If we already suppose that Costa Concordia´s captain is guilty, you are right and he must be hung or put in fire, depending on the culture. Any way if companies (and authorities) only put attention on the salaries over the capacitation, we´ll see more cases like that. But there is another very important thing to take in account in this case and others: We MUST wait for all the information before hunging anybody. People in the aviation business should be tired of looking how many captains are hunging on the trees instead of the guilties.

The general rule of boats sinkings is that the captain should always step UP into a lifeboat. There's also a feeling that it's better to go down with your ship than face the inquiries of boards and media about your actions. In this case, if the reports are to be believed, this captain already knew he was in deep do-do for showboating and running aground while doing so. It's the nautical equivalent of buzzing your girlfriend's house and hitting a wire. Leaving the ship ahead of the passengers was actually the least of his worries.

The conduct of that ship captain is a disgrace. In the Navy, the CO (and I suppose other crew members too) of a ship that acted in such a fashion would be court-marshalled and, if found guilty, be sentenced to dishonorable discharge. And then after being handed dishonorable discharge papers, said captain or other personnel could also end up in a military prison. Civilian captains, of ships and airplanes alike, should be subject to similar discipline.

As for filters -- the chap was hired in 1992 as the fleet safety and security officer! Only in Italy.

We Americans are generally about letting the legal system run its course before assigning guilt. I am reserving judgement until this Captain gets his day in court, but God help him if he goes in front of an Italian jury...remember poor Amanda Knox? His goose is probably already cooked!

I believe the Captain is in house arrest and in a place I would not like to be.

Whatever the outcome of the court case I doubt if he will be given another captaincy so his career is already over. Shame but then that is the result of a failing when showing off.

"I never considered Sullenberger and his F/O Jeff Skiles to be heroes"

Heros in my book, as well as many others responders that day. Still an emotional experience for me and I wasnt anywhere near the event. Take a look again at the computer generated animation and tell me you dont say "Wow." Professional, yes, and much more IMHO. Aviation people at their very best!

It is okay to place the blame on the captain just as it is to inform individuals of the proper evacuation techiniques. The panic in the whole situation allows for the decision to be on the indivivdual person. I mean I wouldn't expect for the captain to wait around and hold the hands of everybody on the ship.

Paul,

this time I have to pitch in from a country in a state of utter shock and shame.Please you all have mercy on us.There is no excuse for this guy,now the most reviled person in Italy, and we are going to have to live with the consequences of his actions for years and years.As Air France 447 shows,no amount of technology and sophisticated equipment can save us from flawed minds in the cockpit.That,I believe, is tomorrow's challenge:to balance the need for command in the cockpit of any aircraft,vessel or vehicle with the need to ensure that there are adequate checks and balances to the authority of just one individual.

Lupo Rattazzi,Rome,Italy

Lupo Please note; its the Captain and not the country on trial here. It would not matter his nationality it the individual that's at fault. He had no right to pass so close to the island just to salute a friend retired captain Mario Terenzio Palombo (He's words not mine)

I agree with you that the challenge is to keep up with technology and to ensure those in charge are in a stable mental condition.

As Bruce said, nothing to do with Italy, really. It just happened to be where the accident occurred. To me, the black-and-white of it is discharge of professional duties.

Did the Captain do that or did he not? At this juncture, sure looks like he did not. Heard on NPR last night that a t-shirt with the slogan "Get back on the boat, damn it!" is flying off the shelves in Italy.

Best I can say is to quote a Comment by Winston Churchill,

After his retirement he was cruising the Mediterranean on an Italian cruise liner.

Some Italian journalists asked why an ex British Prime Minister should chose an Italian ship.

“There are three things I like about being on an Italian cruise ship” said Churchill.

“First their cuisine is unsurpassed."

"Second their service is superb."

"And then, in time of emergency, there is none of this nonsense about women and children first”.

Paul and Bruce,

He did it big time.Dereliction of duty of the highest order.Only a state of total shock for the magnitude of his screw up can explain his subsequent behaviour.I don't know if he will face "Amanda Knox type" justice (which at the end of the day maybe was not so flawed as it resulted in a reversal and acquittal).He sure deserves the maximum sentence which in Italy would be 15 years. Once again, the problem for all of us is that a fool in the cockpit is just as dangerous as Mohamed Atta in the cockpit.

Lupo Rattazzi,Rome,Italy PS Still facing a potential environmental catastrophe if all that oil is not sucked out of that boat ASAP

Lol; I just read the newspaper and the following is written a statement from Schettino "All of a sudden the boat listed between 60 and 70 degrees, I tripped and ended up in one of the lifeboats". [Sounds like he knew the accident was going to happen]The judge Valeria Montesarchio stated (not a question) that Schwettino left the ship when the evacuation operation was still ongoing. Schettino's lawyer said the captain coordinated the evacuation from the shore after leaving the ship. (Sonia Elks of Metro Thursday 19 January)

You gotta feel sorry for the Captain -- maybe -- no not at all he is his own worst enemy

He was steering the ship by visual reference, and initiated a turn too late, ending up at a bad angle to the coast and just shaving the tip of an area too shallow for the ships draft. He then in a very skilled way was able to place the ship on a little platform in the shallows so it did not sink, saving hundreds, if not thousands of lives. If he personally left the ship last or not is not really that relevant in the overall picture. Sully is truly exceptional, as also was shown by him speaking out in a very frank way after he got famous, with no regards to cashing in. Don't compare the two guys This cruise ship captain was just a normal guy. He knew he screwed up (= end of career), still did the right thing, and then just wanted to go. Modern Italy is not known for a large number of heroes (except the guy who got murdered in Iraq), but for excellent food, wine & coffee & Tenors singing for half an hour after being fatally stabbed, so why should this guy be an exception.

Who are we trying to kid -- it has everything to do with Italy, where Ferrari drivers are waved through by traffic police and applauded when they race their engines in town centre squares at night. Where the 70+ year old, perma-tan ex Prime Minister saw his popularity soar every time there was a new, multiple partner and very young girls sex scandal. Where mothers still take in the washing of 40 year old sons, while 12 year old girls have to do their own etc etc. Like it or hate it, one result is ship captains treating their cruise ships like jet-skis and then crying for momma when they crash. Show off captains in Italy cause wrecks in 2012, while in 1987 it was British sailors on the Herald of Free Enterprise who were too lazy to close the bow doors -- you choose your country and face different risks.

Brian,I asked for mercy..... Lupo (Rome,Italy)

I have maintained from the beginning that Captain Sullenberger and F/O Skiles were heroic - but not for their superb flying skills. A heroic act is not what one does to preserve one's own life or safety, but what one chooses to do when faced with the alternative of preserving one's own life or safety and meeting one's duty. Captain Sullenberger and F/O Skiles became heroes when - after the ditching, they went through the cabin several times to ensure that all of those for whom they had responsibility were out of the aircraft. Captain Schettino demonstrated cowardice when - faced with a similar circumstance - he made a different choice.

BTW ,Michael,where did you get that extraordinary quote by Winston Churchill? Lupo

R. Ziegler writes:

> He was steering the ship by visual reference, > and initiated a turn too late, ending up at > a bad angle to the coast and just shaving > the tip of an area too shallow for the ships > draft. He then in a very skilled way was > able to place the ship on a little platform > in the shallows so it did not sink, saving > hundreds, if not thousands of lives.

It is fortunate that Captain Schettino's handling of the ship was not worse. We should however be aware that at sea, it has long been a part of maritime tradition that when a ship is in hazardous waters, a pilot (man or woman of the sea with intensive knowledge of the waters in a particular area, or in and around a particular harbor) comes aboard and advises the captain. Was there a pilot aboard when the Costa Concordia was in a hazardous area? If not, then that in itself is a dangerous deviation from longstanding ship handling practice.

The Capitano was familiar with the area, he had done the same several times before without the consequences. He made a mistake. Got maybe complacent, similar to the accident rate of pilots increasing after a few 100 hours before going down again....

Look guys,I can tell you conclusively that there was nothing "skillfull" about what that guy did,before or after the collision, and those are not treacherous waters at all (I have my summer home in the area).What happened was that the idiot buzzed the Island of Giglio at night (similar to our "VFR into IMC")in order to show off ,without maintaining "adequate separation from terrain" (which should have been done via radar and sonar and certainly not visually).He delayed rescue operations by lying to the Italian Coast Guard when queried via radio and then abandoned ship.Need I say more?He is a national shame,period.

Lupo

Good post. The contrast has sprung to a lot of people's minds I'm sure.

I don't know much about how the Italian media works (aside from the fact that their former PM owns most of it) so I don't know how close to the truth we're getting. That tape certainly is cringe worthy though, even just listening to the translation and the tone of his voice.

The night before my first flying test, my instructor rang me with some final advice. He said, "You are going to screw something up. The examiner knows that. What he wants to see is you keeping your head and fixing it when you're feeling stupid and under the microscope." And that's what happened too :)

Also, stupidity knows no borders - Brian's little soliloquy could easily be rewritten for any country. I'd rather see what lessons we can learn from this debacle and I bet there are some. Falling victim to the "third person effect" is one of the ways it starts ...

... sorry, not the "third person effect"! While related and interesting itself, I meant the "that-sort-of-thing-only-happens-to-clowns-from-X-country/state/team effect".

The Italian media work fine ,the former PM owns a lot of TV's but not the newspapers,he is a goner anyway and the Coast Guard has already posted the tapes and they are conclusively damning,so no possibility of a cover-up here.What we can learn is that those ugly monsters should not be allowed to buzz islands or any coast for that matter and that Crew Resource Management should be brought to cruise ships.

Lupo

Banner over picture of Schettino as lead in to local TV coverage last night:

"Chicken of the Sea"

Lupo, my employer started a CRM for ships years ago called MRM - Marine Resource Management. One of the operations we dealt with was tankering. You take a big ship full of oil that can't get into the harbour and pull another ship next to it that can. Then you try and get two ships of different national registry, working with probably 5 different languages, to all follow SOPs and not hurt anybody or break anything while transferring the oil. That was CRM at its finest. We no longer have that business but other companies do teach it. Thing is, you can lead a horse to water...

Could you call Mr Sullenberger and Mr Skiles heros? Let's skip the semantics...there were 153 other people on their aircraft that think so! I believe that "hero" is defined as a person that others look up to as having the qualities that they, themselves, would hope to someday exhibit. And Lupo, with all due respect, our media is far from perfect, but with a few exceptions, our press tries to be honest and impartial, when reporting news. In Italy, and in many other countries, the press will print any rumor or theory as fact! Again, look what they did to Amanda Knox.

Steve,with all due respect,the Amanda Knox case was an incredibile case of transatlantic distortion and misunderstanding.She was eventually acquitted on the same basis on which O.J. walked (insufficient,"beyond any reasonable doubt",evidence).Why she had to become America's heroine-trapped-in-an-evil-foreign-justice-system is something that I can understand but it has to do more with her pretty face and prejudices rather than with careful evaluation of the relevant facts.Let's not open this wound again though.This is an aviation (or transportation at least) blog.I think we should stick to our designated topic.

Good point Lupo;

Me thinks that the Hero's nationalities aside are Mr Sullenberger and Mr Skiles and the Villian is Mr(??) Schettino

Actually I got bored with the ship disaster but this blog has got me going again, Many thanks Paul

To tell you the truth ,I'm not even sure why we are wasting our time comparing two noble fellow flyboys with the "skipper" of one of those hideous gigantic monsters.

Interesting that as news is fleshed out with additional detail it is becoming apparent that Captain Schettino was not the only one derelict in the area of moral duty.

Multiple reports are surfacing that women and children being shoved aside, knocked over, etc. by men anxious to get into lifeboats. And remember, these were not just Italians but an international crowd. Some writers are comparing this with the Titanic, where steerage class families were ushered into lifeboats by first-class male passengers, many of the “plutocrat class”, who then went down with the ship because that was what real men did when necessary.

We live in a different world now, and in many ways not necessarily a better one.

Lupo, I honestly can't remember, read it somewhere and it just came to mind reading about the heroic Capt Schettino, must be my age, what intrigues me, is this Ship is only 4yrs old, fitted with the latest Navigation Equipment, so obviously he was showing what a great Seaman he was until the Rock proved him otherwise,ah well he can always sell ice-cream

I found it Michael and some attribute the quote to Winston Churchill while others to Noel Coward.

15 years? Seriously? This guy should get at a minimum a negligent homicide conviction and 15 years for each victim, consecutive, IMHO. Screwing around and making a mistake is one thing, running away while others die as a consequence of your mistake is unforgivable.

>> doubt if he will be given another captaincy so his career is already over

Remember Captain Hazelton, drinking on duty, Exxon Valdez made a big mess in Alaska. He found a new career... he's a substance abuse program advisor to major corporations, based in New York. According to Newsweek, he no longer drinks and is doing fine. So there's always hope, I suppose!

Paul,

How many cruises have you been on? I've been on 40+, including some rough trans-Atlantic crossings on Cunard, and have also been a pilot for 36 years. I have a dear friend who is a retired cruise ship captain, and have been on the bridge, and dined at the captain's table with other captains. The comparison to this accident to US Air 1549 is ludicrous at best.

Now, was this the first time Costa went so close to the shore of Giglio? No! Did Schettino admit that he made an error in turning the ship too late? Yes.

Am I defending Schettino? No, but I want all the facts first and, believe it or not, we do not have them. Granted, what I am hearing is very damning towards Schettino. Heck, Mario Palumbo, a famous, retired Costa captain, who I once sailed with on Costa Riviera, did not have nice things to say about him.

For now, let's get all the facts in place, and we don't have all of them in place yet. Considering that this accident had the potential to make Titanic look like a day at the beach, complete facts are what we need.

Paul,

How many cruises have you been on? I've been on 40+, including some rough trans-Atlantic crossings on Cunard, and have also been a pilot for 36 years. I have a dear friend who is a retired cruise ship captain, and have been on the bridge, and dined at the captain's table with other captains. The comparison to this accident to US Air 1549 is ludicrous at best.

Now, was this the first time Costa went so close to the shore of Giglio? No! Did Schettino admit that he made an error in turning the ship too late? Yes.

Am I defending Schettino? No, but I want all the facts first and, believe it or not, we do not have them. Granted, what I am hearing is very damning towards Schettino. Heck, Mario Palumbo, a famous, retired Costa captain, who I once sailed with on Costa Riviera, did not have nice things to say about him.

For now, let's get all the facts in place, and we don't have all of them in place yet. Considering that this accident had the potential to make Titanic look like a day at the beach, complete facts are what we need.

Anybody interested in assessing the magnitude of the mistake made by Schettino,can go to www.gCaptain.com and click on Capt. John Konrad's (a retired USCG commander) video reenactment of the disaster with the aid of AIS derived data. Lupo

Lupo that comment now you mention it puts me more in mind of Noel Coward with his Waspish Wit than Winston Churchill whose comments tended towards the Acerbic, may have got the attribution wrong.

I confess that I'd sooner have a root canal than be driven around on some over-priced, tacky floating hotel from one tourist trap to the next being fed an over rich diet and waddling from one shipboard activity to another. Just not my idea of fun, I guess.

I'll admit to a certain lack of imagination when it comes to understanding how having 40-plus cruises makes you inclined to defend what appears to be dereliction of duty. I guess I'm old school. If I'm entrusted with the safety of several thousand passengers and crew, I hope my sneakers would stay on that deck until every one had been accounted for.

Or, for some reason, does the cruise industry support the notion that if a disaster occurs, it's every man for himself?

Paul I don’t know your background but I can tell you that military training goes a long way to preparing someone for the day he/she has to step up and be counted. Whenever you leave an area it is your job no matter your rank to ensure all entrusted to you are safe or have been moved to safety. You are trained to never think of yourself first but to rather give your life for others. Pity that there are so many that have never had the opportunity to experience military life and the self-discipline that comes with it.

Reading between the lines in the many responders here I do believe most have had that military connection and our thinking is in line with that training so we are not able to readily accept something like what this Captain did. I agree the world has really changed

Bruce,couldn't agree with you more.I was in the Italian Navy,the officer screaming on the radio at that wretched captain was himself a Navy officer ,obviously horrified that the guy had abandoned ship.Clearly a different background than the one of those guys,all karaoke,champagne and tacky sea cruising, as Paul rightly described it. Lupo,Italy

As far as I am aware their is no Regulation that commits the Captain to being last off the Ship, and I'm sure their isn't one that says he has to be first off to co-ordinate the rescue from a taxi leaving the scene, instead its a well established Tradition best exemplified by Cpt Edward Smith of the Titanic, but his reasons for staying on Board were probably more to do with his shame at wrecking a brand new state of the art "Unsinkable" Liner on her Maiden Voyage after a Lifetime of Exemplary Service plus a Victorians Sense of Honour, pity Capt Schettino played upto the stereotypical idea of Italians held by some people, not I hasten to add myself.

The "none of this nonsense about women and children first" quote has been attributed to various people including and said about various nationalities. No one is quite sure who said it first and about which nation it was said. See www[dot]snopes[dot]com/humor/jokes/cruiseship.asp

please add "." between www and snopes and com in the url above

More info. quoteinvestigator (dot) com/2012/01/21/nonsense-first/ has traced the saying back to a 1917 newspaper article about travel. Even then it was attributed to an anonymous traveller commenting on a French liner, so was likely already a well circulated joke.

I don't believe there is any regulations as such but more a moral issue. Lets face it we males are here for one thing and only one thing after procreation and that's to protect the women and children with our lives if necessary. The primary and most important job of women is to bring up the future citizens of our country and teach them how to behave and have manners in this world.

Unfortunately something has happened that this defined way of life has changed and we are left with men (??) abstaining their duties and this can be seen in the way women are treated by men today (we no longer allowing women to go first, opening doors etc).

Who is at fault I don't know but then I had a very strict mother who would not take kindly to any abuse of manners.

Actually, the International Marine Organization (the sea-going ICAO) does require that the Captain use his best judgement in co-ordinating rescue and abandonment. It doesn't require him to remain aboard. Italy has a law that requires the Captain to remain aboard until passengers and crew have been attended to.

Concordia was flagged in Italy, so she was subject to Italian maritime law. From what I've read, abandoning a ship before the passengers is subject to criminal penalty in Italy, hence the arrest.

Obviously, the moral question trumps all that, though.

That's correct ,Paul although he will face additional multiple charges such as gross negligence,manslaughter and also the "Costa Cruises" (wholly owned by Carnival) top management in my opinion will face justice under a principle that was applied (unfortunately) several times to Italian Air Traffic Controllers handling aircrafts that had accidents,i.e. "Failure to prevent the occurence of an accident".

A friend of mine has sent me a PPS File with the latest Pictures ,some inside the Ship during the Evacuation, be handy if I could upload it, but unfortunately I don,t see any means to do so, perhaps Paul could advise and I would gladly forward it.

Michael,you can find extensive coverage ,videos and pictures on the italian on line newspapers (such as www.repubblica.it) although I realize there's a language barrier to overcome

Thanks Lupo, I'll have a look .

If it's available as a link, Michael, I can post the link the main blog. Or just send me the file via e-mail and I'll work the link. (avconsumer at comcast.net)

Sent Paul, thanks, Mike

Bruce, that's an interesting topic of its own. My opinion is that in civilizing large tracts of the planet, we've become victims of our own success. Irrespective, the apparent behaviour of this guy would be abberent in in any era.

This is for Steve Tobias: Steve,did you watch "Sixty Minutes" last night?Please spare me any additional whining about the treatment of Amanda Knox by the Italian Justice System.Obviously, miscarriage of justice occurs in the US too,and quite often Lupo Rattazzi,Rome,Italy