Captain was ‘showing cruise ship to port’

THE captain of the wrecked cruise ship that hit rocks off Italy sailed close to land to “show the ship to the port”, the liner’s owners said yesterday.

It was reported yesterday that the captain gave the order as a favour to the head waiter, whose family were on land.

As the death toll in the disaster rose to six, the chairman of Costa Cruises said the unauthorised deviation from the route had been taken to “make a salute”.

Pier Luigi Foschi apologised for the tragedy which has left dozens of people injured and the 114,000-tonne Costa Concordia lying on its side off Tuscany.

At least 29 people are still missing.

Meanwhile, the body of a sixth victim of the tragedy was found on the ship yesterday.

At the centre of the investigation into the disaster is the liner’s captain, Francesco Schettino, who is being investigated by prosecutors for possible manslaughter, abandoning ship and causing a shipwreck.

He has been accused of leaving the vessel before ensuring that all of the 4,200 people aboard were safely evacuated.

Mr Schettino insisted in an interview before his jailing that he stayed with the vessel to the end.

Clarence Mitchell, who is representing Costa Cruises, said: “Mr Foschi confirmed the captain had been approaching the island of Giglio to ‘make a salute’.

“The company says this (incident) was caused by an attempt by the captain to show the ship to the port.

“But there’s a criminal investigation going on and we’re not going to say anything that’s going to compromise that or the captain’s case.”

Meanwhile prosecutor Francesco Verusio slammed the captain’s alleged conduct as “inexcusable”.

“We are struck by the unscrupulousness of the reckless manoeuvre that the commander of the Costa Concordia made near the island of Giglio.”

As British survivors told of the panic on board after the ship began to list, Mr Foschi said the liner had passed all safety and technical tests in its 2011 evaluation.

The ships’ masters’ union Nautilus said vessels of the size of the Costa Concordia were “inherently unstable”.

Explaining that the ship was “ultra safe”, Mr Foschi said the captain had made an unauthorised and unapproved deviation from the ship’s programmed course.

Mr Foschi said: “This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a manoeuvre by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorised and unknown to Costa.”

He added: “Personally and on behalf of the Costa Crociere (Cruises) I want to say we are very sorry for this tragic accident that’s happened.”

Capt Schettino, who has commanded the ship since it was built in 2006, has said he is not to blame and that nautical charts did not show the rocks off the tiny island of Giglio.

Among the survivors was James Thomas, 19, from Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, a dancer who helped to direct petrified passengers off the vessel.

He said people on board “knew something was deadly wrong” when the ship began to tilt, adding that the instruction to abandon ship should have been given “an hour earlier, if not more”.

“We knew we were going to have to do something drastic to get out of the situation we were in. Even if it was ‘just in case’ it [the call to abandon ship] should have been called an hour earlier, if not more... I saw people with some horrific injuries and that is one thing which I am never going to be able to get out of my head which is the worst thing.”

At the weekend, Clonmel couple Seamus and Carol Moore arrived back in Dublin for an emotional reunion with their family.

The Moores, who had booked the cruise to celebrate Carol’s 50th birthday, said they were relieved to be home and were lucky to be alive.

The search for any survivors continued until it had to be suspended in early afternoon after the vessel shifted a few inches in rough seas.

Later, with the weather improving, the search resumed.

However, Giglio mayor Sergio Ortelli said hopes of finding any of the missing still alive were minimal, Italian press reported.

He added that the only hope was that bubbles of air had formed within the ship.

Costa Cruises are also concerned about the 500,000 gallons of fuel on board which are in 17 separate tanks.

It is feared that any further movement of the ship could cause some of it to leak into the water.