Captain Hazelwood wanted to keep his license, too, and what he did was, in terms of seamanship, a lot worse. At least Hazelwood stayed with the ship and did as good a job as possible of saving her after the wreck. Admittedly, no one died on Exxon Valdez.
The EU must be a real employment madhouse if this kind of appeal even gets a hearing.
What is it with Mediterranean seamen, anyway? Remember the Oceanus, a Greek crewed vessel that sank off the coast of South Africa? The Captain and officers were airlifted off the ship by helicopter without calling abandon ship. The evacuation was organized by the recreation director, a British woman.
There was a Greek cruise ship which ran aground off the coast of Cape Cod at night, without any injuries or danger of sinking. While they were awaiting tugs to pull them off, the Captain was interviewed by a local TV news crew. He attributed the grounding to a faulty navigational device, a cable from the GPS antenna was defective and the crew on the bridge were watching TV. The Coast Guard Captain of the Port of Boston on hearing this, had a Coast Guard “prize crew” seize the vessel, took off the all the ship’s officer and detained them in Boston for a hearing, and revoked their licenses in American waters, summarily. He had the ship taken to Boston, where the passengers were unloaded.
“Captain Hazelwood wanted to keep his license, too, and what he did was, in terms of seamanship, a lot worse”
Wrong.
Hazelwood actually did nothing wrong. He was not even on the bridge when the Valdez ran aground. He was not drunk, he’d had a couple of drinks with dinner ashore. He had gone to bed and left the ship under the command of an officer who was supposed to qualified to run her. In a disaster of that magnitude there has to be a scapegoat. Hazelton, as captain of the ship, was the logical choice. Even though he did nothing wrong the responsibility for the disaster was ultimately his. He knew and accepted this.
Schettino killed 32 people showing off and trying to get laid then abandoned ship ahead of the passengers and crew he was responsible for. Schettinno is a cowardly, criminal POS and I hope he spends the rest of his life in prison.