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Costa Concordia captain blames helmsman
The captain of the Costa Concordia has blamed the disaster on his helmsman, saying the officer did not understand his orders.
Francesco Schettino, speaking for the first time in court, accused Jacob Rusli Bin, his Indonesian helmsmen, of turning the ship into the rocks rather than away from them.
This was in the crucial moments before the cruise liner smashed into rocks off the island of Giglio.
Schettino said that after spotting that the ship was heading towards a rocky reef close to the shore of Giglio on the night of January 13, 2012, he gave frantic orders to turn the ship to the left.
"When I asked the helmsman to turn the rudders to the left, his error was to not do that – instead at that moment the ship turned to the right," he told a court in Grosseto in Tuscany, where his trial on Monday resumed after a long summer break.
But a panel of independent experts said that the apparent confusion would not have prevented the cruise ship, which was travelling at 14.2 knots, from hitting the rocks, reports the Daily Telegraph.
The helmsman is one of five officers involved in the disaster who struck plea bargains in return for lighter sentences earlier this year.
Despite being convicted of manslaughter and getting a prison sentence of 20 months, he is unlikely to serve any time in jail because of an Italian law that reduces sentences in order to avoid prison overcrowding.
Schettino’s defence team has requested permission to carry out a fresh inspection of the Concordia now that the ship has been raised, alleging that after the initial impact, there were a number of mechanical malfunctions, with the emergency generators and watertight compartments failing to work properly.
But prosecutors, and Costa Cruises, the company that operated the ship, maintain that the initial inspection of the wreck was exhaustive.
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