E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Laura Lezza / Getty Images
The Costa Condordia remains stricken after a further five bodies were found by a mechanical robot, two months after it ran aground on March 23, 2012 in Giglio Porto, Italy.
Italy's top appeals court ruled on Wednesday that Francesco Schettino, the captain of the Costa Concordia, was unfit to command the cruise liner which ran aground and capsized off the Tuscan island of Giglio in January, causing at least 30 deaths.
In a written explanation of its decision to maintain a house arrest order against Schettino, the Court of Cassation said he had shown "little resilience in performing command functions or in handling responsibility for the safety of persons under his care."
Schettino has been accused of wrecking the 126,215-ton liner by bringing it too close to shore, where a rocky ledge tore a gash in its side and made it keel over and sink. According to the court, he "has proven not to be able to handle a dangerous situation typical of his profession, despite the specific professional skills and experience."
Costa Concordia captain's blunders detailed in Vanity Fair
Investigators also accuse Schettino of delaying evacuation and losing control of the operation, during which he abandoned ship before all 4,200 passengers and crew had been taken off the vessel.
He has been charged with multiple manslaughter, causing the accident and abandoning ship prematurely. A pre-trial hearing was held in Grosseto, near Florence, in March.
The Court of Cassation said Schettino had shown himself unable to manage a crisis and to ensure the safety of his passengers and crew and said there would be a risk of a repeat of the disaster if he were given a command again.
That part of the ruling justified the decision to keep Schettino under house arrest at his home in Meta di Sorrento, near Naples in southern Italy, as a concrete danger of a recurrence must be shown for the arrest order to be upheld.
Thirty bodies were recovered and two are missing. The wreck lies on its side in some 20 meters of water within a stone's throw of the picturesque island port.
Salvage experts are expected to stabilize the wreck by August and then refloat it and remove it from the marine natural park off the Tuscan coast where it sank.
More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:
- Germany's Pirate Party rides wave of popularity
- 'Scapegoated'? Westerners held over massacre
- Anxious Greeks withdraw $894 million in a day
- In China, English teaching is a whites-only club
- Beer-swilling bride sparks controversy in New Zealand
- Oh la la! A look at France's fascinating first ladies
- 'Puppet': Al-Qaida chief issues message on Yemen
- 'Everything has doubled in price': Iran sanctions bite
Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world
Copyright 2013 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.
Leave a Comment:
It's the only conclusion the court could have drawn. Good to know he'll never be given command again.
House arrest??? Why is this guy not in jail where he belongs?
Yes I wondered about that, too. People died, and this guy can kick back, play x-box and each fudgesicles all day? Hmmm.
They figure he cannot steer his apartment building into an island.
They threw Amanda knox in jail immediately and this bozo gets house arrest after killing 32? Italian justice is AMAZING.
unfit to run a ship?
*GASP*
YA DON'T SAY?
Good grief, we all figured out that the ship's captain was a screw-up. My goodness people, his ship hit the big island, which his charts directed "Stay Away From The Big Island".
... "has proven not to be able to handle a dangerous situation typical of his profession, despite the specific professional skills and experience." How it was happened that he got this position? And how many more same captains are on board of Costa Crociere ships?
So now he was distracted because he was on the phone! Give me a break, Even a 10 year old can talk on a phone and do something else.
This man (and I use that term very loosely here) is a coward, a lyre and a very poor excuse of a man. This idiot has now had time to reflect on all that happened that day and yet all he conjure up is a poor no, very poor apology that isn't even close to what should come out of his mouth but he is just so full of himself that it will never happen. I wish they would have made this guy watch every autopsies on every victim of this horrible tragedy that he caused, Maybe he would have then understood how he has affected those people and their family's forever, but then again skip it as this guy will never get it.
He is just a lowlife that deserves nothing from society except to be shunned and exiled to a remote island with rotting food, no clean water and a rope to attach to the tree on the island, Only once he realizes that by ending his life by his own hand will he be making the apology necessary for what he has done.
This also applies to the rest of the higher ups in this company, They are all lowlife scum of the earth and do not deserve squat when they don't put people's safety first before anything else and that includes there precious profits.
This is a re-post of a prior comment I made recently.