"ROME — Court-appointed experts have squarely blamed the captain of a cruise ship that ran aground off Italy for the wreckage and deaths of 32 people, but they also faulted the crew and ship owner for a series of blunders, delays and safety breaches that contributed to the disaster."
"The analysis came out Wednesday and was placed online Thursday by the Rome daily La Repubblica.
The experts contrasted what went wrong on board with maritime rules and procedures and determined that Schettino should have given the "abandon ship" order at 10 p.m. that night, 15 minutes after the 9:45 p.m. grounding against the rocks off Giglio.
Instead, the evacuation order only went out at 10:43 p.m. – and Schettino himself didn't give it but another officer, in violation of maritime rules. By that time, passengers on their own had already reported to their muster stations with life jackets on, despite a decision from a crew member at one point that they should go back to the dining room.
"Madonna, what a mess I've made," Schettino muttered soon after the collision, according to the transcript.
Beyond Schettino's faults, the experts said a series of problems hobbled the execution of his initial maneuver and efforts to fix it, and contributed to the botched evacuation. Bridge crew members bungled directions and didn't his understand orders because of language barriers. Other crew members weren't trained or certified in security and emergency drills, the report found."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/13/francesco-schettino-costa-concordia_n_1880338.html