GROSSETO, Italy, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- The former captain of the Costa Concordia on Monday blamed the man steering the ship for causing the cruise liner to capsize near the Italian island of Giglio.
In his first testimony in his trial, Francesco Schettino said an Indonesian helmsman reacted too slowly to his order to turn the ship, the Italian news agency ANSA reported.
Schettino told at a court in the Tuscan town of Grosseto if the helmsman hadn't taken 13 seconds to respond, "the blow would have been avoided."
The ex-captain said he was attempting to execute a maneuver to bring the vessel parallel to a rock formation, "but the helmsman did not carry out my orders correctly, put the rudders in the opposite direction and we hit."
Adm. Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, who led the court-ordered evaluation of the ship, disagreed with Schettino's statement. Dragone said "the impact would have been the same" even if the helmsman had immediately performed the move.
An expert testified the ship's black box recorded no evidence of the orders Schettino claimed he gave. The expert added the ship's rudders were "ungovernable" after the Costa Concordia hit the rocks.
Francesco Pepe, Schettino's defense attorney, said a new appraisal of the ship should be conducted now that it has been righted off the rocks.
