A court in Italy has convicted five people of manslaughter over the Costa Concordia shipwreck off Giglio island which killed 32 people in January 2012.
Two officers, the helmsman, the head of cabin service and the head of the crisis team were given up to two years and 10 months in jail for multiple manslaughter, negligence and shipwreck. They had agreed plea bargains and may avoid custodial sentences.
Capt Francesco Schettino is being tried separately.
To refresh your memory:
Okay most of those make sense to me but I’m wondering if there are any articles anywhere that discuss why these 5? In particular the head of cabin service seems odd.
Possibly the officer responsible for passenger safety and getting everyone safely off the ship in case of a disaster?
Followup: Captain Francesco Schettino was convicted of manslaughter and got a 16-year sentence:
Er… isn’t having “All the responsibility loaded on to me” part of the job description of “ship captain”? :rolleyes: :smack:
Schettino must be a special embarrassment to his countrymen.
Francesco Schettino is exactly Zapp Brannigan with real-world consequences.
“Sir, it’s an emergency.”
“Come back when it’s a catastrophe!”
I remember hearing the conversation at the time of the Italian coast guard ordering Captain Schettino back on board the sinking ship to coordinate the rescue. Here it is as YouTube: Costa Concordia Coast Guard Audio - YouTube
The coast guard keeps trying to shame Schettino into going back aboard, and Schettino keeps replying with dissembling reasons and non sequiturs why he isn’t. He finally agreed to obey the order, but actually just stayed cowering on his lifeboat while his confused passengers drowned. Sixteen years sounds about right to me.
He’s like a compendium of negative Italian stereotypes – a preening peacock when things are going all right, a cowardly incompetent when things go wrong, and an inept buffoon when trying to dodge blame for the aftermath.
Don’t forget that we are talking about a court system that found some seismologists guilty of earthquake.
Confuscious say when reality is reported as fitting a stereotype perfectly, it probably says at least as much about the reporting as the reality.
My goodness, he has quite the history of being absent when the crap hits the fan, doesn’t he?
Unusually for Italian sentencing in a well-publicsed case these sentences actually make sense to me. I mean, Italy might be fine for cases that aren’t publicised but those are generally make them look bad. This one doesn’t, really. Even the length of time it took to convict the Captain is fair given that they had to wait till they had all the evidence and some of it had sunk. Now his appeal is unlikely to be successful whereas before it might have been.
From the (well-sourced) Wiki article cited in a prior post, it was because he was partially in charge of evacuation and he fucked it up, and the others committed specific errors:
Most of the rest of the crew behaved really efficiently during the incident, even getting lifeboats out before the Captain had ordered it because the conditions required them to do, and they were given commendations for their actions.
Disgusting. Apparently he might not go to jail pending his appeal - wtf is he going to appeal? The crew were launching life boats before he made the call to abandon ship. He even had the nerve to say some good came out of this.
Russel Rebello - The True Captain of the Costa Concordia | Cruise Law News - the last person to leave the ship.
His lawyers tried to argue that instead of being condemned for the people who died, he should be praised for all the people who didn’t:
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
And a few more brilliant legal gambits:
:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I was gonna say…