Officers were also heard shouting contradictory instructions as the disaster unfolded. The black box identified him shouting 'hard to port!’ just before the liner struck a rock in calm waters close to the Italian island of Giglio. At the same time his second in command yells ‘hard to starboard!’. Moments before the disaster Schettino is also heard saying: ‘Let’s go and do a salute (to Giglio).’ But as the ship, carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew, goes close to the shore, he shouts at a helmsman to go to starboard to avoid catastrophe.
After hitting the rocks, Schettino orders watertight compartments in the ship to be closed. He is heard asking: ‘So are we really going down? I don’t understand.’
Another officers is heard saying: 'Our ass is dragging along the seabed.' Schettino asked: 'What did we hit?' On being told that the Concordia had hit the reef, Schettino says: 'Are we really going down? I don't understand.' An officer is heard saying: 'It's the salute he wanted.' The recording concluded with an officer telling everyone to ‘abandon the ship’.
Marine experts have already said that a crowd-pleasing but risky manoeuvre in which the huge vessel passed close to Giglio was to blame for the collision on January 13.
The experts - two admirals and two engineers - lay most of the blame for the collision and botched evacuation on Schettino. But they also noted that not all crew members understood Italian, not all had current certification, and not all passengers had had the chance to participate in evacuation drills.
Passengers described a confused and delayed evacuation, with many of the lifeboats unable to be lowered because the boat was listing too far to one side. Some jumped into the Mediterranean and swam to Giglio, while others had to be plucked from the vessel by rescue helicopters hours after the collision.
Schettino has insisted that by guiding the stricken ship to shallower waters near Giglio's port instead of immediately ordering an evacuation he potentially saved lives. He has claimed that another official, and not he, was at the helm when the ship struck.
The timeline in the expert report, however, makes clear that he had assumed command six minutes before the ship struck the reef.http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2217900/Black-box-recording-doomed-Costa-Concordia-reveals-chaos-ship-hit-rock.html