Cruise crash
January 15, 2012
Italian police have detained the captain of the cruise ship that ran aground near the island of Giglio, as rescue teams continued to search the waters for the missing on Saturday evening.
Francesco Schettino was taken into custody after being questioned by investigators trying to establish the cause of the accident, news agency ANSA reported.
Italian coast guard officials have confirmed that at least three people are dead and around 40 are still missing after the Costa Concordia cruise ship, carrying approximately 4,000 people, ran aground and keeled over on Friday evening. Among the dead is a Peruvian crewman and two French passengers, one believed to be a man in his 70s who possibly suffered a heart attack after jumping into the sea.
With search and rescue operations set to continue overnight, an earlier estimate suggesting that 70 people were unaccounted for was revised, officials said. ANSA has reported that 40 passengers were receiving hospital treatment. Rescue workers, meanwhile, had located two people alive in the wreckage of the capsized ship.
The vessel was on a trip around the Mediterranean when it apparently hit a reef just as guests were sitting down for dinner. Passengers leapt into the icy waters as some fought over life jackets.
"There were scenes of panic like on the Titanic," said passenger Mara Parmegiani, speaking to Italian media. "I don't know how this could happen. The captain is crazy."
The luxury cruise ship is now lying on its side with a crack in its hull of at least 50 meters (160-foot) in length.
Vessel 'not off course'
Following the accident, helicopters with spotlights were deployed to aid the rescuers. Boats from the nearby port also set out to help authorities.
Divers have been sent out to search for survivors, although nighttime darkness has made the operation extremely "difficult" and "dangerous," rescue official Luca Cari told news channel Sky TG24.
Earlier on Saturday the ship's captain told Italian television that the vessel hit a rocky outcropping which slashed the hull of the boat.
"As we were navigating at cruise speed, we hit a rocky spur," Schettino told Tgcom24 television station. "According to the nautical chart, there should have been sufficient water underneath us."
However, Giorgio Fanculli, the only journalist on the island of Giglio, reported that the vessel had been too close to land when the accident occurred. "It was the classic passage, the cruise liners do it often, all lights lit up... but here, he went too close, a lot more than usual," said Fanculli, who saw the vessel sink and witnessed the rescue operation. This has been dismissed by the company that owns the Italian cruise ship.
"It is not correct to say that the boat was off its route," Gianni Onorato, managing director of Costa Cruises told reporters near the site of the accident.
Schettino's attorney, Bruno Leporatti, defended his client, saying that the cruise ship captain had managed the crisis well.
"As his defender, I'd like to say that several hundred people owed their life to the expertise that the commander of the Costa Concordia showed during the emergency," Leporatti said.
Response criticized
In a statement issued earlier on Saturday, Costa Cruises said it was "shocked" by the news and expressed its condolences to the families of the victims.
The company asserted that said the evacuation had been fast, although it was made more difficult as the ship took on water and keeled over. It did not give any indication as to what could have caused the accident.
Passengers were initially told that the ship had shuddered to a halt for electrical reasons. "We heard a crash," said Christine Hammer, from the German city of Bonn, speaking with the Associated Press.
"Glasses and plates fell down and we went out of the dining room and we were told it wasn't anything dangerous."
Other passengers confirmed that for 45 minutes they were told there was a simple "technical problem" before being advised to put on life jackets and head for lifeboats.
The ship launched earlier on Friday from Civitavecchia, near Rome, and had planned stops in Savona, Marseille, Barcelona, Palma de Mallora, Cagliari and Palermo.
Around 1,000 Italian customers were on board, as well as more than 500 Germans and about 160 French people. The US State Department reported that 126 US citizens were aboard the ship.
Author: Charlotte Chelsom-Pill, Spencer Kimball (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)
Editor: Andy Valvur