Cruise liner shifts, halting search for 21 still missing
Captain quoted as saying he tripped, fell into lifeboat
ROME – An Italian dad and his 5-year-old daughter. A retired American couple treating themselves after putting four children through college. A Hungarian musician who helped crying children into lifejackets, then disappeared while trying to retrieve his beloved violin from his cabin.
As details emerged Wednesday about the missing and the dead in the grounding of the Costa Concordia, the captain was quoted as saying he tripped and fell into the water from the listing vessel and never intended to abandon his passengers.
The search for the 21 people still unaccounted for in the disaster ground to a halt after the cruise liner shifted again on its rocky perch off the Tuscan island of Giglio, making it too dangerous for divers to continue. Rough seas were forecast for the next few days.
The $450 million Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew when it slammed into a reef and capsized Friday after the captain made an unauthorized diversion from his programmed route and strayed into the perilous waters.
Capt. Francesco Schettino, who was jailed after he left the ship before everyone was safely evacuated, was placed under house arrest Tuesday, facing possible charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.
The ship’s operator, Crociere Costa SpA, has accused Schettino of causing the wreck by making the unapproved detour, and the captain has acknowledged carrying out what he called a “tourist navigation” that brought the ship closer to Giglio. Costa has said such a navigational “fly by” was done last Aug. 9-10, after being approved by the company and Giglio port authorities.
However, Lloyd’s List Intelligence, a leading maritime publication, said Wednesday its tracking of the ship’s August route showed it actually took the Concordia slightly closer to Giglio than the course that caused Friday’s disaster.
“This is not a black-and-white case,” Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd’s List, said in a statement.
New audio of Schettino’s communications with the coast guard during the crisis emerged Wednesday, with the captain claiming he ended up in a life raft after he tripped and fell into the water.
“I did not abandon a ship with 100 people on board, the ship suddenly listed and we were thrown into the water,” Schettino said, according to a transcript published Wednesday in the Corriere della Sera paper.
Initial audio of Schettino’s conversations made headlines on Tuesday, showing an increasingly exasperated coast guard officer ordering Schettino back on board to direct the evacuation, and the captain resisting, saying it was too dark and the ship was tipping.
Eleven people have been confirmed dead so far, and 21 are missing.
A victim from Hungary was identified Wednesday as 38-year-old Sandor Feher, who had been working as an entertainer on the stricken cruise ship. His body was found inside the wreck and identified by his mother, who had traveled to the Italian city of Grosseto.
Jozsef Balog, a pianist who worked with Feher on the ship, told the Blikk newspaper that Feher was wearing a lifejacket when he decided to return to his cabin to retrieve his violin.
Among the missing were retirees Jerry and Barbara Heil of White Bear Lake, Minn.
Sarah Heil, their daughter, told WBBM radio in Chicago that her parents had been looking forward to the 16-day cruise after raising four kids and sending them all off to college.
“They never had any money,” she said. “So when they retired, they went traveling. And this was to be a big deal – a 16-day trip. They were really excited about it.”
The Heil children said in a blog post Wednesday that their parents were not among the passengers whose bodies were recently recovered, and they were praying that weather conditions would improve so authorities could resume search operations.