Concordia captain: ‘I did not jump ship’

Footage purportedly shows him trying to flee before passengers

Prosecutors have presented footage purportedly showing captain Francesco Schettino boarding a lifeboat before passengers of the Costa Concordia.

Schettino, accused by survivors, politicians and the media of dereliction of duty after the 2012 shipwreck of the Costa Concordia cruise liner under his command killed 32, has claimed that he accidentally fell into a lifeboat — but the newly-released video shows him exiting the sinking ship with passengers still on board.

Schettino told a trial into the January 2012 disaster that only God was above him when he was at the helm of a ship.

Schettino said he purposefully delayed an order to evacuate the Concordia as he feared people would “dive into the sea” in panic.

“I wanted to get the ship as close to the island as possible,” Schettino told a Grosseto court on his second day of cross examination.

However, several experts have said lives could have been saved had the order to abandon ship been given sooner. Grosseto prosecutor Francesco Verusio is seeking a 20-year prison sentence.

The testimony had a theatrical flair, with Schettino hunched over a table on a stage, at times studying a photo of the ship’s radar, while prosecutors in the front row of the auditorium played bit-by-bit audio segments from the ship’s bridge the night of January 13, 2012, when the cruise liner hit rocks off the Tuscan island of Giglio, tearing a huge gash in the hull.

Some 4,200 people from 70 countries fled the ship as it listed.

He denies abandoning ship, saying he was thrown in the water as the ship rolled on its side.

The exchange that has most defined his image is a recording of a port official in colourful, angry language ordering him back on board to oversee the evacuation of passengers.

During his testimony, Schettino said he allowed the approach to Giglio “to kill three birds with one stone” — pay homage to a retired commander living there, who it turned out was on the mainland; do a favour for the maître d’, who was from Giglio; and for marketing reasons.

Prosecutors, however, contested Schettino’s notion that sailing close to the island was good for the cruise company, noting that passengers had not been advised and that had they looked out that night they would have only seen the island as a shadow in the dark.

Schettino denied a more salacious motive: taking the route near Giglio to impress a Moldovan dancer he had brought to the bridge. The woman has testified the two were lovers.

Schettino’s defence says no one died in the collision itself, but the failure of a backup generator and supposedly watertight compartments that were flooded created problems during the evacuation. The trial is expected to continue into the new year.