managed to scramble off.
Newspaper Corriere della Sera released what it said was a recording of ship-to-shore radio communications in which the enraged coast guards repeatedly order him back on board.
"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea, but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!" one coast guard says.
The owners of the 114,500-ton vessel accused their captain of causing the disaster by sharply deviating from the charted course.
He has denied the charges and was questioned by magistrates yesterday morning.
Rescuers used explosives to blast through the watery maze of luxury cabins, bars and spas yesterday, fast losing hope of finding anyone alive.
Before the five bodies were found, those missing were 14 German, five Italian, four French and two American passengers and four crew from Italy, Peru, India and Hungary.
Three controlled blasts were detonated early in the morning to allow firefighters and scuba divers to enter inaccessible parts of the ship.
Most of the passengers and crew survived despite hours of chaos and confusion after the collision. The alarm was raised not by an SOS from the ship but mobile phone calls from passengers on board to Italian police on the mainland.
Video taken from a helicopter in the early hours of Saturday showed an extraordinary scene of dozens of passengers being gingerly lowered on ropes down the upturned hull of the ship into rescue boats.
The ship foundered after striking a rock just as dinner was being served on Friday. The owners said the captain swung inshore to "make a bow" to the islanders.
Costa Cruises chief executive Pier Luigi Foschi said company vessels were forbidden to come closer than 500 meters to the Giglio coast.
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