He saved 3,000 people. Too bad there were 4,000 people on the ship.
I’m going to be laughing about that all weekend. 
“Failed to kill all the passengers” is not the same as “saved some of the passengers”.
In my head, he’s Zap Brannigan. Closer match, IMO.
When asked about this, Captain Schettino responded, “So what happened to this Captain Smith?”
“He died with his ship.”
“So who looks like a smarter captain now?”
I didn’t think of it at first, but since Zap’s name appeared, I have to agree. Blowhard, self-styled Lothario, and… careless, to put it mildly.
Here you go ralph.
It’s odd to me what we demand of sea captains doesn’t translate at all to CEOs. The fuckers that sent USS Enron up on the rocks destroyed far more lives than Schettino.
It’s been years, but I’m pretty much certain that Atlas Shrugged establishes that a Fransisco D’Aconia level genius can jump into a motorboat and pilot it expertly, at top speed, immediately upon stepping behind the helm. Cruise ships might take a couple minutes.
My favorite moment, after Schettino starts making excuses and Coast Guard captain De Falco apparently loses what little patience he has (and is perhaps trying a calculated attempt to shame this Chicken of the Sea into growing a spine):
Mentally, I hear De Falco’s lines delivered by R. Lee Ermey.
De Falco had been dealing with Schettino though intermediaries for hours, he had enough and got him on the radio and started recording it. If you listen to the entire conversation you can tell even in the beginning of the recording De Falco knows the kind of man he is dealing with and makes it clear to Schettino the consequences of cowardice. Any creeping doubt of just simple panic on Schettinos part evaporates with that recording, the man sounds comfortable, together and intransigent.
Unfortunately, I don’t think a taxi could take him all the way to Ringworld.
What he should have done, had it been possible, was to hail a time machine, to make himself make better decisions.
First thing I thought of when I heard that quote from the cap’n was a skit from the old comedy series Alas Smith and Jones. It was something like the boys turned up at the emergency room, one bent over and the other standing behind him, obviously “coupled”. They came up with increasingly implausible explanations - “I was at home…doing some housework…erm, vacuuming the floor…when I, erm, fell upon this person…”
Wish I could find the video clip but this is a tough one to search.
The still pictures make it look like the ship was about to hit a lighthouse head-on. The first thing I thought of was
this myth and its final line: This is a lighthouse. Your call.
That was about the time we visited. We spent nearly a month traveling by train and staying in B&Bs and eating in mom and pops restaurants. I had a grand time, not so my Scandinavian husband who could not understand why the trains were late and had a weird ticket -selling system, that our planes (we flew out to Switzerland at some point and then flew back) were late, the crew unhelpful, Airtalia personnel and food awful, and the traffic… chaotic, to say the least. Specially in the south. Before our trip he had been skying several times in northern Italy, which everyone knows is really southern Austria.
Since I come from a developing country and have humble expectations I found the whole thing frankly refreshing and highly entertaining. In fact I fell in love with southern Italy and plan to go back with or without my husband.
Whoot! 30% off their next cruise with Costa. You gotta envy those lucky passengers (or at least the ones that survived - I don’t suppose the dead ones will be entitled to any future discounts).
I’m thinking the infamous captain isn’t the only one with masses of chutzpah at Costa Cruises.
I hope he gets manslaughter or negligent homicide charges for every dead body they find and that he spends the rest of his life in prison.
Yeah, I know, I’m being really controversial here. 
Not at all! The dead will get their next trip for free! They’ll have to travel as ballast, but still, what a deal.
Claiming you saved lives as a sea captain by getting closer to land is like an airline pilot telling his passengers he’s going to help them by flying closer to mountains.
Why does this thread keep reminding me of popular culture that’s different from other people’s popular culture?
Harvey Korman: “Get me out of this movie.”