The Galveston maritime accident lawyers at Denena & Points note that a judge has terminated the house arrest of Francisco Schettino, the Coast Concordia cruise ship captain facing multiple charges over the Costa Concordia shipwreck disaster that left more than 30 people dead in January. The captain is restricted to his hometown near Naples, Italy for the present.
Schettino has been charged with manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, and abandoning his ship while there were still people on board in need of rescue. Some of those rescued were apparently taken aback when they reached the shore to discover that the cruise ship captain was already there and not on board the Concordia helping with the evacuation as he should have been.
Schettino denies the charges against him and disclaims responsibility for the tragedy, calling it a “banal accident” in which “destiny” played a role. (Source: Associated Press, Rome, 7/10/2012.) Somehow our Galveston maritime accident lawyers do not believe we would call a shipwreck that claimed 32 lives “banal.” But we’d like to think that if we were ship’s captains, we wouldn’t cause a wreck by showing off nor precipitously abandon our sinking vessel leaving other passengers and crew to their “destiny.”
Schettino claims that a phone call distracted him and that he was not in charge of the ship’s course shortly before the ship collided with a reef close to the shore of the island of Giglio off the coast of Italy. Our Galveston maritime accident lawyers note that earlier accounts of the incident claim that an attractive blonde passenger distracted the captain.
Work has begun on the multi-million dollar process of removing tons of rocky reef material from the Concordia’s hull in preparation for towing the shipwreck away from the resort town of Giglio. Surviving passengers have described a confused and disturbing scene as evacuation was delayed and poorly coordinated, with many lifeboats unusable, after the wreck of the Concordia.
Schettino claims that he helped direct the evacuation from the shore to which he had so precipitously disembarked. Earlier accounts of the disaster provide detailed accounts regarding a courageous Italian Coast Guard officer who tried repeatedly and apparently failed to get Schettino to assume his duties to evacuate the wrecked cruise liner. Learn more about a captain’s duties to his ship, crew, and passengers in this article by our Galveston maritime accident lawyers.