It’s hard to believe that it has been more than 10 years since the Costa Concordia disaster that cost the lives of 33 passengers and crew members. It is still in the news, as details continue to unfold years later.
Francesco Schettino, the cruise captain who was responsible for the disaster was said to have done so because he was trying to ‘impress his lover.’ It seems as if she was not very impressed, especially after he was called ‘Captain Coward’ after abandoning the sinking ship and jumping on a lifeboat.
The former shipmaster is now in jail after being convicted of manslaughter. It resulted in the crash of the Costa Concordia, the death of 33 passengers and crew, and the captain abandoning ship.
In 2017, he began serving a 16-year sentence after all of the appeals were exhausted. He is now halfway through that jail term.
When the accident took place, the captain said that he was trying to dazzle those on board by getting close to the shoreline. He also tried to blame others, but was ultimately convicted of the crime.
It happened on January 13, 2012, when the ship was getting close to the holiday island of Giglio. As they did the close ‘sale by’ in which the ship’s horn was sounded in a maritime salute, it went off course.
Nobody on board realized that there was an outcrop of rocks in the path of the ship and even when the captain started yelling at the crew, it was too late to avoid the collision.
Hitting the rocks resulted in a 35 m dash on the side of the ship, with an untold amount of water rushing in quickly. The engine room was flooded and the ship began to tilt.
Eventually, the ship was partially sunk after it landed on an underwater ledge. Schettino decided not to go down with the ship but got on a lifeboat, something that he later claimed he fell into.
Schettino never mentioned the fact that he may have been distracted by a Mondovian dancer, but there were others who said that was the reason why the crash took place. 24-year-old Domnica Cemortan was allegedly his lover at the time and said that she was having an affair with him.
Prosecutors said that he got too close to the island in order to show off, but she claims that she couldn’t have distracted him because she was standing ‘very far’ from him.
This was a terrible disaster that cost an estimated $2 billion for the sinking ship, along with the loss of far too many lives. We just hope that it’s a lesson that others take to heart.
