Francesco Schettino may have been guilty of 'significant human error', say owners of Costa Concordia
Owners of the Costa Concordia cruise ship said on Sunday night that "preliminary indications" suggested the captain may have been guilty of "significant human error".
Francesco Schettino was being questioned by Italian prosecutors on suspicion of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship after five people were killed in the accident off the Tuscan coast on Friday night.
Costa Cruises issued a statement calling into question Schettino's judgment: "We are working with investigators to find out precisely what went wrong aboard the Costa Concordia.
"While the investigation is ongoing, preliminary indications are that there may have been significant human error on the part of the ship's master, Captain Francesco Schettino, which resulted in these grave consequences.
"The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and the captain's judgment in handling the emergency appears to have not followed standard Costa procedures."
Schettino told Italian television he was not to blame for the ship, built in 2006, crashing into rocks.
He said: "I don't know if it was detected or not, but on the nautical chart it was marked just as water and some 100-150 metres (328ft-492ft) from the rocks, and we were about 300 metres (984ft) from the shore, more or less. We shouldn't have had this contact."
It was reported on Sunday night that one theory prosecutors are considering is that the ship's captain's steering of the vessel as close as possible to Giglio was a way of saluting a colleague or retired colleague living on the island.
Fifteen people are still missing following the panicked evacuation of the ship by 4,200 passengers and crew as it listed on rocks, metres from the coast of the island of Giglio.
Two elderly men found dead on board the vessel on Sunday were named as Italian Giovanni Masia and Spaniard Gual Guillermo.
Masia, 84, was celebrating a holiday on the Costa Concordia when he was separated from his wife after they were plunged into darkness during dinner as the ship hit rocks. Masia's son Claudio, who was also on board with his family, placed his mother, wife and children on a lifeboat before searching in vain for his father.
Relatives of the other 15 passengers and crew who have yet to be located remain on tenterhooks as divers and rescue teams continued their search.
Two of those unaccounted for are American, the US embassy in Rome said.
An Italian man from Rimini, aged 30, and his daughter, five, were also missing, reported Corriere della Sera. The man was separated from his partner as they tried to board a lifeboat. She made it ashore but has not seen him or his daughter since.
Another Italian man said that the last time he had seen his wife, Maria D'Introna, 30, she was leaping into the sea with a lifejacket to attempt the short swim to the rocky coast of Giglio.
The ship's purser, who was dramatically freed by rescuers on Sunday after being trapped on board the doomed cruise ship Costa Concordia, said he refused to give up hope while waiting for help.
"I never lost hope of being saved. It was a 36-hour nightmare," said Manrico Giampedroni, 57, who was found by rescuers as they probed the dark, cold corridors of the stricken vessel, emboldened after finding a South Korean couple alive on Saturday night.
As the search of the enormous vessel continued, Giampedroni emerged as one of the few heroes of the tragedy amid reports that the captain and other crew members panicked and mounted lifeboats ahead of passengers.
Giampedroni, who joined the cruise company aged 18, had helped load passengers into lifeboats before setting off to search the decks for more passengers at around midnight, his mother said after speaking to him.
But as the ship listed while taking on water, Giampedroni slipped, broke a leg and became trapped as thousands of passengers swam or were flown or ferried to land. Alone and close to the rising waters as the ship keeled on to its side in the darkness, Giampedroni called for help which only arrived 36 hours later after rescuers heard his voice from several decks away.
"As soon as I heard, I cried," said his mother, Giovanna Lazzarini, 78, after hearing Giampedroni had been strapped to a stretcher and airlifted to hospital. "And to speak to him again was like being reborn. If they had told me he was dead I would have died too."
Hours earlier, at 1.30am on Sunday morning, rescuers had followed cries for help to cabin No 838, where they found South Korean newlyweds Hye Jim Jeong and Kideok Han, who had chosen the Mediterranean cruise for their honeymoon, boarding at Civitavecchia less than three hours before the ship went aground.
"We heard you, but we could not make ourselves heard," they told rescuers after being taken off the ship, wrapped in thermal blankets and smiling. "Then finally you found us."