Cruise captain sparks outrage among mariners

STOCKHOLM - Seafaring tradition holds that the captain should be last to leave a sinking ship. But is it realistic to expect skippers — only human after all — to suppress their survival instinct amid the horror of a maritime disaster? To ask them to stare down death from the bridge, as the lights go out and the water rises, until everyone else has made it to safety?

From mariners on ships plying the world's oceans, the answer is loud and clear: Aye.

"It's a matter of honor that the master is the last to leave. Nothing less will do in this profession," said Jorgen Loren, captain of a passenger ferry operating between Sweden and Denmark and chairman of the Swedish Maritime Officer's Association.

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Seamen have expressed almost universal outrage at Capt. Francesco Schettino, accused of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and of abandoning his crippled cruise ship off Tuscany while passengers were still on board. The last charge carries a potential sentence of 12 years in prison.

Jim Staples, a captain for 20 years, who spoke Wednesday from a 1,000-foot cargo vessel he was captaining near New Orleans, said captains are duty-bound to stay with the ship until the situation is hopeless. When they bail early, everything falls apart.

"I'm totally embarrassed by what he did," he said of Schettino. "He's given the industry a bad name, he's made us all look bad. It's shameful."

Report: Captain claims he "tripped" into lifeboat

Schettino should have remained on board "until the last passenger is accounted for," said Abelardo Pacheco, a Filipino captain who was held hostage for five months in Somalia and now heads a seafarers' training center in Manila.

"That is the responsibility of the captain, that's why all privileges are given to him but he has together with that an equal burden of responsibility," Pacheco said.

The Costa Concordia, carrying more than 4,200 passengers and crew, slammed into a reef on Friday, after Schettino made an unauthorized maneuver. A recording of his conversation with the Italian Coast Guard suggests he fled before all passengers were off, and resisted repeated orders to go back, saying the ship was tipping and it was dark. Schettino reportedly said he ended up in a life raft after he tripped and fell into the water.

Coast Guard to capt.: "Go back on board!"

He is being held in house arrest as prosecutors prepare criminal charges.

Even if he's not convicted, it is highly unlikely that he'll ever command a cruise or cargo ship again because of the damage to his reputation, said Prof. Craig Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

"Some people panic, but a short time later they collect their senses and do the right thing," Allen said. "In this case there was more than enough time for the moment of panic to pass. It was abject cowardice."

Maritime experts said the tradition of a captain standing by his ship isn't established in international maritime law. Some countries, like Italy, have included it in national laws.

Others respect it as "an unwritten rule or law of the sea," said Capt. Bill Wright, senior vice president of Marine Operations for the Royal Caribbean International cruise line.

Both literature and real life offer plenty of examples of shipmasters who paid the ultimate sacrifice to protect their passengers and crew.

The most famous, perhaps, is the captain of the Titanic, E.J. Smith, who evacuated the ship — women and children first — until there were no lifeboats left, and then perished with it.

A more recent example is Robert Royer, the captain of a fishing vessel that sank off Alaska in 2010. As water gushed into the ship and the three other crew members jumped overboard, Royer stayed in the wheelhouse to make a frantic mayday call and give the ship's position to the Coast Guard. The crew said that likely saved their lives, because the ship's emergency beacon didn't work.

After more than three hours in the water, they were rescued by a Coast Guard helicopter. Royer, however, died after suffering a head injury when he finally left the ship.

Maritime experts say such manifestations of courage at sea far outnumber incidents in which captains saved themselves and left their passengers behind.

Those who did earned instant infamy, like the captain of the Greek luxury liner Oceanos, which sank in rough seas off South Africa in 1991.

The 402 passengers and 179 crew members all survived, but Captain Yiannis Avranas and other officers left the ship while some passengers were still on board.

A magician who had been performing on the ship took over the bridge, monitoring rescue calls, as a fellow entertainer kept passengers calm by playing Beatles songs on his guitar. Avranas at the time defended his actions, saying he left the ship to direct rescue operations.

"When I order abandon ship, it doesn't matter what time I leave," Avranas said. "Abandon is for everybody. If some people like to stay, they can stay."

In 1965, the captain and several other crew members were among the first to abandon ship after the Yarmouth Castle caught fire and started sinking off the Bahamas, killing 90. Fleeing in a lifeboat, they were told by the captain of a rescue ship to go back and help their passengers.

Captains accused of leaving prematurely often claim they can manage the situation better from the safety of a lifeboat, rescue vessel or on shore.

Allen dismissed that idea, saying the captain's knowledge of his ship is crucial in an emergency.

"Shoreside rescue people can do all the shoreside coordination efforts needed," he said. "You need someone on the ship to communicate with them, to command the people who are on the ship, to help get the passengers off and to guide the rescuers."

Rear Adm. Richard Gurnon, president of the Massachusetts Maritime Academy called Schettino's actions "abhorrent" and a violation of an unwritten code.

"It isn't just a maritime code, it's a code of leadership," Gurnon said. "If you are leader, you have responsibility for your people, they put their lives in your hands."

Steen Brodersen, a retired Danish captain, said that every single crew member, from the chief mate to the cooks, has a designated role in an emergency on a cruise ship. Regular drills ensure everyone knows what to do.

The captain must first ensure the safety of his passengers, then of his crew and, finally, of the ship, though the notion that he's supposed to go down with it is more legend than fact.

Brodersen, 60, said he never had to deal with that kind of situation, but he has sometimes thought about his own limit, when his survival instinct would trump the hope of salvaging a doomed ship.

"There must be a point at which I would think that now it is time to jump into the water so I don't die," he said. "But that would come after the ship has been evacuated," he added. "It is my responsibility. I am the captain."