A captain abandons his post

The journalist recalls that the ship was so close to the coast that the passengers and crew could have easily swam to safety, but several conditions made it impossible: aboard the Costa Concordia, a giant 56-ton ship, with 13 decks, were many children and elderly passengers, and the accident happened during the night, and during a cold winter .

In the hours that followed, attention shifted to the ship’s captain Francesco Schettino, with questions both about why the ship was so close to land, and why he had abandoned his post before the passengers were evacuated.

He was trying to impress a Moldovan dancer.

Schettino recounted that he'd steered closer to shore to give passengers a good view and to salute others mariners, though it later emerged that he was trying to impress a Moldovan dancer with whom he was having an affair.

Eventually, the captain was found guilty of manslaughter, of causing the wreck and of deserting his post, and sentenced to 16 years in jail. The Costa Concordia was later refloated and towed to Genoa to be dismantled.

Antimo Magnotta, who was working as a pianist on the ship, told the Rome daily La Repubblica that during the night of the disaster, as he was trying his “best to calm down the passengers who were panicking,” he had waited to hear the captain’s instructions. But they “never came.” Magnotta waited five years for compensation, and says he still suffers from insomnia and post-traumatic stress. The pianist released an album three years ago called Inner Landscape, dedicated to the victims of the accident.