COMMENTARY | I suppose the old maritime tradition of going down with the ship simply doesn't apply anymore. About 20 years ago, we had Capt. Joseph Hazelwood intoxicated at the helm of the Exxon Valdez. I don't think since then we have had as blatant disregard for safety as we have with Costa Concordia Capt. Francesco Schettino.
In what some see as an every man for himself society you could almost always be assured of one thing. If you are on a boat and something went wrong, the captain would be there trying to right what happened. Not Schettino. According to Fox News, an Italian Coast Guard officer was berating him for resisting to return to his sinking ship.
When he signed up to be at the helm of a cruise ship, he knew full well what the responsibility entailed. Being in charge of the safety of his passengers and crew. But at the first sign of trouble he jumped like a rat fleeing the Titanic. According to CNN, 11 people are confirmed dead as of Tuesday morning. Eleven people that aren't going back to their families because of a man wanting to shirk his responsibility when it was needed the most.
The Telegraph is reporting Schettino is facing manslaughter among a slew of other charges. As a former sailor, it's quite difficult for me to imagine the captain of any naval vessel leaving before some of the passengers. The man had a duty if anything went wrong to make sure people didn't get hurt.
To make matters worse, we have all surely heard the statements from passengers on how haphazard the evacuation of the ship was. Perhaps if he would have simply stayed on the boat he was responsible for, people would be touting him as a hero for trying to save lives. Instead, he's going to be forever looked at as a coward that curled up into a ball at the first sign of trouble.
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