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Captain has a good excuse for abandoning ship
wallie
Member Posts: 8,595 ✭✭✭
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The real mistake was the maneuver this ships crew routinely makes when venturing near this island. Apparently it is tradition to steam toward the island and suddenly turn creating a wake like a skier would do in deep powder (called a hockey stop). They do this to mess with the people on the island who work for the company.
They must have been going really fast when they hit the rocks sideways. that is why passengers report the grinding sound then an immediate list which righted and then listed again.
I imagine investigators will find several large gashes thru the hull on the starboard side.
Had a similar experience. When I was a teenager, my girfreinds parents caught me in bed with her. I tried to explain what happenned, that I had been walking down the hall and tripped, falling into the bed, while the centrifugal force caused by my rotation in the fall had flung my clothes off. Nobody beleived me either.
....after you told that one I bet the silence was deafening......[;)]
Had a similar experience. When I was a teenager, my girfreinds parents caught me in bed with her. I tried to explain what happenned, that I had been walking down the hall and tripped, falling into the bed, while the centrifugal force caused by my rotation in the fall had flung my clothes off. Nobody beleived me either.
Son of a guy I knew got in trouble at school for pulling a knife. He claimed it fell up out of his pocket into his hand.
Together you might score warm on an IQ test.
I'm an experienced navigator with years working with sonar.
I have sonar in my car for backing up
And when I hear a steady beeping I stop so I don't run aground.
To be fair, how do you get back on a ship with a list like that?
The same way Coast Guard rescue personnel who had arrived on scene were getting some of the passengers off.
If you read the transcripts of phone/radio traffic between the Captain and the Port Authority's Coast Guard commander you'll hear him being directed to an area of the ship where a ladder was available for boarding.
He states that he and his officers had left the ship and that he was aware 'as many as one hundred' people remained onboard. He's told to reboard in order to obtain a passenger status/head-count and coordinate evacuation, but he refuses by explaining that it's dark.
The speaker eventually tell the captain that since he abandoned that ship he no longer holds a command position of any sort and that the speaker is now in command. The speaker then issues him a direct order to reboard immediately and coordinate evacuation efforts but he still fails to do so.
Here's a transcipt of portions of this conversation:
http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/story/2012-01-17/Transcript-Costa-Concordia-captain-and-Italian-coast-guard/52613814/1
quote:Originally posted by woodhog
The Capitan sounds like an Italian war hero.
He was in court telling the judge why he was too close to shore, it was as part of a salute to a retired Captain he knew was on shore.
He's taking responsibility now.
Nah...no way in hell this guy had been drinking. [;)]