Captain Chicken Shit

[Lord Jim]

This is one of those things that if the dialogue was in a movie or a comedy skit (I can almost hear Bob Newhart doing this as one of his phone routines, or see the Pythons acting it out) a lot of it would probably be pretty funny...

But given the fact that at least a dozen people are dead because of this cowardly moron it's just disgusting:

ROME (Reuters) - The Italian coast guard angrily ordered the captain of the capsized Italian cruise ship to go back aboard to oversee the evacuation, But he did not, according to a recording of their dramatic exchange played on national television.

The recording reflected the chaos and confusion in the minutes after the Costa Concordia, carrying more than 4,000 passengers and crew, hit a rock off the Tuscany coast Friday night and keeled over.

Captain Francesco Schettino, who had already taken to a lifeboat, can be heard talking to Gregorio De Falco, a coast guard official based in the western Italian port of Livorno.

Eleven people have been confirmed killed and 23 are still missing.

De Falco later gave an interview to a local newspaper in Livorno in which he said he could tell by the "tone of the captain's voice" that something was very wrong. Schettino's lawyer said he would not comment.

The recording is full of background noises such as radio static, beeps and background noise of people and confusion.

As translated by Reuters, the entire conversation went as follows:

Coast Guard: Hello.

Captain: Good evening, chief.

Coast Guard: Listen, this is De Falco from Livorno. Am I speaking with the captain?

Captain: Good evening, Chief De Falco.

Coast Guard: Tell me your name, please.

Captain: I am Captain Schettino, chief.

Coast Guard: Schettino?

Captain: Yes.

Coast Guard: Listen, Schettino. There are people trapped on board. Now, you go with your lifeboat. Under the bow of the ship, on the right side, there is a ladder. You climb on that ladder and go on board the ship. Go on board the ship and get back to me and tell me how many people are there. Is that clear. I am recording this conversation, Captain Schettino.

(Captain tries to speak but Coast Guard can't hear him clearly. Voices in the Coast Guard room.)

Coast Guard: Speak up! (captain tries to speak) Captain, put your hand over the microphone and speak in a louder voice!

Captain: At this moment the ship is listing.

Coast Guard: There are people who are coming down the ladder on the bow. Go back in the opposite direction, get back on the ship, and tell me how many people there are and what they have on board. Tell me if there are children, women and what type of help they need. And you tell me the number of each of these categories. Is that clear?

Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Dammit, go back on board!

(Noise can be heard in the background. Apparently other Coast Guard officers are shouting to each other in the same room about "the ship, the ship")

Captain: Please ...

Coast Guard: There is no 'please' about it. Get back on board. Assure me you are going back on board!

Captain: I'm in a lifeboat, I am under here. I am not going anywhere. I am here.

Coast Guard: What are you doing, captain?

Captain: I am here to coordinate the rescue...

Coast Guard (interrupting): What are you coordinating there! Get on board! Coordinate the rescue from on board! Are you refusing?

Captain: No, I am not refusing.

Coast Guard: Are you refusing to go aboard, captain? Tell me the reason why you are not going back on board.

Captain: (inaudible)... there is a another lifeboat...

Coast Guard (interrupting, yelling): You get back on board! That is an order! There is nothing else for you to consider. You have sounded the "Abandon Ship." Now I am giving the orders. Get back on board. Is that clear? Don't you hear me?

Captain: I am going aboard.

Coast Guard: Go! Call me immediately when you are on board. My rescue people are in front of the bow.

Captain: Where is your rescue craft?

Coast Guard: My rescue craft is at the bow. Go! There are already bodies, Schettino. Go!

Captain: How many bodies are there?

Coast Guard: I don't know! ... Christ, you should be the one telling me that!

Captain: Do you realize that it is dark and we can't see anything?

Coast Guard: So, what do you want to do, to go home, Schettino?! It's dark and you want to go home? Go to the bow of the ship where the ladder is and tell me what needs to be done, how many people there are, and what they need! Now!

Captain: My second in command is here with me.

Coast Guard: Then both of you go! Both of you! What is the name of your second in command?

Captain: His name is Dmitri (static)"

Coast Guard: What is the rest of his name? (static) You and your second in command get on board now! Is that clear?

Captain: Look, chief, I want to go aboard but the other lifeboat here has stopped and is drifting. I have called ...

Coast Guard (interrupting): You have been telling me this for an hour! Now, go aboard! Get on board, and tell me immediately how many people there are!

Captain: OK, chief.

Coast Guard: Go! Immediately!

http://news.yahoo.com/coast-guard-order ... 34509.html

[Scooter]

He is facing some serious charges, including abandoning ship and "omicidio colposo plurimo" (multiple culpable homicide), is being held without bail, and will face further charges if the ship's fuel gets dumped into the sea and creates an environmental catastrophe.

[dales]

The Capt'n In Happier Days

[Scooter]

Sorry, I was mistaken. A judge ruled today that he be released under house arrest.

[Lord Jim]

Now Dale, that's just not fair...

The Minnow had a fearless crew. The mate was a mighty sailin' man, the Skipper brave and sure. Thadeus Gumby and his Little Buddy would never have left the Millionaire and his wife, the movie star, and the rest, thrashing around on a capsized Minnow while they hot-footed it for shore....

[Liberty1]

Chicken shit is going easy

[BoSoxGal]

I can't begin to describe how sick this story has made me feel the past few days.

The Costa Concordia is very similar in size to the ship I cruised on a year or so ago and I keep imagining and visualizing the events that took place. I've read that Costa cruises didn't always run a safety drill, but from my experience on Carnival, even if they had it would not have happened yet just 2-3 hours into the cruise. It is really so very lucky that so few have died and/or remain missing.

That bastard waited AN HOUR to begin evacuation; I've heard some of the crew went forward with the evacuation without his order, even! He cleaned out the ship's safe before boarding a lifeboat! And all of this, an entirely changed course that put them in danger, so he could 'cruise by' the island and impress a friend who'd retired there. Criminally arrogant!

I don't care how long they throw him in an Italian jail - it's not long enough.

The Heils, a retired couple from Minnesota, were active in their Catholic parish on a daily basis. He gave Mass to shut-ins on a weekly basis, taught religious education to youths and adults, and was just generally involved in good works. She baked goodies for church functions and accompanied her husband on various outreach/education endeavors. They were adored in their parish and neighborhood. They'd worked hard for many years giving four children private school educations through the college level, and welcoming fifteen grandchildren into the family.

For the first time they had a little money and were going to cruise Italy, ultimately to visit Rome and see Vatican City and the Pope. They were thrilled. They are now missing (and at this point, I imagine, presumed dead).

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... uise-ship/

[dales]

Anyone here want to take a stab at a caption?

(I would, but as many know here.............. I'm somewhat humour-challanged)

[Rick]

Evidently there are now Tee Shirts

"Vada a bordo, cazzo!"

http://news.yahoo.com/italy-enthralled- ... 27443.html

"Listen Schettino, perhaps you have saved yourself from the sea but I will make you look very bad. I will make you pay for this. Go on board (Expletive!)" De Falco yelled at Schettino during a 4-minute radio exchange made public on Tuesday.

The Italian word De Falco used, "cazzo" in Italian, is slang for the male sexual organ but it is commonly used to emphasize something, equivalent to "Go on board, damn it."

The imperative phrase in Italian -- "Vada a bordo, cazzo!" -- was already on T-shirts by Wednesday morning.

[Scooter]

Just been watching Italian news on TV, the twit is now claiming that he never abandoned ship, that as he was helping passengers into the lifeboats he tripped and fell into the boat.

[BoSoxGal]

[Lord Jim]

he was helping passengers into the lifeboats he tripped and fell into the boat.

LMAO

I'm sorry, I really feel badly to be laughing about anything related to this, but that really is hilarious...

With a willingness to lie that shamelessly, the man clearly has a promising career ahead of him in politics...

I heard on one of the news channels that the NY Post has given him the nickname Chicken Of The Sea....

[rubato]

he was helping passengers into the lifeboats he tripped and fell into the boat.

LMAO

I'm sorry, I really feel badly to be laughing about anything related to this, but that really is hilarious...

With a willingness to lie that shamelessly, the man clearly has a promising career ahead of him in politics...

I heard on one of the news channels that the NY Post has given him the nickname Chicken Of The Sea....

Irony leaps off the meter for those who have actually read "Lord Jim" by Joseph Conrad.

The person calling himself LJ has never given evidence that he has read anything of any literary merit.


yrs,
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

What's your point, rubato?

eta: Before you step in the muck too far, please know that I did a graduate level critical study of Lord Jim. I don't see what expectation you have in making the above post.

[Scooter]

Oh FFS

A 25-year-old Moldovan dancer not on the passenger list says she was on the bridge of the doomed Costa Concordia when it smacked into rocks near a Tuscan island.

Domnica Cemortan told Romanian TV: “I was with (Capt. Francesco) Schettino. I saw that the captain lost his temper. There were two hours of hell.

She told the Romanian newspaper Adevarul: “He saved many lives.”

Cemortan was on the cruise liner, where she had worked previously, as a birthday present, she said.

[Lord Jim]

Oh, Christ on a crutch...

From Scooter's link:

Schettino has admitted to an Italian judge that he miscalculated when steering the ship close to the island of Giglio to perform a sail-past salute to people onshore, a manoeuvre he said he’d done “three or four” times previously.

“I’m a victim of my own kindness” he said to the judge, according to the newspaper Corriere della Sera.

Schettino is under house arrest at his home in Meta near Naples. He could face charges of manslaughter and of abandoning ship.

Why yes, of course, it's obvious who the real victim is here....



I've read that the prosecutors are appealing the decision to allow Chicken Of the Sea to continue to enjoy house arrest...

I really hope they're successful; this guy belongs in the coldest, dankest cell they can find....

[Lord Jim]

Here's a little more detail on COTS' account of his pratfall into the lifeboat:

The captain of the Italian cruise ship gave a slapstick explanation of how he ended up safely in a lifeboat instead of going down with his ship, saying he tripped and fell into the boat as it was being lowered into the sea, Italian media reported today.

"I had no intention of escaping," Francesco Schettino, 52, said during his first court hearing Tuesday, according to Italy's Corriere della Sera newspaper.

"I was helping some passengers put the life boat to sea. At a certain point the mechanism for lowering it, blocked. We had to force it. Suddenly the system unblocked itself and I tripped and I found myself inside the life boat with a number of passengers."

Once in the lifeboat that was lowered into the sea, Schettino insisted to the court that it was "impossible to go back onboard."

The captain also reportedly admitted to the court that he lied at one point when he assured officials that he had dropped anchor shortly after the Costa Concordia slammed into a rock to stabilize the luxury liner.

http://news.yahoo.com/cruise-captain-sa ... -news.html

[Lord Jim]

Just in case you weren't sufficiently angry and disgusted with this callous, self-pitying moron:

Cruise ship's cook says captain ordered dinner after crash

By the CNN Wire Staff
updated 5:43 PM EST, Thu January 19, 2012

(CNN) -- The captain of the Costa Concordia ordered dinner for himself and a woman after the ship struck rocks off Italy's coast, a cook from the ship told a Filipino television station.

In an interview with GMA Network, cook Rogelio Barista said Capt. Francesco Schettino ordered dinner less than an hour after the accident.

"We wondered what was going on. ... At that time, we really felt something was wrong. ... The stuff in the kitchen was falling off shelves and we realized how grave the situation was," Barista told GMA.

Schettino ordered dinner around 10:30 p.m. Friday, Barista said. Authorities say the ship struck the rocks at 9:41 p.m.

"I have had 12 years of experience as a cook on a cruise ship. ... I have even witnessed fires, so I wasn't that scared," Barista said. "But I did wonder, though, what the captain was doing ... why was he still there."

The ship hit rocks off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio on Friday night.

At least 11 people are known to have died in the disaster, and 21 are still missing, according to the Italian Crisis Unit.

Criticism from both Costa Cruises and the authorities has focused so far on Schettino, who is under house arrest and facing possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.

Coast guard records published Thursday by an Italian newspaper pile further pressure on the captain of the Concordia and his officers, suggesting that the authorities first became aware of the crash from a friend of the mother of a passenger about 15 minutes after the ship hit rocks.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/19/world/eur ... index.html

[dales]

The hubris of this cretin!

[BoSoxGal]

Too soon?