The captain of the cruise ship that sank off Italy's coast, leaving some 39 people dead or missing, was ordered to return aboard from a lifeboat to oversee his ship's evacuation, according to transcripts of phone conversations that emerged Tuesday.
Police scuba divers at the Costa Concordia on Tuesday. Five more bodies were found, bringing the official toll to 11 dead and 28 missing.
Italian investigators were also looking Tuesday into whether the captain veered from course because he wanted to blast his ship's fog horn in a salute to a soon-to-retire crewman's family members, who were waiting in the port of Giglio, an island off the Tuscan coast.
Italian authorities pulled five bodies from the Costa Concordia on Tuesday, bringing the toll to at least 11 dead and 28 missing. Italian television, meanwhile, broadcast recordings documenting the ship commander's struggle to cope with the listing ship and its aftermath.
The recordings portrayed telephone conversations in which a coast guard commander upbraided Captain Francesco Schettino for abandoning the ship while passengers remained unaccounted for. The coast guard confirmed the tapes' authenticity.
Five more bodies were pulled from the shipwrecked Costa Concordia as Italy's airwaves were filled with audio recordings of the ship commander's struggle to cope with the listing ship and its aftermath. Stacy Meichtry has the latest on Lunch Break.
In several often-confused conversations, the captain maintains he is near the ship, in a lifeboat, but is blocked from returning by another boat.
"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses," the coast guard commander says. "You have declared abandon ship. Now I am in charge. You go on board! Is that clear? Do you hear me? Go!"
The captain's behavior is at the center of two probes, one led by Italian coast guard and one by Italian prosecutors, who are investigating in part whether Mr. Schettino's conduct after the shipwreck fomented a disorderly evacuation.
On Tuesday, the 52-year-old skipper was placed under house arrest by Judge Valeria Montesarchio, in Grosseto, Tuscany, on preliminary charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship with passengers aboard.
The Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino tells magistrates his version of the ship incident, while the prosecution asks the judge to validate his arrest and imprisonment. He denies all wrongdoing. (Video: Reuters / Photo: AP)
Before his arrest, Mr. Schettino had said the ship struck an uncharted rock and that he was the "last to abandon ship" before he was detained by police, a position that his lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, reiterated on Tuesday.
An Italian official close to one of the investigations described one scenario being probed in an attempt to determine what motivated Mr. Schettino to steer so close to Giglio's shore on Friday night. With more than 4,000 passengers and crew aboard the Costa Concordia, Mr. Schettino may have steered toward Giglio to deliver a horn blast to family of the vessel's soon-to-retire head waiter, the official said. The official didn't outline other scenarios under investigation.
On Giglio, the head waiter's parents knew to listen for the foghorn, local newspaper Il Tirreno reported, saying that the head waiter had placed a call to his father earlier Friday, telling him to look for the ship at 9:30 p.m.
Telephone calls placed to a number listed for the waiter's parents went unanswered.
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When Mr. Schettino departed earlier Friday from the port of Civitavecchia, near Rome—carrying 3,216 passengers and just over 1,000 crew members—he was a captain in good standing. Over the years, he had undergone "continuous" training to keep his navigational skills sharp, said Costa Crociere, a unit of Carnival Corp.
About two hours into the trip, he set a course that brought the ship to within 200 yards of Giglio's rocky coast, Italian officials said. That required him to override the route that had been programmed into his ship's navigation system, according to Costa Crociere.
Inside the port, word had spread that the captain was planning a homage. Townspeople gathered along its docks waiting for the horn to sound, local officials said.
The horn didn't sound.
Upon making its approach to Giglio's tiny port, the Costa Concordia hit a rock that sent water gushing into its hull as the ship silently glided past the port. The captain made emergency maneuvers to save the ship and the thousands of people on it, according to Mr. Schettino's attorney and the coast guard. Mr. Schettino dropped anchors on one side of the ship, forcing the massive vessel to make an abrupt 180-degree turn that brought it to rest on a shoal. Jolted passengers called the police.
Video shot by passengers on board the Costa Concordia captures the evacuation process from the huge vessel. Passengers scramble to escape the cruise ship moments after it hit a rock off Italy's west coast. (Video: Reuters / Photo: AP)
The Italian coast guard command center on the mainland contacted the ship and was told there was a "technical problem" but that the situation on board was "positive."
A spell of radio silence followed. The coast guard sent helicopters and rescue boats toward the ship. Hours into the rescue operation, coast guard commander Gregorio De Falco reached Mr. Schettino by phone. The commander, assuming Mr. Schettino was still aboard the ship, yelled into the line, grilling him for details on the evacuation, including the number of passengers still aboard.
Mr. Schettino replied that about 100 people were still aboard, adding that he and his deputies could no longer board the Costa Concordia because it had "nearly sunk."
"We abandoned the ship," Mr. Schettino said.
"With a hundred people aboard you abandoned the ship!" Cmdr. De Falco responded.
"I didn't abandon any ship. It's that the ship disbanded and we were catapulted into the water," Mr. Schettino responded.
As the ship began to list to starboard, scores of passengers scrambled to the other side and began to clamber down its upturned hull using a rope ladder. Cmdr. De Falco called Mr. Schettino again, demanding that he inventory the number of women and children still on board, and saying coast guard rescuers had already reached the vessel.
"Where are your rescuers?" Mr. Schettino said.
"My air rescue is on the prow. Go. There are already bodies, Schettino!"
"How many bodies are there?" Mr. Schettino asked.
"I don't know. I've heard of one. You are the one who has to tell me how many there are! Christ!" the commander said.
It wasn't clear whether Mr. Schettino returned to the ship. On Saturday morning he turned up at the Hotel Bahamas in Giglio, drank an espresso and changed his clothes, according to a hotel employee who was on duty at the time. Only one item set the captain apart from other people mulling about the hotel reception: He had wet socks.
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