A SHOCKING recording has captured the moment the captain of the...

A SHOCKING recording has captured the moment the captain of the stricken Costa Concordia cruise ship refused to return to his vessel.

Rescuers release video filmed inside capsized ship, the Costa Concordia, in Italy.

17 January 2012Reuters

Captain Francesco Schettino can be heard making excuses as the Italian coast guard repeatedly ordered him to return and oversee the ship's evacuation.

Read the full transcript below

The release of the recording comes as divers pulled five more bodies out of the crippled cruise ship off Tuscany, nearly doubling the death toll to 11. All are thought to have been passengers. Twenty-four people are still missing.

Italian officials gave the breakdown as: 14 Germans, six Italians, four French, two Americans, one Hungarian, one Indian and one Peruvian.


But there was still confusion over the numbers, and the German Foreign Ministry in Berlin listed 12 Germans as confirmed missing.

The Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 people when it hit a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio when Schettino made an unauthorised deviation from the cruise ship's programmed course, apparently as a favour to his chief waiter, who hailed from the island.

Prosecutors have accused Schettino of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship before all passengers were evacuated during the grounding of the Costa Concordia cruise ship on Friday night.

Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated.

However, a new recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Captain Gregorio De Falco indicates he fled before all passengers were off - and then resisted De Falco's repeated orders to return.

"You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?" De Falco shouted in the audio tape.

Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.

De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge," De Falco shouted.

Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.

The 52-year-old Schettino, described by the Italian media as a genial, tanned ship's officer, has worked for 11 years for the ship's owner and was made captain in 2006.

Francesco Schettino, the captain of the capsized liner Costa Concordia.

Schettino hails from Meta di Sorrento, in the Naples area, which produces many of Italy's ferry and cruise boat captains. He attended the Nino Bixio merchant marine school near Sorrento.

Schettino could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.

Earlier yesterday, Italian naval divers exploded holes in the hull of the grounded cruise ship, trying to speed up the search for the missing while seas were still calm.

Navy spokesman Alessandro Busonero told Sky TV 24 the holes would help divers enter the wreck more easily.

"We are rushing against time," he said.

A Dutch shipwreck salvage firm meanwhile said it would take its engineers and divers two to four weeks to extract the 500,000 gallons of fuel aboard the ship.

The safe removal of the fuel has become a priority second only to finding the missing, as the wreckage site lies in a maritime sanctuary for dolphins, porpoises and whales.

Smit, a Rotterdam, Netherlands-based salvage company, said no fuel had leaked from any of the ship's tanks and that the tanks appeared intact.

A close-up view of the damage caused to the hull of the cruise ship Costa Concordia as it lies stricken off the shore of the island of Giglio, Italy. Picture: Getty

Here is a translated transcript of the conversation between Captain Gregorio de Falco of the Italian coastguard and Schettino:

De Falco: This is De Falco speaking from Livorno. Am I speaking with the commander?

Schettino: Yes. Good evening, Cmdr De Falco.

De Falco: Please tell me your name.

Schettino: I'm Cmdr Schettino, commander.

De Falco: Schettino? Listen Schettino. There are people trapped on board. Now you go with your boat under the prow on the starboard side. There is a pilot ladder. You will climb that ladder and go on board. You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear? I'm recording this conversation, Cmdr Schettino ...

Schettino: Commander, let me tell you one thing ...

De Falco: Speak up! Put your hand in front of the microphone and speak more loudly, is that clear?

Schettino: In this moment, the boat is tipping ...

De Falco: I understand that, listen, there are people that are coming down the pilot ladder of the prow. You go up that pilot ladder, get on that ship and tell me how many people are still on board. And what they need. Is that clear? You need to tell me if there are children, women or people in need of assistance. And tell me the exact number of each of these categories. Is that clear? Listen Schettino, that you saved yourself from the sea, but I am going to ... really do something bad to you ... I am going to make you pay for this. Go on board, (expletive)!

Schettino: Commander, please ...

De Falco: No, please. You now get up and go on board. They are telling me that on board there are still ...

Schettino: I am here with the rescue boats, I am here, I am not going anywhere, I am here ...

De Falco: What are you doing, commander?

Schettino: I am here to co-ordinate the rescue ...

De Falco: What are you co-ordinating there? Go on board! Co-ordinate the rescue from aboard the ship. Are you refusing?

Schettino: No, I am not refusing.

De Falco: Are you refusing to go aboard, commander? Can you tell me the reason why you are not going?

Schettino: I am not going because the other lifeboat is stopped.

De Falco: You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared "abandon ship". Now I am in charge. You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me? Go, and call me when you are aboard. My air rescue crew is there.

Schettino: Where are your rescuers?

De Falco: My air rescue is on the prow. Go. There are already bodies, Schettino.

Schettino: How many bodies are there?

De Falco: I don't know. I have heard of one. You are the one who has to tell me how many there are. Christ!

Schettino: But do you realise it is dark and here we can't see anything ...

De Falco: And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!

Schettino: ... I am with my second in command."

De Falco: So both of you go up then ... You and your second go on board now. Is that clear?

Schettino: Commander, I want to go on board, but it is simply that the other boat here … there are other rescuers. It has stopped and is waiting ...

De Falco: It has been an hour that you have been telling me the same thing. Now, go on board. Go on board! And then tell me immediately how many people there are there.

Schettino: OK, commander.

De Falco: Go, immediately!


http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/world/five-more-bodies-found-on-the-costa-concordia/story-e6frf7lf-1226246890282