Costa Concordia - Chronik einer Katastrophe (2021) - full transcript
We weren't worried -
the ship can't sink.
Hard to port!
Oh, my god. At that point...
..I said, "We're all going to die."
People crying,
the ship tilting more and more...
A few minutes after the collision
he knew that the ship was lost.
Affirmative, water keeps rising.
He was sure that the ship
would make it to port.
Tell them there's been a blackout.
I basically saw us in the water.
I looked at Sandra and said,
"Please, Sandra, don't do this."
At that point, survival instincts
told me to jump on the lifeboat.
Look, Schettino. You may have
saved yourself from the sea,
but I will absolutely ruin you.
Fucking get on board.
There was maybe 10, 20cm
of air above me, and I tried
to stay in the air pocket.
We were in the type
of hopeless situation
that you know you're not
getting out of.
32 people died.
32 casualties which should...
..they could and should have
been avoided.
- Hello?
- Yes?
This is De Falco from Livorno.
Am I speaking to the Captain?
Yes, good evening,
Commander De Falco.
Tell me your name, please.
This is Captain Schettino, Commander.
Listen, Schettino.
There are people trapped on board.
You will take your boat under
the bow on the starboard side.
There is a pilot ladder.
You will climb that ladder
and go on board,
and then you will tell me
how many people there are.
Is that clear? I'm recording
this conversation, Captain Schettino.
Commander, at this moment in time...
..the ship is tilted.
I understand that. People are coming
down the pilot ladder on the bow.
You will go up the same ladder.
You will get on that ship
and tell me if there are children,
women or people
in need of assistance.
And you will tell me the exact number
of each of these categories.
Is that clear?
Look, Schettino. You may have
saved yourself from the sea,
but I'll take y-it'll be really bad,
I will seriously ruin you.
Fucking get on board.
My name is Gregorio De Falco.
In 2016 I was chief executive officer
at Livorno Port Authority.
I co-ordinated Costa Concordia's
rescue operations,
keeping in touch with the shipmaster
and the Captain.
During that phone call
I tried everything
to beg that man to resume his role.
- Commander, please-
- No, please, get on board now.
I am here to co-ordinate the rescue.
What are you co-ordinating
from there?
Go on board! Co-ordinate
the rescue from on board.
- Are you refusing?
- No, no, I'm not refusing.
Get on board! This is an order.
I'm in charge now. Get on board!
Is that clear?
- Fine, Commander, I'm going now.
- Go, now!
A Captain must not abandon the ship.
That's why I told him, quite harshly,
to go back on board.
Had he gone back on board,
had he dedicated himself
to saving passengers,
things would have gone differently.
De Falco's order is...
..now famous all over the world,
but it was an impossible order
which only served a purpose
for the media.
It impressed people,
it created this general build up
of hostility towards Schettino.
I think De Falco did
the right thing, back then,
to be as harsh as he was.
There was no other way.
He might have been hard,
but actually,
De Falco was immediately...
..competent, and
I think he was the only one
that night
to have made Italy proud.
Because Schettino didn't make
us look good in front of the world.
Captain, did they
crucify you a bit too soon?
On that January 13th
I partly died too, in a way.
From the first hours
after the shipwreck,
until the last stages of this trial,
my head was offered
as a sacrifice, in a trial that
should have involved a whole company,
and instead sees me here
as the only defendant.
I believe Francesco Schettino was
the victim of
a ruthless media campaign.
Consider that
the first instance of the trial,
coincidentally
and quite symbolically,
was held in a theatre.
My name is Saverio Senese. I am
Francesco Schettino's defence lawyer
in his appeal proceedings.
Therefore I didn't have the chance to
represent him in the investigation
or the first instance of the trial.
My name is Francesco Verusio.
I was public prosecutor
in Grosseto in 2012,
and, together with my colleagues
at the prosecutor's office,
we prepared the case for trial
to establish the responsibilities
regarding the shipwreck.
Interviewing Schettino, at first
he struck me as someone who
didn't realise what had happened.
He didn't realise that
he'd left 4,200 passengers
to fend for themselves.
He only thought of how
he could protect his image
from people and from the company.
The Concordia? A dream.
Well, it was for me. I'd been
on a couple of cruises before,
but this was the most beautiful
cruise ship I'd ever been on.
You see the Costa Concordia
lying there, a gigantic ship,
and you're really impressed and
think it's going to be a great week.
We were going to visit many
lovely cities with this super ship.
Nothing better
could ever happen to us.
My name is Matthias Hanke,
and in 2012, I was a passenger
on the Costa Concordia
with my buddy Marcel.
I'm Marcel Zuhn, and for both of us,
it was the second cruise
we'd ever been on.
Thank you
for choosing Costa Concordia
for your holiday on the sea.
We wish you a pleasant journey
and a lovely cruise. Thank you again
for joining us. Welcome on board.
Let's hear it once more for
our Captain, Francesco Schettino!
Wonderful. It was a world, a city.
It was like a theatre,
built in wood, nicely decorated.
Enormous chandeliers,
even the lifts were gorgeous!
Anywhere you looked!
- Where are you?
- I'm here. At the lifts.
The lifts? Where?
My son took us that afternoon.
And he said to her, "Mum,
you've never been anywhere - are you
going to sink the ship or something?"
- The sun is very bright!
- Look at this, come here!
In our room the bed was nicely done,
the bathroom was lovely,
there was a small living room.
I immediately opened the window
and I saw the sea
and I fell in love with this ship.
Come and see!
My name is Daniela Prestano
and I boarded Costa Concordia
on January 13, 2012,
to join a hairdressers' competition.
My name is Luigi Catalli
and I boarded Costa Concordia
to accompany my wife.
The service was perfect.
All the shows there were perfect.
The bar staff, who worked endlessly,
were always friendly.
It was an all-round
successful holiday.
We'd spent the day in Rome,
then returned to the ship
in the evening,
freshened up, then went to dinner
and intended to get comfortable
in the bar in the atrium,
go over the week that had just gone.
And then it all started.
Good evening.
- Good evening, Captain.
- Good evening.
All right then.
Check what speed we need
to get out of here, and go by Giglio.
They're making me do
a sail-past salute at Giglio. OK.
Let's plot a course.
- Shall I write it on the chart, sir?
- Mm-hmm.
- Is half a mile all right?
- All right.
Yeah? From the port.
There's seabed anyway.
How long will it take to get there
if we leave at seven?
A couple of hours.
9:30, give or take.
OK, all right.
- See you later.
- See you later.
The "sail-past" was planned.
We were supposed to do it
the week before,
but for various reasons
it hadn't been done.
So that evening the information
in the handover was
that the course had been
slightly adjusted
to go give a salute to Giglio Island.
My name is Stefano Iannelli.
During the Costa Concordia shipwreck
I was on the command deck,
as an apprentice deck officer.
The "sail-past" is
a very ancient tradition
in sailing.
It's a crossing along the coast
that was done even
in ancient times to pay your respects
to a city or a monument.
The ship was supposed
to cross as close as possible
for everyone to see.
It's for publicity, in a way.
We went to dinner at 18:30,
took our seats,
and waited for our table companions.
They lived in Berlin
and were expatriates from
somewhere in the Soviet republics.
We took Russian at school,
so we sang
Russian folk songs together.
So we always had fun
at the evening meal.
Salute!
Santé, na zdorovie, cheers.
- Yes?
- Captain, it's Ciro.
- Yes?
- Six miles.
Six miles. All right, that's fine.
We should be by Giglio at 21:44.
21:44, OK.
My name is Sandro Cinquini.
I have been chief medical officer
for Costa Cruises for over 30 years
and I witnessed the whole tragedy
that night on January 13th.
I had heard that they were planning
on passing by Giglio Island.
I was in my cabin
and, out of curiosity,
I was looking out the window
around 9:00, 9:30,
to know what we would have
seen of Giglio.
Everything was dark, though,
so I was starting to wonder why
we were going through there at all.
Good evening.
Hi, Francesco. I'm not too late,
right? I have to finish the shift.
Hi, Antonello. We'll wait. It's not
like the island is going anywhere.
- All right.
- There's still half an hour.
Antonello, our waiter.
- Nice to meet you.
- My pleasure.
Well...
Schettino wanted to show he was good.
- Let's wrap it up and go.
- That night...
..Tievoli, the head waiter,
had asked him to pass by
Giglio that night, because
Tievoli's mom lived in Giglio,
and Tievoli wanted to say hello.
That's why Schettino moved closer.
Then there was Miss Cermotan.
There was something
romantic between the two.
Maybe Schettino made that decision
in order to impress Miss Cermotan.
Good evening.
Good evening, Captain.
What's the current speed?
15.5.
Hand-steering.
Copy that, hand-steering.
Rusli was the lookout.
At the time there was only one.
One person would be
both lookout and helmsman.
If it was deemed necessary
to switch to hand-steering,
this sailor would switch position,
turn off the auto-pilot,
so then the ship would
depend on the wheel,
and orders would be given
directly to the helmsman.
278, confirmed.
278.
How much now?
285.
Schettino always maintained that
he decided to go with hand-steering
thinking he was still
very far from the rocks.
After all, the tradition of
the "sail-past"
was quite a popular procedure,
and it had been
authorised by the company.
Have you called Palombo,
Antonello?
No, not yet.
Go on, call him.
Schettino went on the bridge
and said, "Hand-steering".
What he should have done
during such a procedure
is to place a lookout
on the deck wing,
to follow the nautical charts...
Instead he pretty much
sailed there manually.
And as he did this,
he called Palombo, an ex-Captain
he was acquainted with,
who was supposed to be at Giglio.
Yes, of course.
No, no, he's here. I'll put him on.
Mario.
Captain Palombo, good evening.
We're about to pass by Giglio.
Ah! You're not at Giglio.
You're in Grosseto.
According to Palombo, Schettino
was a very good Captain, technically,
but he was somewhat arrogant
towards his crew and his staff.
It was his way or the highway.
Even if we get to 0.3 or 0.4,
there's water underneath, right?
We are at 290.
OK, I understand.
We're all right, then.
Yeah, we'll make a bit of a fuss
and say hello to everyone.
All right, I'll speak to you later.
I take the con.
Master takes the con.
When he took charge of the ship,
he was already off-course.
Nonetheless, the officers
who were on the bridge
did not inform him
about the ship being off course.
So, unaware and oblivious,
he sailed towards the rocks.
Let's go to 16.
He dropped the course
that had been mapped by Canessa
and sailed a 300-metre ship
at 16 knots
without course and without...
..hand-steering like a speedboat.
Like... what can I say? Like a raft.
It's madness.
Come slowly, slowly to 310.
- Easy.
- 310.
Where do we need to go through?
In front of the docks?
Well, yes.
Captain Schettino was very strict.
When he entered
the bridge, we would fall silent.
It wasn't quite...
..fear, but it was always
quite tense,
it was... He was authoritative.
In hindsight, now that
I've sailed for eight years,
the worst mistake was
to not speak up,
to not say, "Captain,
maybe we're going too fast."
"Captain, we should
start to pull over now."
Because the speed was very high.
I knew the facts of what happened,
so the public prosecutor's office
asked me to cooperate
with the investigation.
So we went to Grosseto
every day for three months,
and we talked to
the main witnesses,
the company, everybody.
Under article 295 of our
navigation code, the Captain
bears final responsibility for
supervising the course of the ship,
but if the Captain is not there,
or somehow seems not to be fit,
not up to the task,
others have to take
the Captain's place.
It had happened recently -
December 17th, 2011.
When the ship was leaving Marseille,
although the wind was 60, 65 knots,
the decision to sail out to sea
was disputed by Ciro Ambrosio.
The ship's Captain
was very upset by this,
because everything in the bridge
is recorded.
So because of this situation
Ambrosio ended up being blamed.
The Captain is in command.
He's in charge and in command.
These officers,
mostly very young people,
didn't have the nerve,
they didn't have the experience
to cooperate with superiors,
even with critical thinking.
They didn't.
Because it wasn't allowed.
325.
315.
- 325.
- 325.
325.
I felt at ease.
There were competent officers around,
and an experienced Captain.
So I couldn't imagine
what was about to happen.
350.
- 340.
- 350.
350, otherwise we go on the rocks!
Then you see the person
that should be confident
starting to seem concerned,
raising their voice, all those signs
that make you go, "Wait a minute,
things are not going as they should."
Starboard 10!
Starboard 10.
Starboard 20!
- Starboard 20.
- Hard starboard!
Hard starboard.
We're obstructed on the left.
The stern is obstructed on the left!
That means that the stern
doesn't have a clear way to steer.
Whichever way it goes,
it will hit something.
- Port 10!
- Port 10.
Port, not Starboard!
The Captain immediately gave
the order to "counter", as we say,
so you turn the wheel the opposite
way from where the ship is going
in an attempt to drive the stern
further from the obstacle.
The speed was so high and the ship
had built up so much momentum
that the ship pulled over,
but not enough.
Port 20!
Hard to port!
Captain, we have to disengage here!
We have to close on the left
with the stern, Captain.
Did we hit a rock?
- Shut the watertight doors astern.
- Shut the watertight doors astern!
My god, what have I done...
It was about 9:30,
and we were in the bar.
And suddenly there was a jolt,
and everything on the table
started to slide off.
Yeah, it became totally unreal.
It was like driving a car
and suddenly applying the brakes.
Where are we going?
No, it's better you sit down.
I heard "brrm brrm brrm"...
..then a thud, then another.
Then the whole ship spun round.
Plates were falling. He immediately
said, "Let's get out of here."
We were the first to leave.
He knew there was something wrong.
At one point I heard a screech.
It sounded just like...
..a keel stranded in the sand.
I thought the ship had
got too close to Giglio
and that it must have
touched the seabed.
I would have never imagined
that there was
such a huge gash on the keel.
Mum, let's go!
There was a jolt.
So, we were in bed watching TV,
and there was a jolt.
We looked at each other, and thought,
are we already at the destination?
That can't be true -
it's too early.
We shouldn't be there
till the next morning.
And immediately the curtain became
crooked, so you could clearly see
that the ship was unbalanced
from the start.
My name is Sandra Birnstiel,
and in 2012, I was a passenger
on the Costa Concordia.
My name is Bianca Ziggert
and in 2012, I was on the
Concordia for the second time.
Then we waited, and we thought,
what we were told in the video,
that you should dress up warmly,
but that you should stay calm.
We were walking along the green pier
and looking up towards the horizon.
We saw this huge ship,
strangely close,
way too close to the island.
My name is Giorgio Fanciulli.
On the night of January 13th, 2012,
I was the first, with my friends,
to see the Costa Concordia
approaching the island
a few seconds after its collision
with the Scole rocks.
It's probably the sail-past again.
It should be further away.
Normally you would see lights
and flashes from the cameras.
That night there was none of that.
Then suddenly all the lights went off
and we lost sight of the ship
in the overall darkness.
It looked like a ghost ship.
Please remain calm,
and we'll keep you informed
as we have more news to inform you.
Thank you for your attention.
Blackout.
As we went up the stairs,
the lights went out,
and it was pitch black
for 20-30 seconds.
That's also when
you heard the first screams.
Of course, some people fell over too.
Then the emergency generators
turned the lights back on.
We were reassured.
And then, on Deck 8,
we looked down from our balcony...
And there were bubbles.
Air bubbles came up like crazy.
We couldn't explain it to ourselves.
We didn't worry -
the ship can't sink.
Everything was beeping.
Anything in the bridge
that could beep
in that situation was beeping.
I realised that we had hit something,
that there had been
a collision with something.
I didn't realise it was so serious.
At that time,
I think even my colleagues
didn't realise what the severity
of the damage would be.
What did we hit?
A rock, it was just above the water.
Get the blackout sorted.
What matters is that
we don't take in any water.
- Port 10!
- Port 10.
Port, not starboard!
The helmsman, Rusli Bin,
followed orders
given to him
in an emergency situation
incorrectly,
doing the complete opposite.
When Schettino told him,
"Turn left ten degrees,"
he turned right ten degrees.
According to Schettino, if he had
followed his orders correctly,
the ship would not have
ended up on the rocks.
When, actually,
during the pretrial hearing
it was proved that, at that speed,
the ship would have
hit the rock anyway, so...
Schettino didn't have
the proper resources
to get any consultants
who could have
attempted to fight back
the powerful army of experts
and consultants for the prosecution.
He was lucky Professor Neri
was there,
a renowned expert, someone...
..above any kind of bias, I must say.
His contribution was
clarifying facts.
We can see here what really happened,
the actual course of events.
We see here what would have happened
if, 12 seconds before
collision with the rock,
the helmsman had turned left
like Schettino ordered.
You see?
The rock glances,
and then the ship moves away.
Surely, even if it had touched,
the collision would have been
towards the stern,
and it would have involved fewer
compartments instead of all five.
Hand-steering.
Rusli Bin, before being a helmsman,
worked in maintenance,
a steward, even.
Schettino had even sent an email
to point out the issues caused by
the incompetence of
most of the members of staff.
But he was told that's what they had
and what he had to work with.
Even if the helmsman
had followed the order
and the ship had not
touched the rock,
even then, Schettino...
shouldn't have done that procedure.
It would have been interesting
to question the helmsman.
This was not possible because
the helmsman was allowed to...
..disappear,
to go back to his country.
We've never
been able to find him again.
Start the generator.
Say again?
The emergency diesel!
Start the emergency generator!
- Chief.
- Yes?
Have we taken in any water?
Yes, a lot. We can't go down.
- Where?
- In the engine room.
- Is it a lot of water?
- There's water. There's no way down.
We'll go down the other way.
Give me a moment, I'll start
the engines, I'll let you know.
Captain? Shall we
inform the passengers?
Yes. Tell them
there's been a blackout.
Tell me what's going on.
Where are you, what is it?
I'm in the engine room,
I'm having a look.
Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention please.
Due to technical problems,
we currently have a blackout.
I repeat, due to technical problems,
we currently have a blackout.
There is no reason to panic.
Please stay calm.
Our technicians are working on
a solution to the problem now.
I repeat,
we currently have a blackout.
But our technicians are already
working on a solution. Thank you!
Suddenly there was
a hullabaloo in the corridor.
We went out and wanted to
ask the boy some questions,
but he didn't really know anything.
It was really chaotic.
Then we said we'll pack a few things
together, and then we'll go out.
The first announcement was,
"Don't worry."
But first in
umpteen different languages.
That made us a little crazy,
until it got to German,
and it said that
the black box had failed.
Now we knew just as much as before,
because we didn't know
what that means on a ship like this.
As we walked back,
we noticed that the ship
was awkwardly tilted.
And there were two lights
on the main bridge,
two red lights turned on,
which means
the boat is out of control,
the vessel has no propulsion
and the rudder doesn't work.
Do you speak Spanish?
- Yes.
- Why are you wearing a life vest
- when everything's OK?
- Just in case.
- So everything's OK?
- Everything's fine.
- Then why?
- Just in case.
Crazy.
When the first alarm went off,
I went to the infirmary,
and we were there in this
small room, with the door open,
and we see the EKG cart
rolling past us.
My nurse,
who was a bit sharper than me,
said "The ship is tilting. We need
to start assessing the situation."
Then the announcement
said that the water was rising.
Luckily they had started to evacuate
floors B and C, where the crew lives.
Chief, can we turn on
at least one engine?
We haven't made it
downstairs yet, Captain!
We cannot access the engine room
from the starboard side.
There's water up to
the main switchboard.
Then we are sinking.
I'm not sure I understand.
Eh, yeah.
There's water up to the switchboard.
Excuse me, Captain.
We cannot start the engine.
The emergency generator is flooded.
I only want to know one thing.
Can the ship start or not?
If not, I have to drop the anchors.
We cannot start the engine.
The generator is flooded.
A few minutes after the collision,
he knew that the ship was lost.
It was a sinking ship.
You're standing on a sinking ship
about to go down
and you don't make sure
to put lifeboats at sea
and evacuate the ship,
evacuate all passengers?
Roberto, I screwed up.
I was passing by Giglio Island, here.
Captain Palombo told me,
"Come by, come by."
So I went and I struck
shallow water with the stern.
I'm dead. Don't say anything.
I'm dying.
Roberto Ferrarini
was the FCC in the company,
which stands for
Fleet Crisis Coordinator.
His job description would only cover
what's called first degree,
which mainly deals with
the financial side of things.
Good morning, Ferrarini.
So anything related to strikes,
staff issues, small malfunctions,
but nothing that entailed
any potential harm to passengers
or to the environment.
I did this to please this guy.
I sailed by,
and there was this little rock,
and now we're in the middle of
a blackout after hitting the stern.
The procedure states that command
must alert both the authorities
and the ship owner.
If the owner hears about it, then
it's up to the owner to let us know.
But we received no call
from Costa Cruises.
They probably thought the situation
was not serious enough
that they had to inform authorities.
I'm at the entrance.
Just a moment. Give me a breakdown of
all the flooded sealed compartments.
On board they knew well
that the ship was lost.
Because Iaccarino, an officer, was
sent downstairs to assess the damage,
and he said at least three adjacent
compartments were flooded.
We're tilting left. Water is up to
a metre, 1.5 metres from Deck 0.
Safety policy in these ships
makes sure the ship stays afloat,
so it's still considered "safe" with
two flooded adjacent compartments.
But with three compartments, the ship
must be abandoned. It's a dead ship.
I can confirm water is not rising,
the watertight doors are holding.
We're at one and a half to two metres
from Deck 0 on the left side.
So, Rob, listen to me...
We're not sinking, we're not sinking.
I'll drop the anchor in a moment.
We'll stay here, then we need
to get a tugboat to tow us away.
Up to a certain point, Schettino
was hoping to save the ship with
all its passengers and the crew.
He hadn't realised the severity of
the gash that had damaged the ship.
When he spoke to Ferrarini and said,
"Send us tugboats and helicopters,"
he was sure that the ship
could reach port.
There are rules at sea.
When there's an accident this bad,
everybody has a precise task.
Nobody did what had to be done.
Schettino, first and foremost,
did nothing.
He phoned Ferrarini to try
and find a way out of it somehow.
That was the truly unforgivable
thing about Schettino.
Where the fuck is the Captain?
Carabinieri.
Hello, yes, Carabinieri?
- Yes.
- Sorry, I'm home with some friends.
My friend's mum called us
to ask for help, because they are
on a Costa Cruise ship
and the ship hit something...
..they are all wearing life jackets.
- Who are we meant to call?
- Who should we...
- I didn't catch that, what happened?
- Oh, dear...
Sometime around
22:00, 22:06, I think,
we received a phone call from
a carabiniere in the town of Prato,
who informed the operating room
of the Livorno Captain
that a lady had heard
from her mother,
who was on board a cruise ship,
that there was
a blackout on the ship,
that objects were falling from
tables as they had dinner,
and that they had been asked
to wear life vests.
The staff in the operating room found
this ship to be stationary
at Giglio Island.
This ship was heading to Savona,
but the bow was pointing south.
And that was odd because, on the
one hand we knew that it was drifting
under the influence of
winds and currents.
On the other hand it was telling us
it was very close to the island,
therefore in
quite a perilous situation.
Costa Concordia? Costa Concordia?
This is the coast guard
from Circomare Porto Santo Stefano.
Do you copy on channel 16?
This is Costa Concordia, over.
Good evening, Costa Concordia,
can I ask if you have
any problems on board?
Tell them there's a blackout.
We are experiencing a blackout.
We are assessing it.
Do you need any assistance or
are you just staying put for now
- at Giglio Island?
- Roberto?
Affirmative, we're staying here
to assess the blackout.
What kind of an issue? Is it...
..the generator? The police
in Prato received a phone call
from a relative of someone
on board who said
everything was falling
in the dining room.
Negative, there is a blackout.
We are assessing the situation.
How long has
the blackout been going on?
20 minutes, more or less.
OK. Keep us in the loop.
We clearly heard
the first call from the coast guard
in Livorno to command.
From land we could hear screaming
from people wearing life jackets.
We heard the PA announcements
telling everybody to keep calm.
All of that didn't match
with a simple blackout.
I personally contacted the emergency
number of the Captain
to explain to them that
what they were telling
them from on board
was not accurate
as to what was happening.
The ship took that turn
purely by God's will.
The ship would have
completely tipped over
had the wind not taken it
towards the rocks.
4,200 people would have died.
The kind of panic on that ship...
People were terrified.
It was pretty much
"Every man for himself."
That night we were very, very lucky
that it so happened that
the Costa Concordia
was driven towards
the island of Giglio,
and then came to rest there.
Otherwise it would have been
a much, much bigger catastrophe.
We realised the danger,
and he said, "Let's go upstairs,
because I saw life jackets there."
So we walked up the stairs
for eight floors,
but we were so anxious
we forgot the cabin number.
And, after quite a while,
we found them.
- There was no info.
- No.
We packed a few things, and,
of course, put our life jackets on...
And then we went out.
Walking through the restaurant,
everything rattled and clattered.
I heard this rattling of dishes
for a long time afterwards.
There were shards everywhere.
You couldn't really walk right,
because there was broken stuff
everywhere. That was crazy.
Let's evacuate the crew
and passengers, too.
Why is Ferrarini not answering me?
Then we went down again...
Then more and more
people in life vests came,
and they just sat there, sometimes
howling, sometimes screaming.
A lot of people were already
standing at the muster station.
But, to us, there was no ranking,
and then we said,
"Perhaps we should get a life vest."
There were also a lot of children
on the ship, small Italian children,
with their mums. And eventually
we asked, where do we go?
First they said go to the front.
Then they said go to the back.
There were no more announcements
about what we should do,
so we thought, OK,
we must get outside to start with,
to see where are we, anyway?
Try to turn on the engines.
Is there no way we can
counter this drifting?
I'd been on a lot of ships
when I was in the Navy.
So we immediately went
upstairs to the fourth floor,
where they had lifeboats.
I started to prepare a lifeboat.
I was on my own -
nobody else was outside.
There were so few crew members.
I only saw one who came
with me in the lifeboat
to give me a hand.
It was a mess.
People screaming,
stealing your life jacket off you,
because there were
not enough jackets.
So they would say,
"Go get them in your cabin.
Keep calm."
People screaming, children crying,
water on the floor, people slipping.
Keep calm, for god's sake.
We were all arguing because
we could see how serious it was,
how the ship was tilting.
My name is Sabatelli Nada
and on the night of
January 13th, 2012,
I was on board Costa Concordia.
My name is Grattagliano Valentina
and I still have my card
to get in the cabin.
My name is Giuseppe Miccoli.
I am one of the ones
who brought lifeboats to shore.
The ship is
slightly tilted to the left.
I have no clue...
(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
We went to the side that was rising,
and at that point
I phoned the carabinieri,
and they said I should
phone the coast guard,
and I said, "Wait... I'm asking
for your help, can you call them?"
He gave me their number,
and I called the coast guard.
They said,
"They told us it's a blackout."
So I told them, "Look,
I've worked on military ships,
where 'blackout'
means there's no power,
not that the ship is tilted
seven to eight degrees."
They go, "All right, just to be safe
we've already sent over three boats."
The deputy chief from Livorno
was suspicious. He said, "Chief,
they're not telling the truth."
I called the bridge again.
Only then does Costa Concordia
say that it's not just a blackout,
but they are taking water in.
So it's not just a blackout,
you also have a leak?
Yes, we do. Yes, we have a leak.
Do you want a tugboat or
some other type of assistance?
Is there anybody injured?
We request one tugboat.
All passengers are already
wearing life jackets.
My first reaction was a bit of fear.
Americans say we spend all our lives
preparing to deal with mass rescue
operations, but also
praying we never need to.
Because in these situations
there's always a price to pay.
The price is human lives.
The Guardia di Finanza motorboat
was not far from the location
so we redirected it to the scene.
Captain, we're just
about to approach you.
As soon as they arrive
and take a look at Concordia,
they say the ship is starboard down,
so the stern is on the seabed
or a rock.
They also told us they had
their starboard anchor down,
which meant that the ship was
in a position to lower lifeboats.
Why are they not
lowering lifeboats?
Affirmative. Water is rising to
stern elevators and keeps rising.
Water goes up to a metre.
I'll get in through the fire doors.
All right, Rob,
things are getting bad.
Not yet, not yet.
It's about 22:30. He still
hasn't given the distress signal,
nor the general alarm on board.
So obviously he hasn't
ordered abandon ship.
The crew stood in front of
the entrance to the lifeboats
and didn't let people in them.
Quite the opposite.
Then there was an announcement
by an employee,
"You should go to your cabins,
and don't panic."
On behalf of our Captain,
we kindly ask you
to go back to your cabin
or, if you wish,
you can go to the main hall.
Everything is under control.
OK?
Captain, passengers
are going to the boats.
Should we sound the general alarm?
Wait.
Many of them said, "Sound the
general alarm, sound the alarm."
And he was like, "Wait, wait."
To the last minute he tried to find
a way that HE could get out of it.
Knowing well that the ship was lost.
- We have to abandon the ship!
- Get out of there, go!
Order to abandon the ship!
All right, but give me
a second to call Ferrarini.
Roberto, everything is failing.
I'm at 0.2 from the island.
Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention please.
We ask you to stay calm,
and gather
at the meeting point
at the muster station on Deck 4
wearing your life jacket.
Follow the staff's instructions.
Please gather at the muster station,
the meeting point on Deck 4.
I just spoke to the steward
who's doing the announcements.
They are keeping everybody calm.
We are right in front of the island.
No pictures, no pictures.
And when we got to Deck 4,
it was rammed full,
and inhuman scenes
were already being played out.
People were running wild,
screaming, pushing.
You know, it wasn't
"women and children first".
They were acting like that.
I don't want to demonise anyone,
because this was
an exceptional situation,
but it was shocking to see -
there it was every man for himself.
And the conditions on Deck 4
were already very bad.
Costa Concordia, I am asking
if you are in distress.
- Are you in distress?
- What shall I say, Captain?
We are signalling distress
at the moment.
Tell them.
We are now
giving the distress signal.
Finally they give
the distress signal at my request.
If we'd waited longer, the rescue
teams would have been even later.
He sailed his ship
at 17 knots against the rocks.
It's no laughing matter,
there's no excuse, but
the ship is still afloat.
4,000 people on that ship.
30, 40, 50 sea units
outside are not enough.
These people need
to get off the ship,
and their fate is
in the hands of command.
If command on board does not
cooperate with outside rescuers
it's not going to work.
At first, one can imagine
getting lost in the moment, but
after more than an hour,
and the ship...
And you know
the ship is about to sink,
at what point do you
lower the lifeboats
and save all the passengers?
He didn't do any of that.
When clearer information
was delivered,
Schettino gave
the general alarm immediately.
He tried to get as close
as he could first.
Because, if he had given the order
when the ship was
still at a certain speed,
the lifeboats would probably
have tipped over.
Hundreds of people
would have died.
The right thing to do would have been
to conduct professional inquiries
through proper simulation processes.
My name is Mario Pellegrini.
On January 13th, 2012,
I was deputy mayor of Giglio Island.
I was just back from a trip to the
US, coincidentally on a cruise ship.
I was just about to
go to sleep, because
I was too jetlagged
the night before to go to sleep.
I received a phone call from the
Chief of the Giglio Island police,
and he said there was a ship in
distress just outside Giglio docks.
So I got my car
and drove to Giglio docks.
Once I entered the road that
leads to the east side of the island,
I couldn't believe my eyes.
This huge ship
aground on our rocks,
full of lights.
I kept driving because
I knew the way there by heart.
Or maybe my car
knew the road better than I did.
But I couldn't
keep my eyes off the ship.
Adrenaline started to pump,
and suddenly I wasn't sleepy anymore.
I reached the main square and
I left my car right in the middle.
I met with the mayor, who had got
there a few minutes before me.
So together
we started to take action.
We phoned anybody who could help,
we opened up schools,
we started
all the emergency procedures
we could manage
from the island.
We still didn't understand
what had happened.
Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention please.
Please proceed to your meeting point
at the muster station on Deck 4
and follow the instructions
of the staff, and stay calm.
When we heard the signals to abandon
ship, my partner, who is an expert,
said, "I've had enough."
He walked up to the guy
who was keeping everybody behind
a barrier, keeping everybody out,
shook him and said, "Get out of
the way, we're coming through.
We can't stay here anymore."
It had become a huge mess
all over the deck.
Seeing all those people running
around like headless chickens,
not knowing which one was
supposed to be their lifeboat,
jumping on
the first one they could find,
struggling, some slipping
on the deck, which was slanted.
So that was tragic in itself.
And I tried to say that we were
200 metres away from Giglio.
I was sure
we were in the open sea -
we hadn't seen the island at all.
We hadn't had the chance
to look in that direction.
We always saw the open sea.
Why didn't anyone think of
calming the passengers down?
So, if we lower the lifeboats,
can I say over the radio that
we're about to abandon the ship?
Wait. We are evacuating passengers.
Tell them,
"We are evacuating passengers."
We are evacuating passengers
ourselves and getting them to land.
He could not accept that he,
the Captain of the ship,
had to tell his passengers
to abandon the ship.
It was a dishonour to him.
He is very full of himself.
He would have never done that.
When I came back from trying to get
information that nobody gave me,
I found her right beside
the lifeboat. They were all ready.
She was just standing there.
I said, "What are you doing?"
"I'm waiting."
"What are you waiting for, get in!"
We got in and there was only
one seat left on the lifeboat.
The lifeboat steward
started to push it.
Since the boat was tilted like this,
and the lifeboats were here,
they got stuck on the deck below.
We swung it back and forth
and it rocked for a bit,
and then we started to descend.
I'm so scared.
Oh, my god. At that point I said,
"We're all going to die."
Plummeting from the third floor,
with 100 people on the lifeboat
it's like landing on cement -
everybody dies.
Thinking I was about to die,
I prayed.
Then in hindsight you feel
a bit embarrassed,
- thinking "Your last thought was..."
- Who cares? Nobody knew you.
"..only dedicated to God?"
To be honest, yes.
The Guardia di Finanza
was shining a beam light
to show us the gash on the ship
that was sucking everything inside.
My god...
I had never seen anything like it.
It was slashed,
like a razor blade had
sliced it open.
It was always, we must go to the
front, like other people had said.
There were still boats there.
And then it was, no, don't go there,
there are no more boats there.
I didn't even think of being scared.
We simply functioned.
I kept thinking, this isn't real,
what's happening here.
Help me!
The basic staff tried hard
to make the lifeboats seaworthy.
First they got the anchor out.
Anyway, it was the cook,
the waiter, the cabin staff...
Everyone possible was there, but no
officers - well, I didn't see any.
From our point of view,
they let us all down.
My career as a Captain is over.
We hit shallow waters with the ship.
We're following
the correct procedures.
I'm saving all the passengers,
it's fine.
Don't worry.
Everything is under control.
As apprentice deck officer,
my job in case of emergency was to
lead a "Tango-India" team
to rescue the injured.
So immediately after impact I left
the deck to look for the injured.
I was able to act on instinct
thanks to adrenaline.
Adrenaline kept me going
until I got to land.
Roberto, we are evacuating
passengers to land.
I managed to drift where I wanted to.
I dropped two anchors
right next to the docks.
The stern is in shallow water.
The ship is not going anywhere.
It can't go anywhere.
What do I tell the press?
This is the Livorno Captain.
Captain, we have a favour to ask.
Can you tell us how many passengers
are still waiting to be evacuated?
I think we pretty much
evacuated all of them.
More or less, give us.
The naval units need to know.
They need to organise
the dispatch of...
- So they can transport...
- Two or three hundred...
Two or three hundred between
staff and passengers.
Approximately 4,000
have been evacuated.
Is everybody leaving the ship
or is someone staying?
I'm staying because
we're close to the coast.
I think we are up against
the seabed at this point.
Because the water...
The keeling should stop by now,
thanks to the water, no?
- I mean, it shouldn't get any wor-
- So, is it just you staying...
- ..or is anyone else staying?
- I think it will be just me.
Only you, that's fine, Captain.
Take the documents,
come with me to Deck 4.
Are we abandoning the deck?
I didn't say to abandon deck.
Come with me.
As Captain, Schettino
should have stayed on the bridge.
He wasn't
supposed to wander around.
His job was to stay on the bridge
and handle all procedures from there
until the end, and he had to be
the last one to leave.
We saw the lifeboats
coming off this big ship.
When the first one reached port,
the mayor and I started
to help passengers get off.
We were asking for information,
but nobody was telling us anything.
I told him, "Boss, maybe
I should get on board."
He nodded and said, "Yes."
On my way there I was
looking at this ship, amazed.
The closer we got, the bigger it
was, the more it looked scary,
because you saw it
towering over you
as if it was
about to fall on top of you.
We stopped by the bow of the ship,
where there was a pilot ladder.
It was quite difficult to climb it.
Once on board, I went around
looking for an officer.
I tried to reach the bridge. I
walked around for about 20 minutes.
I didn't meet anybody.
When I got back down
to the right side
there were people,
including elderly people,
who needed help
to board the lifeboats
that were under the deck.
All these people came from
the other side of the ship.
So I told myself
I had to get to the other side
to take others to the right side.
At one point they stopped
lifeboats from descending
because otherwise they would have
been against the sloping keel.
So everybody needed
to get to the other side.
Because over there
they would be closer to water.
Whoa!
When all the lifeboats were gone,
the life buoys were thrown in,
that you have to inflate yourself.
And then there's a sort of mini hole
where you first get into the water,
and then you have to crawl.
And then I looked at Sandra and said,
please don't do this to me.
I could never do that.
Let's wait until we can
walk into the water, not jump,
because we don't know
what's underneath it.
And so we simply
waited for a long time.
I basically pictured us in the water,
I have to say, honestly,
and then a lifeboat came back.
And it veered
really close to the ship,
and then we could get in there
with dry feet.
Careful, careful, careful...
Guys, guys, please.
Maybe it was almost midnight
or just past midnight...
This boat shows up and suddenly
the inclination changed
quite rapidly.
So at that point we jumped,
we jumped on the boat.
I jumped, Salvatore jumped,
and Captain Schettino jumped, too.
We got on top of the boat,
on its roof,
and I noticed the Captain was there.
Deck 3 was underwater
immediately after, so...
..there was no way we could
go back on board from that side.
Anybody who had stayed
on that deck at that moment
would have ended up in the water.
And in the water,
with all the undertow
and the whirlpools
that could occur,
one was as likely to survive
as to not survive.
At that point, survival instinct
told me to jump on the lifeboat.
I can say I was very lucky,
because as soon as
I stepped on Deck 4
on the left side,
the boat started to topple.
And it tilted for a third time.
And it was tragic,
because this third tilt
meant that the deck
was underwater on one side.
The sound of the water was awful.
It came with such strength...
..it was unbelievable.
Fear had a grip on us all.
We were nearly at the other side,
and then the ship
did a massive jolt again.
And then the water came towards us -
there came a gigantic flood -
and panic broke out.
"Back, back, back!"
We had two old ladies by the hand.
We pushed and pulled them, and...
..It didn't work. I kept
slipping, Marcel kept slipping.
In the end we got stuck
by the lifts.
And in that moment,
when the water was waist high,
the lift doors opened.
Really burst open, really tore apart.
There was a short, violent scream
from one of the two ladies,
and then they were gone.
The women
had no chance at all.
Everyone near us who had not held on
was then washed away.
I didn't think
any but us had survived.
I was standing with this one woman
who held me tight and said,
"I don't want to die."
And I said, "You won't die -
you have a life vest on,
your head is above the water.
You don't need to be scared."
Yes, but in the lift,
or in the lift shaft...
That didn't work.
We no longer knew
what was going to happen.
The other side was now unreachable,
because it was too far away.
From our side the water was
getting higher and higher...
And then, logically,
panic rose up in us.
We were in
the type of hopeless situation
that you know
you're not getting out of.
At one point the ship stopped moving,
and by an incredible stroke of luck,
the full moon started to shine on us.
There must have been about
100 people on this bridge.
There was an unbelievable crowd.
I could see families,
people had children.
Everybody wanted to get on.
I said,
"You're behaving like animals.
Women and children
should go first.
Don't act like beasts."
And I hear a voice behind me
that, on the other hand, was calming.
"Don't treat them like that,
they're just scared, you see."
I turn and I see this man,
approximately 60 years of age,
a little overweight,
with a beard,
big eyes and big smile.
It was a moment of panic,
when panic strikes, there's no reaso-
They teach you this as well.
It was the same for the Captain,
he lost control. You never know
how someone might react
when panic strikes, even if you are
the trained Captain of a ship.
Even he fell into the trap of panic.
My name is Roberto Galli.
In 2012, I was chief
of local police in Giglio Island.
I am the first to have
found Francesco Schettino
on the night of the shipwreck.
We managed to reach the rocks
in front of the Concordia ship.
The people there had all jumped into
the sea. Some were injured.
There was even a disabled person.
They all gathered together
to warm up a bit,
because, even if it was a lovely
night, it was still January 13th.
I found five or six people
on that path.
One of them introduced himself
as one of the ship's officers,
and further away Captain
Schettino was on the phone.
So I approached Captain Schettino,
I introduced myself and
I said, "Look, Captain,
I can take you to the docks,
and from there I can
take you back to the ship."
He didn't look wet to me.
So he hadn't fallen into the sea.
The other officers,
on the other hand, were all wet.
The Captain said,
"No, look, I need to stay here
because I need to co-ordinate
the evacuation from the ship."
I was confused, and said, "You can't
co-ordinate anything from here."
A couple of officers said,
"Captain, why don't you
go to the docks and return..."
But he was determined to stay
and I couldn't make him
change his mind.
Hello?
This is De Falco from the Livorno.
Is this the Captain?
Yes, good evening, Captain De Falco.
Listen to me, Schettino.
There are people trapped on board.
You will take your boat under
the bow on the starboard side.
I think that, at the time,
Captain Schettino hadn't realised
what had actually happened.
He still hadn't processed
the massive damage,
the massive tragedy
that was occurring.
I am here to co-ordinate the rescue.
What are you co-ordinating, there?
The fact that he was saying,
"I need to co-ordinate
the rescue operations here,"
when in that area, from there,
nothing could be done,
shows his state of mind.
In fact, that was when
the famous phone call
took place, with Captain De Falco.
Fucking get on board!
- Captain, please.
- No, now you will get on board.
- Get on board.
- Fine, Captain.
- I'm going.
- Go now.
Schettino said, "Look, I was
keeping in touch from the rocks,
with port authorities
and the bodies responsible.
And I was co-ordinating
all the rescue procedures,
suggesting what side they should
approach the ship from,
where the survivors
were located, and so on."
And then he mentioned, actually,
that he had seen a boat
with a lantern, a light,
and he had signalled, asking if
they could take him back to the ship.
My name is Massimo BancalĂ .
On January 12th 2012, I was
on board the motorship Aegilium.
We recovered 80 survivors
from the lifeboats.
I was later sent on the rescue boat
to see if there were any
survivors in the water
or to assist people struggling on
the right side of the Concordia ship.
Once we got there,
under the starboard side
we noticed two people
trying to get our attention
with lights. We approached them,
and one of them
was Captain Schettino.
He got on board the boat,
and, as they got closer to the ship,
unfortunately the boat
started to take on water.
So they ordered the sailors
to get back to the docks
and not to accompany Schettino.
It was bumpy.
Boats were going back and forth,
creating more waves
and we took on water twice,
so we risked sinking.
I think he would never have
been able to go back up,
because the ladder
on the left side
was full of passengers
in the process of getting off.
So it would have been tough
to climb back up.
The Captain was very quiet.
He was quite upset because
he knew what was going on.
I think he was frustrated because
he couldn't get back on the ship.
Schettino didn't run away.
He was not "Captain Coward"
who abandoned ship.
He was the last one
to get off the ship,
and he had to get off. Had he not,
he would definitely have died.
He also tried to get back on
the ship, but he was not able to.
It was not possible.
Everybody says that, as prosecutors,
we were very mean to him.
When actually
we investigated everything
there was to find out,
very thoroughly.
There was no way anybody
but Schettino was to blame
for what happened.
We were the only
hospitality facility open that night.
We already had two guests
who had gone to sleep.
My name is Paolo Fanciulli.
I own the Hotel Bahamas.
That night we welcomed
hundreds of survivors,
and the last of them
was Captain Schettino.
When I saw the ship sinking, I ran to
the hotel and turned the heating on,
turning on all the lights,
getting all rooms prepped.
Then I saw a huge crowd coming,
all in orange, because they were
still wearing their life jackets
and nobody wanted to take them off.
It wasn't very cold,
but we were all dressed lightly
because we came from the ship
where it was warm.
This is no joke.
People everywhere, people everywhere.
A church full of people
with life jackets on...
The church was full. Children in
bathing suits, people without shoes.
After all, nobody carried
anything on them. Nothing.
They started to enter the rooms,
at least 30 to 40 at a time,
packed like sardines.
I had no more space to offer them,
but they kept coming.
A hotel, a pharmacy...
People from Giglio Island
were just...
Some gave out jackets, dresses.
They were wonderful.
We gave them everything we had.
We gave them drinks.
Anything we had, we were out of
in only a few minutes.
We tried to give them blankets
but we didn't have enough.
They ripped off curtains
to cover themselves.
They took whatever kind of cover
and they took it with them.
There weren't that many blankets.
Only a few. By the time we
got there they were gone already.
In the end, you felt lucky,
because you heard
that there were people
who still had to get off,
some were saying
that others had died.
In the end, you stop thinking
about yourself, right?
He was on one side, I was
on the other side. Then we could
look again, and then we said,
"From now on, every man for himself."
This powerlessness that we felt,
this fear of death that rose up,
overwhelmed us,
naturally, made us say,
"We won't pay attention
to the others now,
because right now
we're not getting out."
Every man for himself.
And that is... totally brutal.
In the end the water poured in.
At first the water was knee-high,
then waist-high,
and it got ever higher.
And there was perhaps
10-20cm air above me,
and I tried to
stay in this air pocket.
And then I thought to myself,
"Hold your breath,
and see where it takes you."
At some point
I got hold of the handrail,
and then, like on a pull up bar,
metre by metre...
..I moved myself to the aisle.
And you're totally broken
after 3-4 metres.
It was an infinitely long time,
till at some point
I was heading in
the direction of the deck.
Then I dived and
was flushed into the restaurant.
Then I could grab hold somewhere.
Then I climbed up,
so at least I was in the dry.
Then I held on tight
to the structure, and then,
step by step, climbed up.
And then I was
lying on the outer hull.
And I have to totally honestly say,
with every sound I heard,
with every movement the ship made,
I always somehow felt fear
that the Costa was completely
sinking. So being saved,
rescued or whatever,
wasn't in the picture.
I called, again and again, "Help!"
At some point I heard a voice. "Hey,
mister, come here. Here is an exit."
And then I saw two people,
and I swam in that direction.
With the last of my strength,
I tried to get out of the water,
then we crawled along a shaft.
Yeah, and then we could look,
look upwards,
and we saw the sky.
But you couldn't climb higher there,
because it was stainless steel.
And then suddenly
someone looked through the hole.
We saw people screaming for help
from the depths.
I could hear water coming.
I immediately looked for a rope,
and slowly but surely we pulled
nine people from that tunnel.
It was incredibly tiring.
I helped the last young man out.
He said he had seen the bodies of a
child and an adult in the restaurant.
And then we all
started to talk about the tragedy,
saying, "Who knows
how many of them there were?"
In the end, I was crawling along
the outer hull
and then I saw that
there was a stepladder there.
And then we climbed down
the stepladder one at a time
and onto this small boat.
I saw the coastguard,
that there were lights over there,
there was an island over there.
And I couldn't believe my eyes,
because nobody
had told us about that.
We helped hundreds of people
off the ship,
down the ladder,
while the coast guard
recovered people from the sea.
Getting all those people
to climb down
that night was very hard.
Firstly, because it was slippery,
because it was wet.
Secondly, because only one at a time
could climb down, slowly,
because if someone slipped,
it would have been
40 to 50 metres of free fall.
So, helping people down,
keeping them calm,
Um...
After the scare they got,
it wasn't easy.
I got to the island at about 16:30.
The first thing I saw was
a huge sea of life vests.
All the life vests were in a heap.
And naturally my biggest concern
was, did Matthew make it?
There was an unspoken fear
visible in every face,
that something had happened,
that someone hadn't made it.
Naturally, I also felt that,
and so I kept looking.
Can I see him anywhere?
Then I saw him
standing on the footbridge.
I was so happy.
I was weak at the knees.
I really broke down,
and then waited, sitting down,
until we docked.
Then I got down from
the coastguard's boat.
I don't think I've ever
wept so much in my life.
Yes, it affected me a lot.
Then, afterwards, when you think
about everything that happened,
and the worse things
that could have happened...
Yes... In any case,
I was very happy that both of us
got off so lightly -
that we were so lucky.
Others weren't as lucky.
Between 8:00 and 9:00,
everybody left.
After they all left,
Captain Schettino arrived
and asked me if I could get a coffee
with plenty of sugar for him.
I could tell he was very upset.
His face looked very tired,
very disheartened.
I was surprised, though, because
you could see the ship from
a window, here on our terrace,
and he said,
"That rock had no markers."
It almost seemed like he was
trying to absolve himself.
It gave me a bad feeling,
because I realised he was
someone on the brink of
a nervous breakdown.
But at the same time he had
that swaggering vibe about him,
telling me that
the rock was unmarked.
As if the rock was to blame.
At a first glance Schettino
struck me as someone
very arrogant, very...
Quite full of himself, I must say.
Sometimes I almost
felt sorry for him, but...
I mean,
his culpability was so blatant
that I don't understand how
he thought he could hide behind
other possible scenarios
that he claimed were possible.
Schettino tried any way he could
to get out of this mess.
I believe Francesco Schettino
was a victim of
a ruthless media campaign
that immediately showed
him to the world
as a cowardly
and incompetent Captain
who, after making his ship sink,
abandoned his crew
and passengers
without fulfilling the role that
he was bound to carry out by law.
The judges were good, however.
In my opinion,
they had been influenced by
what has been, from day one,
the image of a scapegoat
painted by the press
all over the world.
..sentence him
to the overall sentence of
16 years of detention,
in addition to
the costs of proceedings.
I remember perfectly that, back then,
we sent 12, 13 people to trial.
All of them, except for Schettino,
settled or opted for
abbreviated proceedings.
Had he gone
for abbreviated proceedings,
he would have
cut a third off his sentence.
I cannot understand why
he would go through a trial.
Maybe he thought, somehow,
in the end, he would be acquitted.
He never admitted to any wrongdoing.
Right up until the end he even
maintained he never abandoned ship.
We turned to the European court,
protesting the influence that,
through every stage of
this situation,
the media had.
We asked the European court
to look into it,
to investigate if, as we fear,
the power of suggestion
caused by this media campaign
was the leitmotif on which
everybody based
their view of Schettino's trial.
It's true that survivors end up
carrying something with them.
You carry it with you.
To this day, we say, "It's been
ten years. What more can we do?"
Because you could have
died that day, right?
I keep going,
I've kept going through the years.
Sailing,
and making use of this legacy,
to improve myself,
to understand people.
The worst experience of my life
helped me to grow.
When I hear helicopter blades,
I often think about it...
And dishes rattling - that's me.
That's definitely stuck with me.
I'm not startled anymore,
but when I hear it,
I connect it with this disaster.
For me, the first year and a half
were really hardcore,
because I also had
a compromised immune system.
So I took everything I could with me,
and was also, psychologically,
really very, very battered.
But now ten years have passed,
and I've put it in perspective.
Especially the two women
who put their trust in us
and didn't make it.
That is an absolutely terrible,
terrible feeling that one has.
We really did do our best. We
were with them for almost two hours
on board, while we went,
step by step, through the ship.
We cheered them up,
entertained them.
I think, too, we
couldn't do anything else,
but, nevertheless,
you have the feeling
that you've failed,
and that you couldn't do it.
Sometimes terrible tragedies happen,
and in this case...
..uh, it was terrible.
But there's always something
spiritual to help you get through.
All these unlucky people,
me included.
Had the wind been different,
the ship could have ended up
a long way from the island
and it would have completely sunk.
Had that happened,
we would have counted survivors,
not victims.
Costa Cruises declined to give
an interview for this documentary.
In a written statement, the company
expressed sympathy with the victims.
One doesn't want to comment on the
Italian legal processes in this case.
After the disaster, the International
Association of Cruise Lines
worked out a series of
security procedures
that go beyond
the international requirements.
The procedures on board
are also said to have been revised.
This includes the right for all
officers to have a say in manoeuvres.
the ship can't sink.
Hard to port!
Oh, my god. At that point...
..I said, "We're all going to die."
People crying,
the ship tilting more and more...
A few minutes after the collision
he knew that the ship was lost.
Affirmative, water keeps rising.
He was sure that the ship
would make it to port.
Tell them there's been a blackout.
I basically saw us in the water.
I looked at Sandra and said,
"Please, Sandra, don't do this."
At that point, survival instincts
told me to jump on the lifeboat.
Look, Schettino. You may have
saved yourself from the sea,
but I will absolutely ruin you.
Fucking get on board.
There was maybe 10, 20cm
of air above me, and I tried
to stay in the air pocket.
We were in the type
of hopeless situation
that you know you're not
getting out of.
32 people died.
32 casualties which should...
..they could and should have
been avoided.
- Hello?
- Yes?
This is De Falco from Livorno.
Am I speaking to the Captain?
Yes, good evening,
Commander De Falco.
Tell me your name, please.
This is Captain Schettino, Commander.
Listen, Schettino.
There are people trapped on board.
You will take your boat under
the bow on the starboard side.
There is a pilot ladder.
You will climb that ladder
and go on board,
and then you will tell me
how many people there are.
Is that clear? I'm recording
this conversation, Captain Schettino.
Commander, at this moment in time...
..the ship is tilted.
I understand that. People are coming
down the pilot ladder on the bow.
You will go up the same ladder.
You will get on that ship
and tell me if there are children,
women or people
in need of assistance.
And you will tell me the exact number
of each of these categories.
Is that clear?
Look, Schettino. You may have
saved yourself from the sea,
but I'll take y-it'll be really bad,
I will seriously ruin you.
Fucking get on board.
My name is Gregorio De Falco.
In 2016 I was chief executive officer
at Livorno Port Authority.
I co-ordinated Costa Concordia's
rescue operations,
keeping in touch with the shipmaster
and the Captain.
During that phone call
I tried everything
to beg that man to resume his role.
- Commander, please-
- No, please, get on board now.
I am here to co-ordinate the rescue.
What are you co-ordinating
from there?
Go on board! Co-ordinate
the rescue from on board.
- Are you refusing?
- No, no, I'm not refusing.
Get on board! This is an order.
I'm in charge now. Get on board!
Is that clear?
- Fine, Commander, I'm going now.
- Go, now!
A Captain must not abandon the ship.
That's why I told him, quite harshly,
to go back on board.
Had he gone back on board,
had he dedicated himself
to saving passengers,
things would have gone differently.
De Falco's order is...
..now famous all over the world,
but it was an impossible order
which only served a purpose
for the media.
It impressed people,
it created this general build up
of hostility towards Schettino.
I think De Falco did
the right thing, back then,
to be as harsh as he was.
There was no other way.
He might have been hard,
but actually,
De Falco was immediately...
..competent, and
I think he was the only one
that night
to have made Italy proud.
Because Schettino didn't make
us look good in front of the world.
Captain, did they
crucify you a bit too soon?
On that January 13th
I partly died too, in a way.
From the first hours
after the shipwreck,
until the last stages of this trial,
my head was offered
as a sacrifice, in a trial that
should have involved a whole company,
and instead sees me here
as the only defendant.
I believe Francesco Schettino was
the victim of
a ruthless media campaign.
Consider that
the first instance of the trial,
coincidentally
and quite symbolically,
was held in a theatre.
My name is Saverio Senese. I am
Francesco Schettino's defence lawyer
in his appeal proceedings.
Therefore I didn't have the chance to
represent him in the investigation
or the first instance of the trial.
My name is Francesco Verusio.
I was public prosecutor
in Grosseto in 2012,
and, together with my colleagues
at the prosecutor's office,
we prepared the case for trial
to establish the responsibilities
regarding the shipwreck.
Interviewing Schettino, at first
he struck me as someone who
didn't realise what had happened.
He didn't realise that
he'd left 4,200 passengers
to fend for themselves.
He only thought of how
he could protect his image
from people and from the company.
The Concordia? A dream.
Well, it was for me. I'd been
on a couple of cruises before,
but this was the most beautiful
cruise ship I'd ever been on.
You see the Costa Concordia
lying there, a gigantic ship,
and you're really impressed and
think it's going to be a great week.
We were going to visit many
lovely cities with this super ship.
Nothing better
could ever happen to us.
My name is Matthias Hanke,
and in 2012, I was a passenger
on the Costa Concordia
with my buddy Marcel.
I'm Marcel Zuhn, and for both of us,
it was the second cruise
we'd ever been on.
Thank you
for choosing Costa Concordia
for your holiday on the sea.
We wish you a pleasant journey
and a lovely cruise. Thank you again
for joining us. Welcome on board.
Let's hear it once more for
our Captain, Francesco Schettino!
Wonderful. It was a world, a city.
It was like a theatre,
built in wood, nicely decorated.
Enormous chandeliers,
even the lifts were gorgeous!
Anywhere you looked!
- Where are you?
- I'm here. At the lifts.
The lifts? Where?
My son took us that afternoon.
And he said to her, "Mum,
you've never been anywhere - are you
going to sink the ship or something?"
- The sun is very bright!
- Look at this, come here!
In our room the bed was nicely done,
the bathroom was lovely,
there was a small living room.
I immediately opened the window
and I saw the sea
and I fell in love with this ship.
Come and see!
My name is Daniela Prestano
and I boarded Costa Concordia
on January 13, 2012,
to join a hairdressers' competition.
My name is Luigi Catalli
and I boarded Costa Concordia
to accompany my wife.
The service was perfect.
All the shows there were perfect.
The bar staff, who worked endlessly,
were always friendly.
It was an all-round
successful holiday.
We'd spent the day in Rome,
then returned to the ship
in the evening,
freshened up, then went to dinner
and intended to get comfortable
in the bar in the atrium,
go over the week that had just gone.
And then it all started.
Good evening.
- Good evening, Captain.
- Good evening.
All right then.
Check what speed we need
to get out of here, and go by Giglio.
They're making me do
a sail-past salute at Giglio. OK.
Let's plot a course.
- Shall I write it on the chart, sir?
- Mm-hmm.
- Is half a mile all right?
- All right.
Yeah? From the port.
There's seabed anyway.
How long will it take to get there
if we leave at seven?
A couple of hours.
9:30, give or take.
OK, all right.
- See you later.
- See you later.
The "sail-past" was planned.
We were supposed to do it
the week before,
but for various reasons
it hadn't been done.
So that evening the information
in the handover was
that the course had been
slightly adjusted
to go give a salute to Giglio Island.
My name is Stefano Iannelli.
During the Costa Concordia shipwreck
I was on the command deck,
as an apprentice deck officer.
The "sail-past" is
a very ancient tradition
in sailing.
It's a crossing along the coast
that was done even
in ancient times to pay your respects
to a city or a monument.
The ship was supposed
to cross as close as possible
for everyone to see.
It's for publicity, in a way.
We went to dinner at 18:30,
took our seats,
and waited for our table companions.
They lived in Berlin
and were expatriates from
somewhere in the Soviet republics.
We took Russian at school,
so we sang
Russian folk songs together.
So we always had fun
at the evening meal.
Salute!
Santé, na zdorovie, cheers.
- Yes?
- Captain, it's Ciro.
- Yes?
- Six miles.
Six miles. All right, that's fine.
We should be by Giglio at 21:44.
21:44, OK.
My name is Sandro Cinquini.
I have been chief medical officer
for Costa Cruises for over 30 years
and I witnessed the whole tragedy
that night on January 13th.
I had heard that they were planning
on passing by Giglio Island.
I was in my cabin
and, out of curiosity,
I was looking out the window
around 9:00, 9:30,
to know what we would have
seen of Giglio.
Everything was dark, though,
so I was starting to wonder why
we were going through there at all.
Good evening.
Hi, Francesco. I'm not too late,
right? I have to finish the shift.
Hi, Antonello. We'll wait. It's not
like the island is going anywhere.
- All right.
- There's still half an hour.
Antonello, our waiter.
- Nice to meet you.
- My pleasure.
Well...
Schettino wanted to show he was good.
- Let's wrap it up and go.
- That night...
..Tievoli, the head waiter,
had asked him to pass by
Giglio that night, because
Tievoli's mom lived in Giglio,
and Tievoli wanted to say hello.
That's why Schettino moved closer.
Then there was Miss Cermotan.
There was something
romantic between the two.
Maybe Schettino made that decision
in order to impress Miss Cermotan.
Good evening.
Good evening, Captain.
What's the current speed?
15.5.
Hand-steering.
Copy that, hand-steering.
Rusli was the lookout.
At the time there was only one.
One person would be
both lookout and helmsman.
If it was deemed necessary
to switch to hand-steering,
this sailor would switch position,
turn off the auto-pilot,
so then the ship would
depend on the wheel,
and orders would be given
directly to the helmsman.
278, confirmed.
278.
How much now?
285.
Schettino always maintained that
he decided to go with hand-steering
thinking he was still
very far from the rocks.
After all, the tradition of
the "sail-past"
was quite a popular procedure,
and it had been
authorised by the company.
Have you called Palombo,
Antonello?
No, not yet.
Go on, call him.
Schettino went on the bridge
and said, "Hand-steering".
What he should have done
during such a procedure
is to place a lookout
on the deck wing,
to follow the nautical charts...
Instead he pretty much
sailed there manually.
And as he did this,
he called Palombo, an ex-Captain
he was acquainted with,
who was supposed to be at Giglio.
Yes, of course.
No, no, he's here. I'll put him on.
Mario.
Captain Palombo, good evening.
We're about to pass by Giglio.
Ah! You're not at Giglio.
You're in Grosseto.
According to Palombo, Schettino
was a very good Captain, technically,
but he was somewhat arrogant
towards his crew and his staff.
It was his way or the highway.
Even if we get to 0.3 or 0.4,
there's water underneath, right?
We are at 290.
OK, I understand.
We're all right, then.
Yeah, we'll make a bit of a fuss
and say hello to everyone.
All right, I'll speak to you later.
I take the con.
Master takes the con.
When he took charge of the ship,
he was already off-course.
Nonetheless, the officers
who were on the bridge
did not inform him
about the ship being off course.
So, unaware and oblivious,
he sailed towards the rocks.
Let's go to 16.
He dropped the course
that had been mapped by Canessa
and sailed a 300-metre ship
at 16 knots
without course and without...
..hand-steering like a speedboat.
Like... what can I say? Like a raft.
It's madness.
Come slowly, slowly to 310.
- Easy.
- 310.
Where do we need to go through?
In front of the docks?
Well, yes.
Captain Schettino was very strict.
When he entered
the bridge, we would fall silent.
It wasn't quite...
..fear, but it was always
quite tense,
it was... He was authoritative.
In hindsight, now that
I've sailed for eight years,
the worst mistake was
to not speak up,
to not say, "Captain,
maybe we're going too fast."
"Captain, we should
start to pull over now."
Because the speed was very high.
I knew the facts of what happened,
so the public prosecutor's office
asked me to cooperate
with the investigation.
So we went to Grosseto
every day for three months,
and we talked to
the main witnesses,
the company, everybody.
Under article 295 of our
navigation code, the Captain
bears final responsibility for
supervising the course of the ship,
but if the Captain is not there,
or somehow seems not to be fit,
not up to the task,
others have to take
the Captain's place.
It had happened recently -
December 17th, 2011.
When the ship was leaving Marseille,
although the wind was 60, 65 knots,
the decision to sail out to sea
was disputed by Ciro Ambrosio.
The ship's Captain
was very upset by this,
because everything in the bridge
is recorded.
So because of this situation
Ambrosio ended up being blamed.
The Captain is in command.
He's in charge and in command.
These officers,
mostly very young people,
didn't have the nerve,
they didn't have the experience
to cooperate with superiors,
even with critical thinking.
They didn't.
Because it wasn't allowed.
325.
315.
- 325.
- 325.
325.
I felt at ease.
There were competent officers around,
and an experienced Captain.
So I couldn't imagine
what was about to happen.
350.
- 340.
- 350.
350, otherwise we go on the rocks!
Then you see the person
that should be confident
starting to seem concerned,
raising their voice, all those signs
that make you go, "Wait a minute,
things are not going as they should."
Starboard 10!
Starboard 10.
Starboard 20!
- Starboard 20.
- Hard starboard!
Hard starboard.
We're obstructed on the left.
The stern is obstructed on the left!
That means that the stern
doesn't have a clear way to steer.
Whichever way it goes,
it will hit something.
- Port 10!
- Port 10.
Port, not Starboard!
The Captain immediately gave
the order to "counter", as we say,
so you turn the wheel the opposite
way from where the ship is going
in an attempt to drive the stern
further from the obstacle.
The speed was so high and the ship
had built up so much momentum
that the ship pulled over,
but not enough.
Port 20!
Hard to port!
Captain, we have to disengage here!
We have to close on the left
with the stern, Captain.
Did we hit a rock?
- Shut the watertight doors astern.
- Shut the watertight doors astern!
My god, what have I done...
It was about 9:30,
and we were in the bar.
And suddenly there was a jolt,
and everything on the table
started to slide off.
Yeah, it became totally unreal.
It was like driving a car
and suddenly applying the brakes.
Where are we going?
No, it's better you sit down.
I heard "brrm brrm brrm"...
..then a thud, then another.
Then the whole ship spun round.
Plates were falling. He immediately
said, "Let's get out of here."
We were the first to leave.
He knew there was something wrong.
At one point I heard a screech.
It sounded just like...
..a keel stranded in the sand.
I thought the ship had
got too close to Giglio
and that it must have
touched the seabed.
I would have never imagined
that there was
such a huge gash on the keel.
Mum, let's go!
There was a jolt.
So, we were in bed watching TV,
and there was a jolt.
We looked at each other, and thought,
are we already at the destination?
That can't be true -
it's too early.
We shouldn't be there
till the next morning.
And immediately the curtain became
crooked, so you could clearly see
that the ship was unbalanced
from the start.
My name is Sandra Birnstiel,
and in 2012, I was a passenger
on the Costa Concordia.
My name is Bianca Ziggert
and in 2012, I was on the
Concordia for the second time.
Then we waited, and we thought,
what we were told in the video,
that you should dress up warmly,
but that you should stay calm.
We were walking along the green pier
and looking up towards the horizon.
We saw this huge ship,
strangely close,
way too close to the island.
My name is Giorgio Fanciulli.
On the night of January 13th, 2012,
I was the first, with my friends,
to see the Costa Concordia
approaching the island
a few seconds after its collision
with the Scole rocks.
It's probably the sail-past again.
It should be further away.
Normally you would see lights
and flashes from the cameras.
That night there was none of that.
Then suddenly all the lights went off
and we lost sight of the ship
in the overall darkness.
It looked like a ghost ship.
Please remain calm,
and we'll keep you informed
as we have more news to inform you.
Thank you for your attention.
Blackout.
As we went up the stairs,
the lights went out,
and it was pitch black
for 20-30 seconds.
That's also when
you heard the first screams.
Of course, some people fell over too.
Then the emergency generators
turned the lights back on.
We were reassured.
And then, on Deck 8,
we looked down from our balcony...
And there were bubbles.
Air bubbles came up like crazy.
We couldn't explain it to ourselves.
We didn't worry -
the ship can't sink.
Everything was beeping.
Anything in the bridge
that could beep
in that situation was beeping.
I realised that we had hit something,
that there had been
a collision with something.
I didn't realise it was so serious.
At that time,
I think even my colleagues
didn't realise what the severity
of the damage would be.
What did we hit?
A rock, it was just above the water.
Get the blackout sorted.
What matters is that
we don't take in any water.
- Port 10!
- Port 10.
Port, not starboard!
The helmsman, Rusli Bin,
followed orders
given to him
in an emergency situation
incorrectly,
doing the complete opposite.
When Schettino told him,
"Turn left ten degrees,"
he turned right ten degrees.
According to Schettino, if he had
followed his orders correctly,
the ship would not have
ended up on the rocks.
When, actually,
during the pretrial hearing
it was proved that, at that speed,
the ship would have
hit the rock anyway, so...
Schettino didn't have
the proper resources
to get any consultants
who could have
attempted to fight back
the powerful army of experts
and consultants for the prosecution.
He was lucky Professor Neri
was there,
a renowned expert, someone...
..above any kind of bias, I must say.
His contribution was
clarifying facts.
We can see here what really happened,
the actual course of events.
We see here what would have happened
if, 12 seconds before
collision with the rock,
the helmsman had turned left
like Schettino ordered.
You see?
The rock glances,
and then the ship moves away.
Surely, even if it had touched,
the collision would have been
towards the stern,
and it would have involved fewer
compartments instead of all five.
Hand-steering.
Rusli Bin, before being a helmsman,
worked in maintenance,
a steward, even.
Schettino had even sent an email
to point out the issues caused by
the incompetence of
most of the members of staff.
But he was told that's what they had
and what he had to work with.
Even if the helmsman
had followed the order
and the ship had not
touched the rock,
even then, Schettino...
shouldn't have done that procedure.
It would have been interesting
to question the helmsman.
This was not possible because
the helmsman was allowed to...
..disappear,
to go back to his country.
We've never
been able to find him again.
Start the generator.
Say again?
The emergency diesel!
Start the emergency generator!
- Chief.
- Yes?
Have we taken in any water?
Yes, a lot. We can't go down.
- Where?
- In the engine room.
- Is it a lot of water?
- There's water. There's no way down.
We'll go down the other way.
Give me a moment, I'll start
the engines, I'll let you know.
Captain? Shall we
inform the passengers?
Yes. Tell them
there's been a blackout.
Tell me what's going on.
Where are you, what is it?
I'm in the engine room,
I'm having a look.
Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention please.
Due to technical problems,
we currently have a blackout.
I repeat, due to technical problems,
we currently have a blackout.
There is no reason to panic.
Please stay calm.
Our technicians are working on
a solution to the problem now.
I repeat,
we currently have a blackout.
But our technicians are already
working on a solution. Thank you!
Suddenly there was
a hullabaloo in the corridor.
We went out and wanted to
ask the boy some questions,
but he didn't really know anything.
It was really chaotic.
Then we said we'll pack a few things
together, and then we'll go out.
The first announcement was,
"Don't worry."
But first in
umpteen different languages.
That made us a little crazy,
until it got to German,
and it said that
the black box had failed.
Now we knew just as much as before,
because we didn't know
what that means on a ship like this.
As we walked back,
we noticed that the ship
was awkwardly tilted.
And there were two lights
on the main bridge,
two red lights turned on,
which means
the boat is out of control,
the vessel has no propulsion
and the rudder doesn't work.
Do you speak Spanish?
- Yes.
- Why are you wearing a life vest
- when everything's OK?
- Just in case.
- So everything's OK?
- Everything's fine.
- Then why?
- Just in case.
Crazy.
When the first alarm went off,
I went to the infirmary,
and we were there in this
small room, with the door open,
and we see the EKG cart
rolling past us.
My nurse,
who was a bit sharper than me,
said "The ship is tilting. We need
to start assessing the situation."
Then the announcement
said that the water was rising.
Luckily they had started to evacuate
floors B and C, where the crew lives.
Chief, can we turn on
at least one engine?
We haven't made it
downstairs yet, Captain!
We cannot access the engine room
from the starboard side.
There's water up to
the main switchboard.
Then we are sinking.
I'm not sure I understand.
Eh, yeah.
There's water up to the switchboard.
Excuse me, Captain.
We cannot start the engine.
The emergency generator is flooded.
I only want to know one thing.
Can the ship start or not?
If not, I have to drop the anchors.
We cannot start the engine.
The generator is flooded.
A few minutes after the collision,
he knew that the ship was lost.
It was a sinking ship.
You're standing on a sinking ship
about to go down
and you don't make sure
to put lifeboats at sea
and evacuate the ship,
evacuate all passengers?
Roberto, I screwed up.
I was passing by Giglio Island, here.
Captain Palombo told me,
"Come by, come by."
So I went and I struck
shallow water with the stern.
I'm dead. Don't say anything.
I'm dying.
Roberto Ferrarini
was the FCC in the company,
which stands for
Fleet Crisis Coordinator.
His job description would only cover
what's called first degree,
which mainly deals with
the financial side of things.
Good morning, Ferrarini.
So anything related to strikes,
staff issues, small malfunctions,
but nothing that entailed
any potential harm to passengers
or to the environment.
I did this to please this guy.
I sailed by,
and there was this little rock,
and now we're in the middle of
a blackout after hitting the stern.
The procedure states that command
must alert both the authorities
and the ship owner.
If the owner hears about it, then
it's up to the owner to let us know.
But we received no call
from Costa Cruises.
They probably thought the situation
was not serious enough
that they had to inform authorities.
I'm at the entrance.
Just a moment. Give me a breakdown of
all the flooded sealed compartments.
On board they knew well
that the ship was lost.
Because Iaccarino, an officer, was
sent downstairs to assess the damage,
and he said at least three adjacent
compartments were flooded.
We're tilting left. Water is up to
a metre, 1.5 metres from Deck 0.
Safety policy in these ships
makes sure the ship stays afloat,
so it's still considered "safe" with
two flooded adjacent compartments.
But with three compartments, the ship
must be abandoned. It's a dead ship.
I can confirm water is not rising,
the watertight doors are holding.
We're at one and a half to two metres
from Deck 0 on the left side.
So, Rob, listen to me...
We're not sinking, we're not sinking.
I'll drop the anchor in a moment.
We'll stay here, then we need
to get a tugboat to tow us away.
Up to a certain point, Schettino
was hoping to save the ship with
all its passengers and the crew.
He hadn't realised the severity of
the gash that had damaged the ship.
When he spoke to Ferrarini and said,
"Send us tugboats and helicopters,"
he was sure that the ship
could reach port.
There are rules at sea.
When there's an accident this bad,
everybody has a precise task.
Nobody did what had to be done.
Schettino, first and foremost,
did nothing.
He phoned Ferrarini to try
and find a way out of it somehow.
That was the truly unforgivable
thing about Schettino.
Where the fuck is the Captain?
Carabinieri.
Hello, yes, Carabinieri?
- Yes.
- Sorry, I'm home with some friends.
My friend's mum called us
to ask for help, because they are
on a Costa Cruise ship
and the ship hit something...
..they are all wearing life jackets.
- Who are we meant to call?
- Who should we...
- I didn't catch that, what happened?
- Oh, dear...
Sometime around
22:00, 22:06, I think,
we received a phone call from
a carabiniere in the town of Prato,
who informed the operating room
of the Livorno Captain
that a lady had heard
from her mother,
who was on board a cruise ship,
that there was
a blackout on the ship,
that objects were falling from
tables as they had dinner,
and that they had been asked
to wear life vests.
The staff in the operating room found
this ship to be stationary
at Giglio Island.
This ship was heading to Savona,
but the bow was pointing south.
And that was odd because, on the
one hand we knew that it was drifting
under the influence of
winds and currents.
On the other hand it was telling us
it was very close to the island,
therefore in
quite a perilous situation.
Costa Concordia? Costa Concordia?
This is the coast guard
from Circomare Porto Santo Stefano.
Do you copy on channel 16?
This is Costa Concordia, over.
Good evening, Costa Concordia,
can I ask if you have
any problems on board?
Tell them there's a blackout.
We are experiencing a blackout.
We are assessing it.
Do you need any assistance or
are you just staying put for now
- at Giglio Island?
- Roberto?
Affirmative, we're staying here
to assess the blackout.
What kind of an issue? Is it...
..the generator? The police
in Prato received a phone call
from a relative of someone
on board who said
everything was falling
in the dining room.
Negative, there is a blackout.
We are assessing the situation.
How long has
the blackout been going on?
20 minutes, more or less.
OK. Keep us in the loop.
We clearly heard
the first call from the coast guard
in Livorno to command.
From land we could hear screaming
from people wearing life jackets.
We heard the PA announcements
telling everybody to keep calm.
All of that didn't match
with a simple blackout.
I personally contacted the emergency
number of the Captain
to explain to them that
what they were telling
them from on board
was not accurate
as to what was happening.
The ship took that turn
purely by God's will.
The ship would have
completely tipped over
had the wind not taken it
towards the rocks.
4,200 people would have died.
The kind of panic on that ship...
People were terrified.
It was pretty much
"Every man for himself."
That night we were very, very lucky
that it so happened that
the Costa Concordia
was driven towards
the island of Giglio,
and then came to rest there.
Otherwise it would have been
a much, much bigger catastrophe.
We realised the danger,
and he said, "Let's go upstairs,
because I saw life jackets there."
So we walked up the stairs
for eight floors,
but we were so anxious
we forgot the cabin number.
And, after quite a while,
we found them.
- There was no info.
- No.
We packed a few things, and,
of course, put our life jackets on...
And then we went out.
Walking through the restaurant,
everything rattled and clattered.
I heard this rattling of dishes
for a long time afterwards.
There were shards everywhere.
You couldn't really walk right,
because there was broken stuff
everywhere. That was crazy.
Let's evacuate the crew
and passengers, too.
Why is Ferrarini not answering me?
Then we went down again...
Then more and more
people in life vests came,
and they just sat there, sometimes
howling, sometimes screaming.
A lot of people were already
standing at the muster station.
But, to us, there was no ranking,
and then we said,
"Perhaps we should get a life vest."
There were also a lot of children
on the ship, small Italian children,
with their mums. And eventually
we asked, where do we go?
First they said go to the front.
Then they said go to the back.
There were no more announcements
about what we should do,
so we thought, OK,
we must get outside to start with,
to see where are we, anyway?
Try to turn on the engines.
Is there no way we can
counter this drifting?
I'd been on a lot of ships
when I was in the Navy.
So we immediately went
upstairs to the fourth floor,
where they had lifeboats.
I started to prepare a lifeboat.
I was on my own -
nobody else was outside.
There were so few crew members.
I only saw one who came
with me in the lifeboat
to give me a hand.
It was a mess.
People screaming,
stealing your life jacket off you,
because there were
not enough jackets.
So they would say,
"Go get them in your cabin.
Keep calm."
People screaming, children crying,
water on the floor, people slipping.
Keep calm, for god's sake.
We were all arguing because
we could see how serious it was,
how the ship was tilting.
My name is Sabatelli Nada
and on the night of
January 13th, 2012,
I was on board Costa Concordia.
My name is Grattagliano Valentina
and I still have my card
to get in the cabin.
My name is Giuseppe Miccoli.
I am one of the ones
who brought lifeboats to shore.
The ship is
slightly tilted to the left.
I have no clue...
(CONTINUES INDISTINCTLY)
We went to the side that was rising,
and at that point
I phoned the carabinieri,
and they said I should
phone the coast guard,
and I said, "Wait... I'm asking
for your help, can you call them?"
He gave me their number,
and I called the coast guard.
They said,
"They told us it's a blackout."
So I told them, "Look,
I've worked on military ships,
where 'blackout'
means there's no power,
not that the ship is tilted
seven to eight degrees."
They go, "All right, just to be safe
we've already sent over three boats."
The deputy chief from Livorno
was suspicious. He said, "Chief,
they're not telling the truth."
I called the bridge again.
Only then does Costa Concordia
say that it's not just a blackout,
but they are taking water in.
So it's not just a blackout,
you also have a leak?
Yes, we do. Yes, we have a leak.
Do you want a tugboat or
some other type of assistance?
Is there anybody injured?
We request one tugboat.
All passengers are already
wearing life jackets.
My first reaction was a bit of fear.
Americans say we spend all our lives
preparing to deal with mass rescue
operations, but also
praying we never need to.
Because in these situations
there's always a price to pay.
The price is human lives.
The Guardia di Finanza motorboat
was not far from the location
so we redirected it to the scene.
Captain, we're just
about to approach you.
As soon as they arrive
and take a look at Concordia,
they say the ship is starboard down,
so the stern is on the seabed
or a rock.
They also told us they had
their starboard anchor down,
which meant that the ship was
in a position to lower lifeboats.
Why are they not
lowering lifeboats?
Affirmative. Water is rising to
stern elevators and keeps rising.
Water goes up to a metre.
I'll get in through the fire doors.
All right, Rob,
things are getting bad.
Not yet, not yet.
It's about 22:30. He still
hasn't given the distress signal,
nor the general alarm on board.
So obviously he hasn't
ordered abandon ship.
The crew stood in front of
the entrance to the lifeboats
and didn't let people in them.
Quite the opposite.
Then there was an announcement
by an employee,
"You should go to your cabins,
and don't panic."
On behalf of our Captain,
we kindly ask you
to go back to your cabin
or, if you wish,
you can go to the main hall.
Everything is under control.
OK?
Captain, passengers
are going to the boats.
Should we sound the general alarm?
Wait.
Many of them said, "Sound the
general alarm, sound the alarm."
And he was like, "Wait, wait."
To the last minute he tried to find
a way that HE could get out of it.
Knowing well that the ship was lost.
- We have to abandon the ship!
- Get out of there, go!
Order to abandon the ship!
All right, but give me
a second to call Ferrarini.
Roberto, everything is failing.
I'm at 0.2 from the island.
Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention please.
We ask you to stay calm,
and gather
at the meeting point
at the muster station on Deck 4
wearing your life jacket.
Follow the staff's instructions.
Please gather at the muster station,
the meeting point on Deck 4.
I just spoke to the steward
who's doing the announcements.
They are keeping everybody calm.
We are right in front of the island.
No pictures, no pictures.
And when we got to Deck 4,
it was rammed full,
and inhuman scenes
were already being played out.
People were running wild,
screaming, pushing.
You know, it wasn't
"women and children first".
They were acting like that.
I don't want to demonise anyone,
because this was
an exceptional situation,
but it was shocking to see -
there it was every man for himself.
And the conditions on Deck 4
were already very bad.
Costa Concordia, I am asking
if you are in distress.
- Are you in distress?
- What shall I say, Captain?
We are signalling distress
at the moment.
Tell them.
We are now
giving the distress signal.
Finally they give
the distress signal at my request.
If we'd waited longer, the rescue
teams would have been even later.
He sailed his ship
at 17 knots against the rocks.
It's no laughing matter,
there's no excuse, but
the ship is still afloat.
4,000 people on that ship.
30, 40, 50 sea units
outside are not enough.
These people need
to get off the ship,
and their fate is
in the hands of command.
If command on board does not
cooperate with outside rescuers
it's not going to work.
At first, one can imagine
getting lost in the moment, but
after more than an hour,
and the ship...
And you know
the ship is about to sink,
at what point do you
lower the lifeboats
and save all the passengers?
He didn't do any of that.
When clearer information
was delivered,
Schettino gave
the general alarm immediately.
He tried to get as close
as he could first.
Because, if he had given the order
when the ship was
still at a certain speed,
the lifeboats would probably
have tipped over.
Hundreds of people
would have died.
The right thing to do would have been
to conduct professional inquiries
through proper simulation processes.
My name is Mario Pellegrini.
On January 13th, 2012,
I was deputy mayor of Giglio Island.
I was just back from a trip to the
US, coincidentally on a cruise ship.
I was just about to
go to sleep, because
I was too jetlagged
the night before to go to sleep.
I received a phone call from the
Chief of the Giglio Island police,
and he said there was a ship in
distress just outside Giglio docks.
So I got my car
and drove to Giglio docks.
Once I entered the road that
leads to the east side of the island,
I couldn't believe my eyes.
This huge ship
aground on our rocks,
full of lights.
I kept driving because
I knew the way there by heart.
Or maybe my car
knew the road better than I did.
But I couldn't
keep my eyes off the ship.
Adrenaline started to pump,
and suddenly I wasn't sleepy anymore.
I reached the main square and
I left my car right in the middle.
I met with the mayor, who had got
there a few minutes before me.
So together
we started to take action.
We phoned anybody who could help,
we opened up schools,
we started
all the emergency procedures
we could manage
from the island.
We still didn't understand
what had happened.
Ladies and gentlemen,
your attention please.
Please proceed to your meeting point
at the muster station on Deck 4
and follow the instructions
of the staff, and stay calm.
When we heard the signals to abandon
ship, my partner, who is an expert,
said, "I've had enough."
He walked up to the guy
who was keeping everybody behind
a barrier, keeping everybody out,
shook him and said, "Get out of
the way, we're coming through.
We can't stay here anymore."
It had become a huge mess
all over the deck.
Seeing all those people running
around like headless chickens,
not knowing which one was
supposed to be their lifeboat,
jumping on
the first one they could find,
struggling, some slipping
on the deck, which was slanted.
So that was tragic in itself.
And I tried to say that we were
200 metres away from Giglio.
I was sure
we were in the open sea -
we hadn't seen the island at all.
We hadn't had the chance
to look in that direction.
We always saw the open sea.
Why didn't anyone think of
calming the passengers down?
So, if we lower the lifeboats,
can I say over the radio that
we're about to abandon the ship?
Wait. We are evacuating passengers.
Tell them,
"We are evacuating passengers."
We are evacuating passengers
ourselves and getting them to land.
He could not accept that he,
the Captain of the ship,
had to tell his passengers
to abandon the ship.
It was a dishonour to him.
He is very full of himself.
He would have never done that.
When I came back from trying to get
information that nobody gave me,
I found her right beside
the lifeboat. They were all ready.
She was just standing there.
I said, "What are you doing?"
"I'm waiting."
"What are you waiting for, get in!"
We got in and there was only
one seat left on the lifeboat.
The lifeboat steward
started to push it.
Since the boat was tilted like this,
and the lifeboats were here,
they got stuck on the deck below.
We swung it back and forth
and it rocked for a bit,
and then we started to descend.
I'm so scared.
Oh, my god. At that point I said,
"We're all going to die."
Plummeting from the third floor,
with 100 people on the lifeboat
it's like landing on cement -
everybody dies.
Thinking I was about to die,
I prayed.
Then in hindsight you feel
a bit embarrassed,
- thinking "Your last thought was..."
- Who cares? Nobody knew you.
"..only dedicated to God?"
To be honest, yes.
The Guardia di Finanza
was shining a beam light
to show us the gash on the ship
that was sucking everything inside.
My god...
I had never seen anything like it.
It was slashed,
like a razor blade had
sliced it open.
It was always, we must go to the
front, like other people had said.
There were still boats there.
And then it was, no, don't go there,
there are no more boats there.
I didn't even think of being scared.
We simply functioned.
I kept thinking, this isn't real,
what's happening here.
Help me!
The basic staff tried hard
to make the lifeboats seaworthy.
First they got the anchor out.
Anyway, it was the cook,
the waiter, the cabin staff...
Everyone possible was there, but no
officers - well, I didn't see any.
From our point of view,
they let us all down.
My career as a Captain is over.
We hit shallow waters with the ship.
We're following
the correct procedures.
I'm saving all the passengers,
it's fine.
Don't worry.
Everything is under control.
As apprentice deck officer,
my job in case of emergency was to
lead a "Tango-India" team
to rescue the injured.
So immediately after impact I left
the deck to look for the injured.
I was able to act on instinct
thanks to adrenaline.
Adrenaline kept me going
until I got to land.
Roberto, we are evacuating
passengers to land.
I managed to drift where I wanted to.
I dropped two anchors
right next to the docks.
The stern is in shallow water.
The ship is not going anywhere.
It can't go anywhere.
What do I tell the press?
This is the Livorno Captain.
Captain, we have a favour to ask.
Can you tell us how many passengers
are still waiting to be evacuated?
I think we pretty much
evacuated all of them.
More or less, give us.
The naval units need to know.
They need to organise
the dispatch of...
- So they can transport...
- Two or three hundred...
Two or three hundred between
staff and passengers.
Approximately 4,000
have been evacuated.
Is everybody leaving the ship
or is someone staying?
I'm staying because
we're close to the coast.
I think we are up against
the seabed at this point.
Because the water...
The keeling should stop by now,
thanks to the water, no?
- I mean, it shouldn't get any wor-
- So, is it just you staying...
- ..or is anyone else staying?
- I think it will be just me.
Only you, that's fine, Captain.
Take the documents,
come with me to Deck 4.
Are we abandoning the deck?
I didn't say to abandon deck.
Come with me.
As Captain, Schettino
should have stayed on the bridge.
He wasn't
supposed to wander around.
His job was to stay on the bridge
and handle all procedures from there
until the end, and he had to be
the last one to leave.
We saw the lifeboats
coming off this big ship.
When the first one reached port,
the mayor and I started
to help passengers get off.
We were asking for information,
but nobody was telling us anything.
I told him, "Boss, maybe
I should get on board."
He nodded and said, "Yes."
On my way there I was
looking at this ship, amazed.
The closer we got, the bigger it
was, the more it looked scary,
because you saw it
towering over you
as if it was
about to fall on top of you.
We stopped by the bow of the ship,
where there was a pilot ladder.
It was quite difficult to climb it.
Once on board, I went around
looking for an officer.
I tried to reach the bridge. I
walked around for about 20 minutes.
I didn't meet anybody.
When I got back down
to the right side
there were people,
including elderly people,
who needed help
to board the lifeboats
that were under the deck.
All these people came from
the other side of the ship.
So I told myself
I had to get to the other side
to take others to the right side.
At one point they stopped
lifeboats from descending
because otherwise they would have
been against the sloping keel.
So everybody needed
to get to the other side.
Because over there
they would be closer to water.
Whoa!
When all the lifeboats were gone,
the life buoys were thrown in,
that you have to inflate yourself.
And then there's a sort of mini hole
where you first get into the water,
and then you have to crawl.
And then I looked at Sandra and said,
please don't do this to me.
I could never do that.
Let's wait until we can
walk into the water, not jump,
because we don't know
what's underneath it.
And so we simply
waited for a long time.
I basically pictured us in the water,
I have to say, honestly,
and then a lifeboat came back.
And it veered
really close to the ship,
and then we could get in there
with dry feet.
Careful, careful, careful...
Guys, guys, please.
Maybe it was almost midnight
or just past midnight...
This boat shows up and suddenly
the inclination changed
quite rapidly.
So at that point we jumped,
we jumped on the boat.
I jumped, Salvatore jumped,
and Captain Schettino jumped, too.
We got on top of the boat,
on its roof,
and I noticed the Captain was there.
Deck 3 was underwater
immediately after, so...
..there was no way we could
go back on board from that side.
Anybody who had stayed
on that deck at that moment
would have ended up in the water.
And in the water,
with all the undertow
and the whirlpools
that could occur,
one was as likely to survive
as to not survive.
At that point, survival instinct
told me to jump on the lifeboat.
I can say I was very lucky,
because as soon as
I stepped on Deck 4
on the left side,
the boat started to topple.
And it tilted for a third time.
And it was tragic,
because this third tilt
meant that the deck
was underwater on one side.
The sound of the water was awful.
It came with such strength...
..it was unbelievable.
Fear had a grip on us all.
We were nearly at the other side,
and then the ship
did a massive jolt again.
And then the water came towards us -
there came a gigantic flood -
and panic broke out.
"Back, back, back!"
We had two old ladies by the hand.
We pushed and pulled them, and...
..It didn't work. I kept
slipping, Marcel kept slipping.
In the end we got stuck
by the lifts.
And in that moment,
when the water was waist high,
the lift doors opened.
Really burst open, really tore apart.
There was a short, violent scream
from one of the two ladies,
and then they were gone.
The women
had no chance at all.
Everyone near us who had not held on
was then washed away.
I didn't think
any but us had survived.
I was standing with this one woman
who held me tight and said,
"I don't want to die."
And I said, "You won't die -
you have a life vest on,
your head is above the water.
You don't need to be scared."
Yes, but in the lift,
or in the lift shaft...
That didn't work.
We no longer knew
what was going to happen.
The other side was now unreachable,
because it was too far away.
From our side the water was
getting higher and higher...
And then, logically,
panic rose up in us.
We were in
the type of hopeless situation
that you know
you're not getting out of.
At one point the ship stopped moving,
and by an incredible stroke of luck,
the full moon started to shine on us.
There must have been about
100 people on this bridge.
There was an unbelievable crowd.
I could see families,
people had children.
Everybody wanted to get on.
I said,
"You're behaving like animals.
Women and children
should go first.
Don't act like beasts."
And I hear a voice behind me
that, on the other hand, was calming.
"Don't treat them like that,
they're just scared, you see."
I turn and I see this man,
approximately 60 years of age,
a little overweight,
with a beard,
big eyes and big smile.
It was a moment of panic,
when panic strikes, there's no reaso-
They teach you this as well.
It was the same for the Captain,
he lost control. You never know
how someone might react
when panic strikes, even if you are
the trained Captain of a ship.
Even he fell into the trap of panic.
My name is Roberto Galli.
In 2012, I was chief
of local police in Giglio Island.
I am the first to have
found Francesco Schettino
on the night of the shipwreck.
We managed to reach the rocks
in front of the Concordia ship.
The people there had all jumped into
the sea. Some were injured.
There was even a disabled person.
They all gathered together
to warm up a bit,
because, even if it was a lovely
night, it was still January 13th.
I found five or six people
on that path.
One of them introduced himself
as one of the ship's officers,
and further away Captain
Schettino was on the phone.
So I approached Captain Schettino,
I introduced myself and
I said, "Look, Captain,
I can take you to the docks,
and from there I can
take you back to the ship."
He didn't look wet to me.
So he hadn't fallen into the sea.
The other officers,
on the other hand, were all wet.
The Captain said,
"No, look, I need to stay here
because I need to co-ordinate
the evacuation from the ship."
I was confused, and said, "You can't
co-ordinate anything from here."
A couple of officers said,
"Captain, why don't you
go to the docks and return..."
But he was determined to stay
and I couldn't make him
change his mind.
Hello?
This is De Falco from the Livorno.
Is this the Captain?
Yes, good evening, Captain De Falco.
Listen to me, Schettino.
There are people trapped on board.
You will take your boat under
the bow on the starboard side.
I think that, at the time,
Captain Schettino hadn't realised
what had actually happened.
He still hadn't processed
the massive damage,
the massive tragedy
that was occurring.
I am here to co-ordinate the rescue.
What are you co-ordinating, there?
The fact that he was saying,
"I need to co-ordinate
the rescue operations here,"
when in that area, from there,
nothing could be done,
shows his state of mind.
In fact, that was when
the famous phone call
took place, with Captain De Falco.
Fucking get on board!
- Captain, please.
- No, now you will get on board.
- Get on board.
- Fine, Captain.
- I'm going.
- Go now.
Schettino said, "Look, I was
keeping in touch from the rocks,
with port authorities
and the bodies responsible.
And I was co-ordinating
all the rescue procedures,
suggesting what side they should
approach the ship from,
where the survivors
were located, and so on."
And then he mentioned, actually,
that he had seen a boat
with a lantern, a light,
and he had signalled, asking if
they could take him back to the ship.
My name is Massimo BancalĂ .
On January 12th 2012, I was
on board the motorship Aegilium.
We recovered 80 survivors
from the lifeboats.
I was later sent on the rescue boat
to see if there were any
survivors in the water
or to assist people struggling on
the right side of the Concordia ship.
Once we got there,
under the starboard side
we noticed two people
trying to get our attention
with lights. We approached them,
and one of them
was Captain Schettino.
He got on board the boat,
and, as they got closer to the ship,
unfortunately the boat
started to take on water.
So they ordered the sailors
to get back to the docks
and not to accompany Schettino.
It was bumpy.
Boats were going back and forth,
creating more waves
and we took on water twice,
so we risked sinking.
I think he would never have
been able to go back up,
because the ladder
on the left side
was full of passengers
in the process of getting off.
So it would have been tough
to climb back up.
The Captain was very quiet.
He was quite upset because
he knew what was going on.
I think he was frustrated because
he couldn't get back on the ship.
Schettino didn't run away.
He was not "Captain Coward"
who abandoned ship.
He was the last one
to get off the ship,
and he had to get off. Had he not,
he would definitely have died.
He also tried to get back on
the ship, but he was not able to.
It was not possible.
Everybody says that, as prosecutors,
we were very mean to him.
When actually
we investigated everything
there was to find out,
very thoroughly.
There was no way anybody
but Schettino was to blame
for what happened.
We were the only
hospitality facility open that night.
We already had two guests
who had gone to sleep.
My name is Paolo Fanciulli.
I own the Hotel Bahamas.
That night we welcomed
hundreds of survivors,
and the last of them
was Captain Schettino.
When I saw the ship sinking, I ran to
the hotel and turned the heating on,
turning on all the lights,
getting all rooms prepped.
Then I saw a huge crowd coming,
all in orange, because they were
still wearing their life jackets
and nobody wanted to take them off.
It wasn't very cold,
but we were all dressed lightly
because we came from the ship
where it was warm.
This is no joke.
People everywhere, people everywhere.
A church full of people
with life jackets on...
The church was full. Children in
bathing suits, people without shoes.
After all, nobody carried
anything on them. Nothing.
They started to enter the rooms,
at least 30 to 40 at a time,
packed like sardines.
I had no more space to offer them,
but they kept coming.
A hotel, a pharmacy...
People from Giglio Island
were just...
Some gave out jackets, dresses.
They were wonderful.
We gave them everything we had.
We gave them drinks.
Anything we had, we were out of
in only a few minutes.
We tried to give them blankets
but we didn't have enough.
They ripped off curtains
to cover themselves.
They took whatever kind of cover
and they took it with them.
There weren't that many blankets.
Only a few. By the time we
got there they were gone already.
In the end, you felt lucky,
because you heard
that there were people
who still had to get off,
some were saying
that others had died.
In the end, you stop thinking
about yourself, right?
He was on one side, I was
on the other side. Then we could
look again, and then we said,
"From now on, every man for himself."
This powerlessness that we felt,
this fear of death that rose up,
overwhelmed us,
naturally, made us say,
"We won't pay attention
to the others now,
because right now
we're not getting out."
Every man for himself.
And that is... totally brutal.
In the end the water poured in.
At first the water was knee-high,
then waist-high,
and it got ever higher.
And there was perhaps
10-20cm air above me,
and I tried to
stay in this air pocket.
And then I thought to myself,
"Hold your breath,
and see where it takes you."
At some point
I got hold of the handrail,
and then, like on a pull up bar,
metre by metre...
..I moved myself to the aisle.
And you're totally broken
after 3-4 metres.
It was an infinitely long time,
till at some point
I was heading in
the direction of the deck.
Then I dived and
was flushed into the restaurant.
Then I could grab hold somewhere.
Then I climbed up,
so at least I was in the dry.
Then I held on tight
to the structure, and then,
step by step, climbed up.
And then I was
lying on the outer hull.
And I have to totally honestly say,
with every sound I heard,
with every movement the ship made,
I always somehow felt fear
that the Costa was completely
sinking. So being saved,
rescued or whatever,
wasn't in the picture.
I called, again and again, "Help!"
At some point I heard a voice. "Hey,
mister, come here. Here is an exit."
And then I saw two people,
and I swam in that direction.
With the last of my strength,
I tried to get out of the water,
then we crawled along a shaft.
Yeah, and then we could look,
look upwards,
and we saw the sky.
But you couldn't climb higher there,
because it was stainless steel.
And then suddenly
someone looked through the hole.
We saw people screaming for help
from the depths.
I could hear water coming.
I immediately looked for a rope,
and slowly but surely we pulled
nine people from that tunnel.
It was incredibly tiring.
I helped the last young man out.
He said he had seen the bodies of a
child and an adult in the restaurant.
And then we all
started to talk about the tragedy,
saying, "Who knows
how many of them there were?"
In the end, I was crawling along
the outer hull
and then I saw that
there was a stepladder there.
And then we climbed down
the stepladder one at a time
and onto this small boat.
I saw the coastguard,
that there were lights over there,
there was an island over there.
And I couldn't believe my eyes,
because nobody
had told us about that.
We helped hundreds of people
off the ship,
down the ladder,
while the coast guard
recovered people from the sea.
Getting all those people
to climb down
that night was very hard.
Firstly, because it was slippery,
because it was wet.
Secondly, because only one at a time
could climb down, slowly,
because if someone slipped,
it would have been
40 to 50 metres of free fall.
So, helping people down,
keeping them calm,
Um...
After the scare they got,
it wasn't easy.
I got to the island at about 16:30.
The first thing I saw was
a huge sea of life vests.
All the life vests were in a heap.
And naturally my biggest concern
was, did Matthew make it?
There was an unspoken fear
visible in every face,
that something had happened,
that someone hadn't made it.
Naturally, I also felt that,
and so I kept looking.
Can I see him anywhere?
Then I saw him
standing on the footbridge.
I was so happy.
I was weak at the knees.
I really broke down,
and then waited, sitting down,
until we docked.
Then I got down from
the coastguard's boat.
I don't think I've ever
wept so much in my life.
Yes, it affected me a lot.
Then, afterwards, when you think
about everything that happened,
and the worse things
that could have happened...
Yes... In any case,
I was very happy that both of us
got off so lightly -
that we were so lucky.
Others weren't as lucky.
Between 8:00 and 9:00,
everybody left.
After they all left,
Captain Schettino arrived
and asked me if I could get a coffee
with plenty of sugar for him.
I could tell he was very upset.
His face looked very tired,
very disheartened.
I was surprised, though, because
you could see the ship from
a window, here on our terrace,
and he said,
"That rock had no markers."
It almost seemed like he was
trying to absolve himself.
It gave me a bad feeling,
because I realised he was
someone on the brink of
a nervous breakdown.
But at the same time he had
that swaggering vibe about him,
telling me that
the rock was unmarked.
As if the rock was to blame.
At a first glance Schettino
struck me as someone
very arrogant, very...
Quite full of himself, I must say.
Sometimes I almost
felt sorry for him, but...
I mean,
his culpability was so blatant
that I don't understand how
he thought he could hide behind
other possible scenarios
that he claimed were possible.
Schettino tried any way he could
to get out of this mess.
I believe Francesco Schettino
was a victim of
a ruthless media campaign
that immediately showed
him to the world
as a cowardly
and incompetent Captain
who, after making his ship sink,
abandoned his crew
and passengers
without fulfilling the role that
he was bound to carry out by law.
The judges were good, however.
In my opinion,
they had been influenced by
what has been, from day one,
the image of a scapegoat
painted by the press
all over the world.
..sentence him
to the overall sentence of
16 years of detention,
in addition to
the costs of proceedings.
I remember perfectly that, back then,
we sent 12, 13 people to trial.
All of them, except for Schettino,
settled or opted for
abbreviated proceedings.
Had he gone
for abbreviated proceedings,
he would have
cut a third off his sentence.
I cannot understand why
he would go through a trial.
Maybe he thought, somehow,
in the end, he would be acquitted.
He never admitted to any wrongdoing.
Right up until the end he even
maintained he never abandoned ship.
We turned to the European court,
protesting the influence that,
through every stage of
this situation,
the media had.
We asked the European court
to look into it,
to investigate if, as we fear,
the power of suggestion
caused by this media campaign
was the leitmotif on which
everybody based
their view of Schettino's trial.
It's true that survivors end up
carrying something with them.
You carry it with you.
To this day, we say, "It's been
ten years. What more can we do?"
Because you could have
died that day, right?
I keep going,
I've kept going through the years.
Sailing,
and making use of this legacy,
to improve myself,
to understand people.
The worst experience of my life
helped me to grow.
When I hear helicopter blades,
I often think about it...
And dishes rattling - that's me.
That's definitely stuck with me.
I'm not startled anymore,
but when I hear it,
I connect it with this disaster.
For me, the first year and a half
were really hardcore,
because I also had
a compromised immune system.
So I took everything I could with me,
and was also, psychologically,
really very, very battered.
But now ten years have passed,
and I've put it in perspective.
Especially the two women
who put their trust in us
and didn't make it.
That is an absolutely terrible,
terrible feeling that one has.
We really did do our best. We
were with them for almost two hours
on board, while we went,
step by step, through the ship.
We cheered them up,
entertained them.
I think, too, we
couldn't do anything else,
but, nevertheless,
you have the feeling
that you've failed,
and that you couldn't do it.
Sometimes terrible tragedies happen,
and in this case...
..uh, it was terrible.
But there's always something
spiritual to help you get through.
All these unlucky people,
me included.
Had the wind been different,
the ship could have ended up
a long way from the island
and it would have completely sunk.
Had that happened,
we would have counted survivors,
not victims.
Costa Cruises declined to give
an interview for this documentary.
In a written statement, the company
expressed sympathy with the victims.
One doesn't want to comment on the
Italian legal processes in this case.
After the disaster, the International
Association of Cruise Lines
worked out a series of
security procedures
that go beyond
the international requirements.
The procedures on board
are also said to have been revised.
This includes the right for all
officers to have a say in manoeuvres.