YOU SAID IT: A Coast Guard officer’s outraged words to ship Capt. Francesco Schettino have become an instant sensation in Italy, as seen yesterday on this T-shirt (with English translation).
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Spineless cruise-ship skipper Francesco Schettino gave a laughable excuse for ditching the doomed ship while 3,500 passengers remained trapped inside — claiming he “tripped and ended up in one of the lifeboats.”
That same lifeboat was already carrying his first mate and another officer.
The Italian judge who heard his story accused him in court papers of refusing to return to the Costa Concordia and being “totally incapable” of handling Friday’s disaster.
Judge Valeria Montesarchio noted that Schettino waited “30 to 40 minutes” to set off an alarm after the 950-foot ship hit a reef when he diverted from the approved course to pass close by Giglio Island.
Then, while other crew members tried to rescue passengers, Schettino slipped into a lifeboat, Montesarchio wrote after Tuesday’s hearing.
“The commander reached a rock after getting off a lifeboat, and refused to return to the ship,” she wrote.
For an entire hour, “he watched the boat sink,” wrote Montesarchio, who agreed to release Schettino under house arrest near Naples as he faces charges of manslaughter in the deaths of at least 11 passengers.
Twenty-six passengers and crew remain missing. Recovery efforts were suspended yesterday after the partially submerged ship shifted.
Schettino’s self-serving narrative emerged a day after a damning recording exposed how he made all sorts of excuses to avoid returning to the ship even as a furious Coast Guard officer cursed at him.
“Get back on board, for f–k sake!” shouted Gregorio De Falco.
Schettino claims he’s being demonized for dumb luck.
“The passengers were pouring onto the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault,” he told the judge Tuesday. “I didn’t even have a life jacket because I had given it to one of the passengers.
“I was trying to get people into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60- to 70-degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there.”
Judge Montesarchio scoffed.
Given “the fact that other crew members and officials tried to evacuate the ship, it is objectively impossible to believe what the commander claims, which is that it was impossible to oversee the evacuation procedures,” she wrote.