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COSTA CONCORDIA DISASTER

SHIPWRECK

Anger over captain’s book dedication

Francesco Schettino, ex-captain of the Costa Concordia, has dedicated his new book, Le Verità Sommerse (The Sunken Truths) to the families of the shipwreck's 32 victims.

Anger over captain's book dedication
Francesco Schettino on trial in 2015. Photo: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP

Schettino's 600-page tome has not yet been released but the dedication has angered families of the victims, who see it as very poor taste. In the dedication Schettino wrote that the victims' relatives “are owed the truth more than anything else.”

Schettino was condemned to 16 years in prison for his part in the Costa Concordia disaster in a first instance trial (Italy has three levels of justice). The disgraced ex-captain was found guilty of culpable homicide and abandoning ship.

Controversy surrounded the captain all the way through the trial, with suggestions being made that at the time of the incident the captain had left the bridge and was with a Moldavian dancer on the cruise liner.

But the new book – written with Rai journalist Vittoriana Abbate, for whom it is thought the disgraced captain left his wife in 2013, attempts to set the record straight.

The book is the captain's own account of what happened on the fateful day of the disaster and seeks to shed light on the technical faults which he believes were to blame.

In the book, Schettino makes use of black box recordings and witness testimony to argue that the ship's generator was faulty and questions whether or not there was something wrong with the ship's water-tight doors, La Repubblica reported.

The tragic shipwreck occurred on the evening of January 13th 2012 when the Mediterranean cruise ship hit a rock 500m from the port of Isola del Giglio, Tuscany. Following the crash, the ship keeled over onto its right hand side, causing the death of 32 of the ship's 4,252 passengers.

The wreckage of the Concordia was salvaged in May 2015 and taken to the port of Genoa to be dismantled. 

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