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A criminal defense lawyer has revealed the "terrifying" moment crew members had to decide whether to follow their captain or follow the law during the Costa Concordia tragedy.
On Friday, January 13, the Costa Concordia cruise liner crashed into a shoal of rocks off the coast of Italy, killing 32 people, including a five-year-old girl. The disaster is covered in Netflix's Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea, which features interviews from survivors and translations of emergency phone calls to the coast guard.
During the documentary, testimony is also heard from crew members, including Manrico Giampedroni, the vessel's hotel manager, who was the final survivor to be saved from the wreckage.
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Moreover, viewers are shown how the boat's captain, Francesco Schettino, refused to evacuate the ship until one hour after its collision. Yet, despite the captain not admitting how serious the accident was and that the vessel needed to be evacuated, numerous members of the crew could feel that something was wrong and went against his orders, something skipped over in the documentary.
And according to a criminal defense lawyer, although the captain is the highest authority on a ship, crew members still have a duty to follow the law.
Calling the situation "terrifying" for the crew, due to their unsettling predicament, veteran high-stakes trial and criminal defense attorney Peter S. Christiansen of Christiansen Trial Lawyers in Las Vegas said, "It is a terrifying spot to be in when you are out at sea, but blindly following a bad boss can land you in a prison cell."
"Crew members have to follow legal orders, but that loyalty completely ends if an instruction puts human lives in danger," he exclusively told The Mirror US.
During the disaster, despite the captain having not yet signaled to abandon ship, staff began helping passengers put on life jackets, directing them toward muster stations, preparing lifeboats, and, in some cases, loading lifeboats as the ship's list made launching at a later time increasingly difficult.
In the bridge, other senior crew members called out Schettino, including First Officer Ciro Ambrosio, who pushed for emergency measures sooner than Schettino was willing to take, and Staff Captain Roberto Bosio, who took a leading role in organizing the evacuation as conditions deteriorated while Schettino hesitated.
However, several crew members, including Giampedroni and Ambrosio, were convicted following the disaster, which is the worst cruise ship tragedy since the Titanic.
"During the giant Costa Concordia trial, five other crew members and company bosses were convicted alongside the captain," Christiansen explained. "If a captain tells you to hide a life-threatening emergency from the coast guard, or forces you to violate basic safety rules, relying on 'he told me to do it' will not stop a jury from finding you guilty."
Shipwrecked: Nightmare at Sea is now available to watch on Netflix.
