This Is Your Captain

ANDREAS SOLARO/AFP/Getty Images Rescuers place explosive charges on the emerged side of the cruise liner Costa Concordia prior to entering on January 17, 2012.

What a distinction; the largest luxury liner yet in modern history to meet such a disastrous end. Almost a half-billion to build and outfit, with 1,500 luxe suites, tennis courts, swimming pools with retractable glass roofs, spas, dining rooms, casinos on one deck after another, the colossus in glorious sail with over four thousand people aboard just managed to hit a rocky reef. One well enough known to the locals off the Italian island of Giglio, to even have a name.

And all would have been well, but for the vanity of a captain who felt he could challenge Lady Fortune by a manoeuvre that he deemed gallant, but which was clearly not authorized by the company that employed him for his reliability and expertise as a sea captain, responsible for the safety and security of over a thousand crew members and a thrice-greater number of clients who paid handsomely for an enjoyable ocean cruise.

Perhaps the Costa Concordia was doomed from the moment Francesco Schettino was hired to captain it, although it took six years to occur. Familiarity, goes the old adage, breeds contempt. Just as well for the lives of all those who survived the fiasco-at-sea that they were as close to port as they were, even in that limping wreck of a wounded vessel. Think nothing of it, it was a trifle, an electrical malfunction, was the first notice given to the concerned passengers.

The captain, seasoned in his profession, must surely have been aware what that gradient of list signified, yet he neglected somehow to inform the coast guard of what was occurring even while the 50-metre gash in the ship's hull was leading it to gasp in it's death agony, alarming the passengers, and panicking the crew. It took him an hour to advise the coast guard. Prior to which some passengers used their cellphones to inform police.

Captain Schettino, in defiance of proud marine tradition, dishonoured that tradition and himself by choosing to take possession of a lifeboat, leaving women and the elderly and disabled and children remaining on deck to fend for themselves. And when the coast guard communicated with him, he informed them loftily that he was organizing the rescue mission from shore. Ordered brusquely back to his ship, he adamantly refused.

Bodies of eleven dead have now been recovered. Twenty-four more are missing. Divers have been making their way through the colossal structure, looking for the possibility that anyone might still be discovered alive, miraculously. The possibility that the pristine waters of the sea preserve may be contaminated by the tonnes of oil on the ship, yet another concern.

The ship lies close to shore, so any oil released could do major damage

His former commanding officer to whom he served for a number of years as second-in-command on such vessels, described his personality as being 'rash' and intemperate. One can only wonder how the executives at Carnival Tours arrived at the brilliant conclusion that this man represented the type of reliable, responsible professional required to captain such a vessel.

"He was too exuberant. He's a braggart. More than once I had to put him in his place", explained Mario Palombo, his former captain. Francesco Schettino, added Captain Palombo, was "too high-spirited and a daredevil". Arrogant and cowardly, more like it.