The first mate of the doomed Costa Concordia testified Monday that he was playing video games when the 114,000-ton cruise ship smashed into a reef — and when he ran to the bridge, the dazed captain admitted, “I messed up!”
First Deck Officer Giovanni Iaccarino kicked off the prosecution’s case against Francesco Schettino by testifying that on Jan. 13, 2012, he was in his cabin with the ship’s cartographer, “playing on the PlayStation,” when he felt the ship crash into something on the left, then on the right.
Iacarrino said he rushed to the bridge. “I looked at the control panel and it was all red lights,” he testified. “Then I saw the captain. [Schettino] put his hands in his hair and said, ‘I messed up!’ ”
The first mate said he knew within 10 minutes that the ship was doomed and that Schettino wasn’t ready to lead during the emergency.
“He was completely lost,” Iaccarino testified. “He was out of his routine mental state. He wasn’t the person I knew.”
Schettino, nicknamed “Captain Coward” by Italian newspapers, allegedly left the ship after running aground off the rocky coast of Giglio, Italy, at the cost of 32 lives.
Iacarrino testified the captain had said he wanted to sail the Concordia a half-mile off shore, not the usual and safe five miles, a week before the disaster.
“It wasn’t possible because the weather wasn’t right, the sea was too rough and the idea was abandoned, said Iaccarino at Schettino’s manslaughter trial in Grosseto, Italy.
Schettino put off the stunt for a week, but didn’t notify the passengers or cruise line, Iaccarino said
The captain has claimed that the ship’s navigational charts didn’t indicate there was a reef off Giglio. The reef sliced the Concordia’s hull.
Iaccarino disputed that, saying the charts were accurate.
Schettino, in an earlier hearing, blamed the Indonesian helmsman for not understanding his order to steer left, away from shore and, instead, steered right.