What do you think about the captain of the Italian cruise ship abandoning ship?

[CreamSoda]

And leaving passengers and crew to drown?

[askyourgran]

if he did he ought to be in jail now.

[netibiza]

This happened to the Captain last time with a Greek ship, standards are not what they were.

[penelope2]

He is in custody at the moment but claims he (and some of his crew) were the last to leave the ship. Time will tell I guess.

[SIRandyraven]

Is that fact or just news speculation at the moment ?
However I have seen the passenger video of people pushing and fighting each other for life jackets.

I was on the Hydro Foil once between Naples and Capri a few years back.
On return to Naples , the crew were guiding (reversing the ship) into the docks.
I guess the Hydro Foil had about 200 people on it.
Docked at the time was a large cruise ship with glass balcony and looked very flash and girls in bikini were sun bathing and responding to the whistles and shouts from the Hydro foil crew. Then suddenly crunch ...people wobbled on there feet. As I got off the ferry you could see a large hole punched in the back and it was starting to dip in that corner.
Lots of men at dockside shouting and waving hands , however this is the norm in Italy. I guess the ferry crew were distracted.....
However nothing would surprise me in Italy lol

[karenmac60]

I think he has been charged with this and manslaughter. The thing is though - natural human response is to save yourself. We'd all like to think we'd be nobler and selflessly try to save others, but until we're in that situation, who is to say what any of us would do.

[Zhukov]

I think the Captain is in pretty deep water!

[SIRandyraven]

@Zhukov - And his career has hit a rocky patch.

[Carakeel]

I think it's hard to judge until we have the full story. However, if he did leave the ship before all of the passengers and crew were off, then he is in very big trouble! I understand what you are saying karenmack, but this is the captain's law we are talking about and every captain who commands a ship knows it is his duty to stay aboard to make sure everyone else gets off safely first. So, I cannot see him wriggling his way out of this one, if indeed he did leave early as they are saying. It does look like he did, as only today it seems two more passengers were taken off the ship alive. He however, was no longer on the ship when these people were rescued and had been arrested. So we will see what happens next. There are many questions yet to be answered!

[SIRandyraven]

Close your eyes and for those who have been to the South of Europe on holiday and the concept of queuing and calm.
Now picture a mass of Italians and Germans (mainly) heading towards the crew handing out the life jackets and seeing people into the life boats. They are shouting please form a queue and take a life jacket and proceed onto the lifeboat ....
Nope can't see that happening

[stokemaveric]

he is blaming the navigation system...

[SIRandyraven]

Don't they have GPS that pins your location to marine maps and thus know depths and locations of sandbanks.
It would be easy software to know your location , bearing , speed and thus where you are heading and hazards.
But of course you need human beings to take action on the information.
However even that could be automated. Computer knows your heading towards rocks and stops ship ?

[netibiza]

karenmac, I for one would trample on anyone to get out, I know this for a fact, I am human, and for this reason I am not a captain of a ship or pilot of a plane. They do have responsiblities to and for others.

[SIRandyraven]

They did a exercise many years ago to record people in panic exiting and aircraft.
To mimic panic and every person for themselves , they used volunteer students and disabled some of them with weights etc (slow them down). Then they announced that the first 50% off the plane would get double money for exercise.
Thus a mass exit too place :-)

[karenmac60]

Oh I'm not excusing him, and I'm sure he was well aware of his duties, but sometimes our brains and bodies don't do what we would rationally expect of them. He should have stayed, but I can sort of understand why he didn't. With all the best will in the world, we can all realise we are cowards.

[pdust]

*We'd all like to think we'd be nobler and selflessly try to save others, but until we're in that situation, who is to say what any of us would do. *

so true karen

[lankeela]

Perhaps they should have stuck to making coffee

[dundurn]

I can understand the fear that must grip anyone when a ship lists in the way this one did. Everything is geared to decks remaining horizontal and when side to side companionways turn into vertical shafts without ladders everybody needs to think of getting out as fast as possible. I think some of the survivors from the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster testified to the difficulties of moving around a heavily listing ship. It is entirely possible that the captain had no choice but to leave the ship.

[deggers316]

why the hell a ship of that size and tonnage should be crusing 400 metres from a rocky coast beats me

[JonnyBoy12]

He should traditionally stay with the ship when it went down.

"Water" coward he is!