What ever happened to the captain, the one presumably ultimately responsible for the capsizing of a ship, of the Carnival owned Costa Concordia that recently capsized off the coast of Italy? 

From the New York Times, Captain of Stricken Vessel Says He Fell Overboard In Passenger Panic:

The saga of the stricken cruise liner Costa Concordia took further twists Wednesday, with a warning from Italy’s environment minister that it could sink and news that the captain claimed he had slipped on deck and tumbled overboard, winding up in a lifeboat during the panicky passenger escape — not abandoned ship like a coward, as accused.

And:

Captain Schettino was quoted by La Repubblica as telling investigators that he had not planned to leave the ship as it tilted toward the water.

“The passengers were pouring onto the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” he said, according to the newspaper. “I didn’t even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the passengers. I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60-to-70-degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there.”

The drama has captivated Italy, offering at a time of political and economic uncertainty a national metaphor of hero and antihero: Captain Schettino, accused of leaving the ship prematurely with hundreds still aboard, and Capt. Gregorio Maria De Falco, a coast guard officer, who tried to cajole him via phone into returning and taking command of the evacuation. Leaked transcripts of their heated exchange have dominated the news coverage here, some of which has cast the final moments of the shipwreck as a clash of good and evil.

It gets better:

Referring to Captain De Falco, the headline of a front page editorial in Italy’s leading newspaper, Corriere della Sera, on Wednesday said, “Thanks, Captain.”

The behavior of the two captains, Aldo Grasso wrote in the newspaper, contrasted the “two souls of Italy” — one represented by a “cowardly fellow who flees his own responsibilities, both as a man and as an official” and the other as the one who tries to bring him back.

A sentence loosely translated into English as “Get back aboard! Damn it,” which Captain De Falco shouted at Captain Schettino, has already become a slogan emblazoned on T-shirts.

Incredible how a captain abandoning a cruise liner can send such a message in a troubled country.

hat tip Dealbreaker

 

 

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