Costa Concordia cruise liner's company blames captain for disaster.

The Telegraph - The chairman and CEO of Costa Cruises on Monday blamed "human error" by the captain of the capsized cruise ship that ran aground off Italy's west coast for the accident.

"The company will be close to the captain and will provide him with all the necessary assistance, but we need to acknowledge the facts and we cannot deny human error," Pier Luigi Foschi told reporters at a press conference in Genoa.

Costa Crociere had earlier said "preliminary indications" suggested Captain Francesco Schettino may have been guilty of "significant human error" which resulted in the Costa Concordia running aground, sparking a frantic evacuation operation.

The ship's Italian owner, a subsidiary of Carnival Cruise lines, said: "We are working with investigators to find out precisely what went wrong aboard the Costa Concordia.

"While the investigation is ongoing, preliminary indications are that there may have been significant human error on the part of the ship's Master, Captain Francesco Schettino, which resulted in these grave consequences.

"The route of the vessel appears to have been too close to the shore, and the captain's judgment in handling the emergency appears to have not followed standard Costa procedures."

Italian prosecutors claim Captain Francesco Schettino, 52, had approached the island's coastline in a "carelessly clumsy manner" in the moments before a catastrophic collision with an underwater rock formation that caused the ship to list violently and eventually capsize.

Defence Minister Giampaolo Di Paola, a naval admiral, said the disaster did not appear to have been caused by natural or technical factors.

"In my estimation there was a serious human error, which had dramatic and tragic consequences," he told RAI state television.

The death toll from Friday night's disaster, one of the worst in the cruise industry's recent history, rose to six today after rescuers discovered three more victims, including the bodies of two elderly men wearing life vests inside the vessel. A further 15 people remained missing.

On Sunday, the ship's Italian crew services manager, Manrico Giampetroni, was winched from the wreck by a helicopter after being trapped for 36 hours. A honeymoon couple were found alive and well in a cabin late on Saturday.

Prosecutors believe Mr Schettino had been intending to perform the nautical equivalent of a fly-by past the island's main port when the accident happened. It had apparently become a long-standing practice for the Costa Concordia to sail close to the island in order to greet its inhabitants with a siren from the ship.

The tradition appears to have begun when the wife of a former senior officer lived on the island and he would take the ship close to Giglio to greet her. There were reports last night that the vessel's current officers had a friend ashore, from the Italian merchant navy, that they wanted to salute in a similar manner.

As the ship approached the port from the south, it sailed too close to the coastline and struck a rocky reef, known to locals as "Le Scole", a few hundred yards out. Islanders said they had never seen the ship try to pass so close before. Ships usually pass by up to five miles away.

A 160ft gash was torn in the £370 million ship's hull, causing it to take on large quantities of water in minutes and list violently. The 4,200 passengers and crew were told to abandon ship.

Franco Verusio, the procurator of Grosseto who is leading the investigation, said: "Schettino approached the island of Giglio in a carelessly clumsy manner. The ship hit a reef which embedded itself in the left flank, the ship listed and took on lots of water in the space of two or three minutes. Captain Schettino was in command at that point. "He was the one who ordered that course to be taken, at least according to what we have discovered. There was someone in particular that wanted to be signalled from the ship."

Mr Schettino, who is being questioned on suspicion of multiple manslaughter, claimed yesterday that the reef had not appeared on the nautical charts and had not been picked up by the ship's navigation systems. "We should have had deep water beneath us," he said. "We were about 300 metres [1,000ft] from the rocks more or less."

Prosecutors also accused Mr Schettino of abandoning his ship "well before" the last of his passengers, a criminal offence that can carry a sentence of up to 12 years in jail. The captain denied this, insisting he was the last to leave.

The Concordia capsized after the captain tried to turn around and head into the island’s port in an apparent attempt to make it easier to evacuate.

Survivors, including 23 British passengers and 12 British crew members, claimed the evacuation effort was “chaos”. Mr Schettino’s lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, said his client’s manoeuvre had saved the lives of “several hundred people”. The rescue of the Korean honeymoon couple and Mr Giampetroni, who had a broken leg, gave hope to divers searching thousands of cabins for the missing. The ship’s “black box” navigation system is being examined — with officials saying that the vessel was up to four miles off course.

Pier Luigi Foschi, chairman and chief executive of Costa Crociere, will today face the media for the first time at two press conferences in Genoa, as Italian prosecutors continue to question Capt Schettino in custody.

He is reportedly being held on suspicion of multiple manslaughter and abandoning ship.