Italian divers have ended their search on the wreck of the Costa Concordia, in which 32 people are feared to have died.

"We have definitively stopped the underwater search inside the ship," said Luca Cari, fire brigade spokesman on the island of Giglio, explaining that conditions inside the giant half-submerged liner were becoming too risky.

"The conditions are no longer acceptable," he said.

The civil protection agency, which has been overseeing rescue efforts following the 13 January disaster, said in a statement it had contacted the families of the missing and foreign embassies involved to explain its decision.

It added that rescuers would continue to inspect the above-water part of the liner and use specialist equipment to check for bodies on the sea bed around the wreck.

The 114,500-tonne Costa Concordia with more than 4,200 people aboard ran aground on rocks off Giglio and rolled on to its side as passengers were settling down to dinner shortly after the start of a Mediterranean cruise.

Divers have recovered 17 bodies from the sea and the wreck and 15 people remain missing.

The search has had to be suspended several times due to choppy seas and small movements of the wreck, which led to concerns that the massive ship could slip off the rocky shelf it is resting on and sink entirely.

Divers have described tricky conditions inside the ship, with corridors cluttered with furniture and dirty water. Divers have been limited to a maximum of 50 minutes, making it difficult to penetrate far into the vessel.

A spokeswoman for the civil protection agency said the last unidentified body was "very probably" that of a German woman, but added that the formal identification had not yet been made.

Meanwhile, Pier Luigi Foschi, the chief executive of operator Costa Crociere, part of US-based giant Carnival Corp, told a Senate committee hearing that fuel pumping from the ship would start within the next 24 hours.

"We believe that the wreck can no longer be put in use," he said of the ship, which cost €450m to build and was launched in 2006.

Environmentalists fear that the 2,380 tons of heavy fuel oil in the Costa Concordia's tanks could begin leaking out into the area's pristine waters.

"The first operation will be to empty the ship, the second to clean up the wreck and the third to move the ship, which will be a truly enormous operation that has never been done before," Mr Foschi told senators.

Island residents concerned about the impact on tourism have called for the ship to be removed quickly and have launched a protest after the civil protection agency said it would take up to a year.

Captain Francesco Schettino and first officer Ciro Ambrosio are accused of manslaughter and abandoning ship.

Fabiola Russo defended her husband as the death toll from the disaster rose to 16 more than 10 days after the luxury liner smashed into the Tuscan island of Giglio. At least 17 passengers and crew were still unaccounted for.

Ms Russo, 48, said her husband, Capt Francesco Schettino, 52, had been unfairly made a scapegoat for the debacle, which forced the chaotic night-time evacuation of the ship's 4,200 passengers and crew.

The commander, who has been branded "Captain Coward" by the Italian press, is under house arrest at the home he shares with his wife and 17-year-old daughter in Meta di Sorrento near Naples.

"My husband is at the centre of an unprecedented global media storm," Ms Rossi told Oggi (Today), an Italian weekly magazine.

"I cannot think of any other naval or air tragedy in which the responsible party was treated with such violence ... This is a manhunt, people are looking for a scapegoat, a monster. It's shameful."

However, she admitted Capt Schettino had once been fined for steering too close to the coast in the past.

"Our shared passion is canoeing – to paddle together you have to be in symphony, which is what Francesco and I are," she said. "But we got fined once, because we took a little motorboat too close to the coast."

She said her husband had been unfairly branded a coward after it emerged that he took to a life boat during the drama, leaving hundreds of terrified passengers and crew members still aboard the stricken liner.

Audio recordings emerged in which a furious Coast Guard official ordered him to "get back on board, for ----'s sake" and take command of the situation – an order he apparently ignored.

But his wife claimed he was "determined, firm and lucid. He is able to analyse situations, to understand and manage them".

Capt Schettino was regarded as "a maestro" by his crew, his wife said.

Meanwhile the chief prosecutor overseeing the investigation said failings in safety procedures meant that Genoa-based Costa Cruises should also be investigated.

Beniamino Deidda, the chief prosecutor of Tuscany, pointed to "life boats that could not be lowered, crew that did not know what to do, inadequate preparation for emergencies and absurd orders such as the one for passengers to return to their cabins.

"For now, attention is concentrated on the fault of the captain, who showed himself to be tragically inadequate. But who chose the captain? Not all the shortcomings in safety procedures can be blamed on the captain's conduct."

The operation to remove half a million gallons of oil and diesel out of the crippled ship finally got under way, with a barge loaded with drills and pipes mooring alongside the Concordia.

Divers will spend the first part of the operation inspecting the hull, with the removal of the fuel expected to start on Satu and to take at least a month.

As Italian navy divers blasted more holes in the hull to aid the continuing search for bodies, chairs, tables and passengers' luggage floated out into the sea – just some of the tens of thousands of objects trapped inside the huge vessel.

THE captain of the stricken Costa Concordia liner told a friend shortly after the disaster that he sailed too close to shore because a manager from the cruise company pressured him to do so, Italian media reported.

Francesco Schettino told a friend he was following the advice of a manager about what route to take, saying "pass through there, pass through there,'' media reported, quoting a recording of the call police secretly made the day after the January 13 shipwreck that killed at least 16 people.

"In my place, another would not have been so ready to pass there, but they got to me with their 'Pass through there, pass through there','' Schettino said.

"The rocks were there, but the instruments I had weren't showing them, so I went through,'' he said.

Schettino then reportedly said he thought he was about 450 metres (0.28 nautical miles) away, but the ship hit a rock.

"So, here we are and it's me who's paying for everything,'' he said.

The luxury line capsized off the tiny Tuscan island of Giglio with more than 4000 people on board. Sixteen people are still unaccounted for.

Schettino and first officer Ciro Ambrosio so far are the only two from the ship to face charges, including negligent homicide.

Schettino has been under house arrest since January 17.

The tragic sinking of the Costa Concordia cruise ship last week is leaving a line of worried passengers in its wake. Betty Westbrook is among them. The retiree from Allen, Texas, called me hours after the ship sank off the Italian coast, hoping that I could help her. "What are my chances for a refund?" she asked

Westbrook believes that had she been aboard the cruise liner, she might have been a casualty. "I'm 82, and I couldn't have made it off the ship without help," she says. Reading about the Concordia crew's alleged unpreparedness for disaster has made her nervous about her February cruise to the Bahamas on the Carnival Magic.

The Concordia went down Jan. 13 after running aground near the island of Giglio. The death toll today stands at 15. The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, is reported to have maneuvered the ship too close to a fishing village. He was arrested following the disaster and is currently facing criminal charges for abandoning ship and manslaughter.

Costa Cruises is owned by Miami-based Carnival, the world's largest cruise line operator, and not surprisingly, some passengers are now having second thoughts about their floating vacation. A nonscientific online survey conducted soon after the disaster by the opinion website SodaHead.com found that one-quarter of those polled were "less likely" to book a cruise after the Costa disaster.

Westbrook told me that when she heard about Carnival's handling of the Concordia sinking, she phoned her travel agency immediately to find out whether she could cancel her cruise.

The answer to her question is: No refunds -- at least not for her.

"We're not making any changes to our refund policy," said Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen. If she canceled, Westbrook would lose her deposit or 75 percent of the total cruise fare, whichever is greater. (Unfortunately, Carnival's refund policy is similar to that of most other major cruise lines.)

Costa, however, is offering passengers scheduled to sail on the Concordia through Feb. 25 their money back and a 30 percent cruise credit.

Meanwhile, the cruise line says it is covering the costs of lodging and return transportation for the Concordia's survivors, as well as offering counseling to the passengers and their families "as needed." It is also refunding all voyage costs, including onboard expenses.

In a statement issued just after the incident, Costa and its corporate parent sought to assure passengers such as Westbrook that its vessels are safe. "Costa is committed to ensuring that no such incident ever occurs again," it said. "Our number-one priority is always the safety and security of our guests and crew, and we comply with all safety regulations."

But passengers have some cause for concern, particularly when it comes to Costa, says Miami-based maritime lawyer Jim Walker. "In the last two years, Costa has had three significant incidents where crew members have been killed and passengers have been injured," he says.

On Feb. 26, 2010, the Costa Europa rammed into a pier in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, as it was trying to dock in rough weather. Three crew members were killed and one was injured, along with three passengers. And on Oct. 18, 2010, the Costa Classica collided with a Belgian cargo ship near China's Yangtze River, injuring several passengers.

Costa's safety record isn't the only thing that should frighten passengers, say Walker and other legal experts. Also worrisome are the flimsy legal rights passengers have when they book a cruise, outlined in a legal document known as the ticket contract, which is available on the cruise line's website and is normally included with your ticket.

For passengers with future cruise plans, the contract delivers some bad news: If you want a refund, and you're within two weeks of departing on a European cruise, you're out of luck. (If it's anywhere between 44 and 15 days until your vacation, you can get half your money back.)

The contract is equally restrictive as it applies to the Concordia's survivors. The fine print limits the cruise line's liability to about $71,000 per passenger, requires that any claim against the company be filed within a year, restricts the filing venue to a court in Genoa,Italy, and applies Italian law to resolving the dispute.

For cruises from U.S. ports, Costa's contract limits the venue for filing lawsuits to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, effectively turning any lawsuit into a costly federal case. Other ticket language prevents smaller complaints from being brought together as class actions, further limiting passengers' access to justice, say legal experts.

Cruise line claims adjusters often send a series of letters to injured survivors, asking for more information. The time required for correspondence and documentation runs down the clock on any claims, according to David Deehl, an adjunct law professor at the University of Miami and the vice chairman of the American Bar Association's Admiralty and Maritime Law Committee.

"They're appearing to want to settle, asking for more and more information," he says. In fact, they're usually intent on paying the least they can under the law.

One place where cruise lines move quickly is in shoring up their own defense, Deehl notes. "They have their own civil defense lawyers who are often flown right to the ship to interview crew and passengers immediately, locking in their defense theories with sworn testimony," he told me.

If you're considering a cruise vacation, experts suggest reviewing the ticket contract before booking to know what rights you have. If you're uncomfortable with the terms, they recommend sticking to a land-based vacation.

Travel insurance might help the Concordia's survivors recover some of their lost property and pay for the expense of their interrupted vacation. But only the most expensive policy, known as "cancel for any reason" insurance, would have allowed a passenger such as Westbrook to get a refund. (And read the policy carefully -- some "cancel for any reason" policies offer only a percentage of your money back.)

Westbrook says her friends have advised her to stop worrying. After all, her vacation is taking place half a world away and on a different cruise line, even if it's owned by the same company. But she says it's difficult, although "it looks like I don't have much of a choice."

(Christopher Elliott is the author of "Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals" (Wiley). He's also the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and the co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for travelers. Read more tips on his blog, elliott.org or e-mail him at chris@elliott.org. Christopher Elliott receives a great deal of reader mail, and though he answers them as quickly as possible, your story may not be published for several months because of a backlog of cases.)

It's too bad the survivors had to wait until the Concordia sank before they discovered that, given stringent, industry-wide cruise line policies, they have few rights of legal redress. And too bad it took a maritime disaster of this magnitude to reveal to other cruise passengers that they have virtually the same problem, no matter where they're sailing or what cruise line they choose.

The latest victim of the Costa Concordia cruise ship disaster died much like the 12th victim found on Saturday, the USA Today reported.

Both women were found wearing lifejackets near an evacuation area of the cruise ship that ran aground off the coast of Italy on Jan. 13.

With a 13th victim found today, previous reports would suggest the missing now numbers 19; however, the discovery comes as reports surfaced saying unregistered passengers may have been on aboard.

"There could have been X persons who we don't know about who were inside, who were clandestine," said Franco Gabrielli, the national civil protection official leading the recovery, USA Today said.

According to CBS News, a Hungarian woman’s relatives approached authorities saying she called them from on board the ship, and she is still missing. That woman’s name didn’t appear on manifests, Gabrielli said.

Victim’s families also met today with Pierluigi Foschi, CEO of the ship’s operator, Costa Crociere.

"He came to see the families, all families,” said Alain Le Roy, the French ambassador to Italy. “He met the French family. He met the American family. I am sure he is meeting other families, mostly to express his compassion ... to say that Costa will do everything possible to find the people, to compensate families in any way."

The ship, carrying 4,200 people, collided with a reef that tore a hole in its hull and forced it on its side. Capt. Francesco Schettino is under house arrest facing charges of manslaughter, abandoning ship and making an un-authorized course change.

Did Captain Francesco Schettino abandon his sinking ship of his own accord, more than four hours before the evacuation was complete – or, by his own account, did he “trip and fall” into the lifeboat that saved him?

Whichever version you believe, when the Costa Concordia capsized off the Tuscan coast eight days ago, that time-honoured rule of the sea, “Women and children first”, did not seem uppermost in the mind of the man responsible for the disaster. Passengers reported “just complete and utter chaos”, and that no one from his crew seemed to know what they were doing. It is clear to me that panic had taken him over.

Almost all of us are capable of panic. What is harder to determine is exactly how we will react when it grips us.

Imagine being at home late one night, quite alone, and suddenly hearing a loud noise from your kitchen. In a fraction of a second, your heart beats wildly. You breathe faster, your mouth is suddenly dry, and you feel faint as the blood in your body is shunted into the muscles, to give the best chance of speedy escape.

Sudden stress has an immediate effect on the hypothalamus in your brain. It begins pumping out corticotrophin-releasing hormone, triggering a response from the body’s master gland, the pituitary. Within a few seconds, it sends messages in your blood to the adrenal glands. They start to produce the stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline, preparing your body for fight or flight.

But the first reaction may not be to run. In all probability, you are paralysed with fear; actually, you are most likely to sit stock still – which might provide an alternative explanation for the captain’s 68-minute delay in giving the order to abandon the ship after it struck a reef off the island of Giglio. (Meanwhile, investigators are looking into the possible role played by the cruise line company in the delay.)

This atavistic instinct is part of human evolution; it almost certainly aided the survival of our species. On the savannah, the best chance of a largely naked early human avoiding being eaten would have to been to remain completely still. A predator is much more likely to pounce if it sees you clearly – and movement is most likely to give you away. With panic, you are effectively the proverbial rabbit, immobilised with terror as you see the headlights of the car advance.

In another part of Tuscany, in the Florentine church of Santa Maria Novella, there is a shocking fresco by Domenico Ghirlandaio. His Slaughter of the Innocents depicts the panic of the women of Bethlehem as their children are hacked to pieces by Herod’s soldiers. A screaming mother is frantically tearing the hair of a Roman soldier as he treads on babies in the foreground. Severed heads and mutilated limbs strew the floor and horses skitter in the blood. But strikingly, to one side,

a group of women with babes in arms, stand and stare at the unfolding horror. Seemingly, they could escape through the unguarded triumphal arch behind them. But terror has immobilised them.

Paralysis can easily affect any of us at the moment of crisis. Is this what happened to Schettino? Only an hour earlier he had been the proud Master and Captain, showing off one of the largest passenger vessels afloat, responsible for the pleasures and comfort of more than 3,000 passengers and commanding 1,000 crew members. Suddenly, a mistake meant his lovely vessel was fatally damagedl those lives were at risk. His immobility in the lifeboat and his incoherent conversation with the coastguard are surely explained: those hormones flooding his brain as he is being sworn at account for his curious recorded response on the radio telephone. Shouting orders at a panicking man, who is shivering with his physiological reaction, is not conducive to a rational response.

Pte Thomas Highgate was only 17 when he witnessed the carnage at the Battle of Mons in 1914. More than 7,000 troops were slaughtered as he fled, and he was found immobilised, trembling in a barn. Just 35 days after the start of the First World War, he was shot at dawn. It is almost certain that many of these soldiers, labelled as cowards, were vigorously abused and shouted at. One doctor said later of one such terrified man: “I went to the trial determined to give him no help, for I detest his type – I really hoped he would be shot.”

A Roman citizen from a much earlier age, the Christian author Quintus Tertullian, argues that cowardice produces its own punishment: “Rather bring blood into a man’s cheek, than let it out through his body.” Meanwhile, the French Renaissance essayist Michel de Montaigne tells of Monsieur de Vervins who, in a moment of panic, surrendered Boulogne to Henry VIII’s army after the keep of the city had been mined during the siege of 1544. De Vervins was sentenced to death for cowardice – but Montaigne suggests that it was unjust to execute a soldier for want of courage. We need, he maintains, to differentiate between “faults that merely proceed from infirmity and those that are visibly the effects of treachery and malice”. Infirmity, he says, are rules “that nature has imprinted in us”.

Poor Captain Schettino, who is apparently now the subject of numerous death threats and could face up to 12 years in prison for abandoning his ship (and more for manslaughter), would be chastened sufficiently in Montaigne’s book by the igno actions.

Panic in the confines of an endangered ship is as dangerous as on the battlefield. It may be treated severely because it is so infectious. On Hallowe’en 1938, Columbia Radio famously broadcast a series of simulated news bulletins about a Martian invasion in New Jersey. It was actually only a play based on The War of the Worlds by HG Wells. But rumours spread, panicked Americans and Canadians closed down their businesses, and thousands fled their homes following the “news”.

I once saw a colleague, a respected surgeon, rigid at the operating table, as his patient’s abdomen slowly filled uncontrollably with blood. Pale with fright and sweating with fear, he was incapable of dealing with the emergency. Shouting and swearing at him would have been futile.

In such a situation, the key piece of equipment in the operating theatre is a simple stool, placed no closer than five metres from the operating table. Once the flow is staunched – a wet pack firmly thrust into the bleeding area and with pressure applied, venous bleeding will nearly always stop – that nondescript furniture becomes vital: the surgeon should remain sitting on it and not touch his patient for at least 10 minutes. When his own pulse rate and blood pressure is controlled and crucial calm restored, work can recommence. The patient’s own defence mechanisms will have most likely come into play and some clotting will have occurred. It is usually enough to remove the swab gently by degrees, dealing with each remaining bleeding point where it is still leaking. Panic over.

Whether in the operating theatre or at the helm of a cruise ship, temperament is so important. Given this, perhaps others are partly responsible for the Concordia disaster. It was surprising to read Mario Palombo, once a commander in the Costa fleet, reported as saying: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino. It’s true, he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant, a daredevil. More than once,

Costa Concordia: mother of 5-year-old girl gives tearful appeal to find her

Italian divers have resumed their search and rescue operations on the crippled Costa Concordia cruise ship, as the mother of a missing five-year-old begs rescuers to find her daughter.

Calm seas enabled Coast Guard and fire service divers to return to the stricken ship, as the mother of a missing five year old girl begged rescuers to keep up the search for her daughter.

Susy Albertini also appealed to other passengers on the ship to come forward if they had any information about where the little girl was last seen, during the panic-stricken evacuation of the vessel by its 4,200 passengers and crew on Friday night and early Saturday morning.

“Please continue looking for my little girl, bring her home to me as soon as you can,” Mrs Albertini told Italian television in a heartfelt plea.

Her lawyer, Davide Veschi, added: “We ask anybody who was in that part of the ship and who managed to get out, if they remember having seen a little girl and her father slip.

“We would ask them to come forward and give precise indications to divers in order to aid them with more targeted searches.”

Dayana - the youngest person missing from the disaster - was with her father, William Arlotti, 36, and he too is missing.

Her parents are separated and so were not together on the cruise liner.

Mr Arlotti’s new partner, Michela Maroncelli, 36, who survived the evacuation, has reported seeing them both slip and fall into the sea. They have not been seen since.

The death toll so far is 11, with at least 20 people still missing.

Francesco Schettino, the Italian cruise liner captain accused of abandoning his stricken vessel with passengers still trapped on-board claimed he left the ship only because he “tripped” and fell into a lifeboat while trying to help with the evacuation.

Schettino, 52, told investigating magistrates that the Costa Concordia was listing so violently there was nothing he could do to get back on board once he had tumbled off and into the safety of a rescue craft.

He admitted however, that he made a “mistake” as he approached the island of Giglio to perform a “salute” for a friend, turning too late and ending up in shallow water where the liner struck a rocky outcrop and eventually capsized.

An off-duty captain who stepped in to help co-ordination the evacuation spoke out yesterday to condemn Mr Schettino’s actions, describing the disaster as “a heartache that I will carry with me forever”.

Colleagues meanwhile, accused the beleaguered Italiancaptain, who has vowed never to go to sea again, of treating the 1,000ft long vessel “like a Ferrari” and said he was an over-exuberant “daredevil”.

Mr Schettino, who was being kept under house arrest in Meta di Sorrento near Naples on Wednesday, was interrogated for three hours on Tuesday about the disaster which has claimed at least 11 lives, with 22 people still missing.

Pressed by magistrates on why he had apparently abandoned the stricken ship, he reportedly said: “I was trying to get people to get into the boats in an orderly fashion. Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and I ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there.”

He said he got stuck in the lifeboat for an hour before it was lowered into the water off the coast of Giglio island.

A short time afterwards he was seen ashore, leaving an estimated 300 crew and passengers, including children and elderly and disabled people, to fend for themselves. Also with him in the lifeboat was Dimitri Christidis, the Greek second-in-command of the Concordia and Silvia Coronica, the third officer, according to Italian reports.

Mr Schettino told investigators he took the cruise liner to within 0.28 nautical miles of Giglio to perform a “salute” to a former Costa Cruises captain named Mario Palombo.

“… I made a mistake on the approach. I was navigating by sis well and I had done this manoeuvre three or four times. But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow. I don’t know why it happened, I was a victim of my instincts.”

The judge, Valeria Montesarchio, said the Mr Schettino had not made “any serious attempt” to return to the vessel “or even close to it” after evacuating.

The off-duty captain who was forced to step in and lead the evacuation broke his silence on Wednesday.

Roberto Bosio, 44, the captain of one of the Concordia’s sister ships, the Serena, said: “Only a disgraceful man would have left all those passengers on board. It was the most horrible experience of my life, a tragedy, a heartache that I will carry with me forever.” He added: “I just want to rest and forget. Don’t call me a hero. I just did my duty, the duty of a sea captain — actually the duty of a normal man.”

Martino Pellegrino, one of the officers on board the Costa Concordia, joined the growing condemnation of Mr Schettino. “If I had to make a comparison, we got the impression that he would drive a bus like a Ferrari,” he said.

Mario Palombo, a former Costa commander and colleague of the captain, said: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino. It’s true, he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant; a daredevil. More than once I had to put him in his place.”

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Concordia: How the disaster unfolded

  

Coast guard: Get back on board captain!

  

Concordia passed even closer to Giglio on earlier trip

 

Cruise ship: 40 dramatic photos

 

Cruise ship wreckage underwater

Costa Concordia: Captain drove ship 'like it was a Ferrari', says former skipper

Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino skippered the giant liner like a Ferrari driver, a colleague claimed yesterday.

Officer Martino Pellegrino accused his boss of being an authoritarian – and his former captain called Schettino a daredevil.

Mr Pellegrino said: “If I had to make a comparison, we got the impression he would drive a bus like a Ferrari.”

Schettino, who has been slammed as a coward for abandoning the stricken liner before his ­passengers were safe, told a senior magistrate he ended up leaving when he fell into a lifeboat.

Although reports in Italy say he was in the boat with his second in command, Greek Dimitri Christidis, and Silvia Coronica, the third officer. The skipper, 52, said he had been caught among thousands of panic-stricken passengers after Friday night’s crash.

He added: “They were pouring on to the decks, taking the lifeboats by assault. “I didn’t even have a life jacket because I had given it to a passenger. I was trying to get people into the boats in an orderly fashion.

“Suddenly, since the ship was at a 60 to 70 degree angle, I tripped and ended up in one of the boats. That’s how I found myself there. Suspended there, I was unable to lower the boat into the sea, as the space was blocked by boats in the water.”

Italian authorities placed Schettino, from Naples, under house arrest after the three-hour grilling by the magistrate on Tuesday.

Schettino, who has been arrested on suspicion of multiple manslaughter, said he was stuck in the lifeboat for an hour before it was lowered into the water off the coast of the Italian island of Giglio.

During the interrogation, Schettino admitted he took the cruise ship close to Giglio to give a salute to former boss Mario Palombo. Schettino also confessed to navigating by sight in the dangerous waters rather than relying on the computer system.

The skipper said: “It’s true the salute was for Commodore Mario Palombo, with whom I was on the telephone. The route was decided as we left Civitavecchia but I made a mistake on the approach.

“I was navigating by sight because I knew the depths well and had done this manoeuvre three or four times. But this time I ordered the turn too late and I ended up in water that was too shallow.

“I don’t know why it happened. I was a victim of my instincts.”

Commodore Palombo, the ship’s former skipper, described Schettino as a daredevil. He said: “I’ve always had my reservations about Schettino.

"It’s true that he was my second in command, but he was too exuberant. He was a daredevil. More than once I had to put him in his place.”

Incredibly, once Schettino reached dry land after the crash and was allowed to leave the harbour master’s office, his only concern was to buy dry socks.

Taxi driver Ottavio Brizzi said he picked up the skipper at 11.30am on Saturday – while scores of passengers were still missing – and took him just 400 yards to the Bahamas Hotel.

Mr Brizzi said: “It was a very short journey, no more than 30 seconds. He didn’t say very much apart from asking me where he could buy some dry socks. He looked very cold and scared – he looked like a beaten dog.”

According to Italian reportsfrom Marseille four weeks ago in 70mph winds. But his family have come to his defence, saying he is a “brilliant” skipper who has been unfairly criticised.

His sister, Giulia Schettino, said: “My brother will demonstrate that he had no responsibility for what happened.”

Under Italian law, a captain who abandons his ship before all crew and passengers are accounted for can be jailed for 12 years.

At least 11 people died and 21 are still missing.

The coastguard recorded on tape angrily ordering Schettino to return to his sinking ship has become a sensation. Captain Gregorio De Falco told the skipper he would “make him pay” for abandoning the £390million liner.

He also screamed: “Get the *** * back on board.” This message now features on T-shirts being sold across Italy. Captain De Falco said yesterday: “My job is safety and I would not have been happy until everyone was safe at home.

“That night there was a team of six of us, the best you can have, but we weren’t able to save them all. If I think about all those people who lost their lives on the Concordia then we were beaten because we didn’t manage to save everyone.

“My voice was simply that of all seamen. I could tell from the tone of his voice that Schettino was lying.”

An off-duty captain, Roberto Bosio, was also hailed a hero yesterday for starting the evacuation while Schettino dithered about sounding the abandon ship signal.

Captain Bosio, who was on the Concordia by chance and who is in charge of a sister ship, said: “Only a disgraceful man would have left all those passengers on board.”

The 45-year-old added: “It was the most horrible experience of my life. A tragedy, a heartache I will carry with me for ever. Don’t call me a hero. I just did my duty.”

Incredibly, survivors say the theme from the Titanic film – My Heart Will Go On sung by Celine Dion – was playing on the ship as it struck the rocd: “Images from the film Titanic are more realistic than one might think.”

He said the song was stuck in his head as most of the crew did nothing to help them.

Costa Concordia: Search suspended after ship shifts

The search of the Costa Concordia cruise ship has been suspended after the capsized vessel slipped, the Italian coast guard says.

Officials are hoping to begin salvage work soon, including pumping oil off the wreck, as hopes fade of finding any more survivors.

Twenty-three people are missing, and 11 confirmed dead, after the huge ship crashed into rocks on Friday.

There are fears the vessel might slip into deeper water off the Tuscan coast.

"Instruments indicated the ship had moved. We are in the process of evaluating if it has found a new resting point to allow us to resume," fire department spokesman Luca Cari said.

Along with the salvage workers - who will begin operations once rescue efforts have been declared over - a specialist team from Dutch salvage company SMIT is to prepare to pump more than 2,300 tonnes of fuel from the ship's 17 tanks.

The firm says this could take several weeks. Experts believe there is little risk of a major fuel leak that would contaminate the scenic area.

Hungary's foreign ministry said one of the recovered bodies was that of Sandor Feher, a 38-year-old Hungarian musician working on board, the Associated Press news agency reported.

Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti, who is visiting London, said: "Any such disaster could and should be avoided".

He added that his government was working to limit any environmental damage.

Costa Concordia's captain Francesco Schettino was 'showing off'

A risky practice by cruise ships of passing close by to the Tuscan island of Giglio in a foghorn-blasting salute to the local population led to the sinking of the massive cruise liner Costa Concordia with the loss of up to 22 lives.

The captain, Francesco Schettino, is said to have been showing off, steering the 114,500-tonne liner just 150m from shore -- and then afterwards abandoning ship before everyone had been safely evacuated.

Before the rescue was suspended last night because of the bad weather, a sixth body was discovered in the vessel and the number of missing was raised by two to 16 after relatives of two Sicilian women originally listed as safely evacuated said they had not heard from them.

The capsized liner was lodged last night on a rock and mud shelf at a depth of about 20m.

Experts feared it could slide down the adjacent slope if disturbed by the heavy seas, becoming totally submerged and ending all hope for anybody still trapped inside.

There were also concerns about the 2500 tonnes of fuel in 17 tanks on board, but no leaks into the pristine waters had been reported and a Dutch firm has been called in to help extract the fuel.

"The environmental risk for the island of Giglio is extremely high," said Environment Minister Corrado Clini. "The goal is to avoid that the fuel leaks from the ship. We are working on this. The intervention is urgent."

The chief executive of Costa Cruises, Pier Luigi Foschi, blamed "human error" on the part of Captain Schettino for the grounding last Friday night local time (early Saturday AEDT).

Mr Foschi said while Costa Cruises would provide Captain Schettino with legal assistance, the company disassociated itself from his behaviour.

He said Costa ships have their routes programmed, and alarms go off when they deviate.

"This route was put in correctly. The fact that it left from this course is due solely to a manoeuvre by the commander that was unapproved, unauthorised and unknown to Costa," he said.

Italy's Defence Minister, Giampaolo Di Paola, a former admiral, blamed "gross human error" for the disaster.

Corriere della Sera reported last night that Captain Schettino had passed close to the shore to please the ship's head waiter, Antonello Tievoli, who was from Giglio.

Shortly before the grounding, Captain Schettino called Mr Tievoli to the bridge saying, "Antonello, come see, we are very close to your Giglio," said witnesses quoted by the newspaper.

Mr Tievoli, standing on the bridge, reportedly said to the captain just before the accident happened: "Careful, we are extremely close to the shore".

Residents of Giglio said they had never seen the Costa come so close to the "Le Scole" reef area. "This was too close, too close," said Italo Arienti, a 54-year-old sailor who has worked on the ferry between Giglio and the mainland for more than a decade.

Captain Schettino, 52, is under arrest for multiple manslaughter and abandoning his passengers on the ship, and is being held in custody for fear of being a flight risk.

Coast Guard officers had spotted Captain Schettino fleeing the scene even as the terrifying evacuation unfolded. The officers said they had urged him to return and honour his duty to stay aboard until everyone was safely off the vessel, but he had ignored them.

Costa Cruises said 3216 passengers and 1013 crew members had been on board at the time. Witnesses said the ship had been indulging the local population with a parade past the island in what is known locally as an "inchino", or reverent bow, its siren blasting three times and its upper decks ablaze with light as many passengers sat down to eat.

Adding weight to the theory, the newspaper La Stampa published a letter dated last August in which Giglio Mayor Sergio Ortelli thanked a former captain of the Concordia for the "incredible spectacle" of a previous close pass.

Francesco Verusio, the Tuscany region's chief prosecutor, said the ship's captain had "approached Giglio in a very awkward manner", which led the ship to "hit a rock that became embedded in its left side, causing it to list and take in an enormous amount of water in the space of two or three minutes".

Investigators have found one of the two "black box" recorders that track the ship's movements. It was reported to show a one-hour lag between the time of the impact at 9.45pm local time on Friday and the first call to the coastguard at 10.43pm.

Captain Schettino apparently left the vessel in a lifeboat at about 11.30pm while there were still about 230 people aboard, including two newborn babies and four disabled people who were not rescued until 2am. At 5am, according to reports, he called his mother and told her: "There has been a tragedy. But be calm. I tried to save the passengers."

A French couple, Ophelie Gondelle and David Du Pays, said they had seen the captain in a lifeboat, huddled in a blanket, well before all the passengers were off the ship.

Husband Sacrifices Life Jacket For Wife, Disappears Into Water

He did what any husband would have done for his wife.

As the Costa Concordia cruise ship went down off the west coast of Italy Jan. 13, Nicole Servel's husband, Francis, gave her the only life jacket they had, Emirates247.com reports.

That was the last she saw of him.

"I owe my life to my husband," Servel, 61, told the news outlet, explaining she doesn't know how to swim.

Just hours after it departed, the cruise ship hit rocks, forcing passengers to evacuate. According to CNN, direction from the ship's crew was unclear, so many passengers took matters into their own hands, frantically rushing to secure life vests for themselves. The news source goes on to describe people frantically jumping into the water and lifeboats -- loaded with passengers -- stuck atop the icy water, helpless.

Nicole Servel blames the loss of her husband on the ship's crew, some of whom saved themselves without helping any passengers, Emirates 24/7 reports.