By CHRISTOPHER LEAKE and POLLY DUNBAR
Francesco Schettino, captain of the Costa Concordia, was held last night along with his first mate over allegations of manslaughter and abandoning his ship
The captain of a cruise liner that ran aground with 4,000 passengers on board has been detained along with his first mate on allegations of manslaughter and abandoning his ship.
Francesco Schettino was at least four miles off course when the Costa Concordia struck rocks off the island of Giglio, Tuscany, despite Italy's well-mapped sea lanes.
One passenger has accused the captain of drinking in one of the ship's bars on the night the vessel ran aground, before taking control after the crash.
Monique Maurek, 41, from the Netherlands, told The Sunday Telegraph: 'What scandalised me most was when I saw the captain spending much of the evening before we hit the rocks drinking in the bar with a beautiful woman on his arm.
'It was only because some of us had already been on a cruise that we recognised that seven blasts of the horn was a signal to abandon ship.'
Phil Metcalf, whose daughter Rose was one of the last people off the ship, said she had revealed the captain allegedly abandoned ship in the early stages of the evacuation, leaving his staff onboard.
He told BBC Breakfast: 'Since the captain had left there was nobody, so everybody was left to their own devices hence some of the chaos, so obviously the crew took it upon themselves and decided in the absence of the captain to organise and try and help people.'
Schettino told maritime investigators that charts showed he was in water deep enough to navigate and that he had struck an unidentified rocky outcrop of the island.
Once the 52-year-old realised the extent of the damage he immediately tried to change route and head for the safety of Giglio harbour.
But within minutes the vessel, owned by Costa Cruises, began to list dramatically reaching an angle of 20 degrees in just two hours.
The captain and his first office Ciro Ambrosio were detained last night at the police station in Porto Santo Stefano.
Prosecutors are investigating possible charges of multiple manslaughter and abandoning the ship while passengers were still in danger.
Schettino was quoted by Italian news sources as saying: 'The area was safe, the water was deep enough. We struck a stretch of rock that was not marked on the charts.
'As far as I am concerned we were in perfectly navigable waters.'
Francesco Verusio, chief prosecutor in the Tuscan city of Grosseto, told ANSA news agency the captain 'very ineptly got close to Giglio'.
Sources have said the captain, from Naples, had abandoned the ship at around 11.30pm local time - an hour after it struck a rocky outcrop and started taking on water - while the last passengers were not taken to safety until 3am yesterday morning.
Schettino's lawyer, Bruno Leporatti, said: 'I'd like to say that several hundred people owed their life to the expertise that the commander of the Costa Concordia showed during the emergency.'
He was taken to Grosseto's jail, where he will be held until next week when a judge will decide whether he should be released or formally put under arrest.
In Italy, suspects can be held without charge for a few days for investigation. A judge must either validate the jailing, putting the suspect under arrest, or declare him free to go.
Investigation: Sources have claimed the captain abandoned his ship hours before the last passengers were recovered from the vessel
Experts have said the captain may have been correct in his belief that his ship met its fate because of a power failure.
Passengers rescued from the stricken liner reported there had been a power blackout and a large booming noise, which indicated the vessel may have suffered an engine room explosion.
Last night Malcolm Latarche, editor of the global shipping magazine IHS Fairplay Solutions, said the problem may have been caused by a phenomenon known as 'harmonic interference'.
Mr Latarche said it was possible the cruise liner experienced the same problem that saw the Queen Mary 2 lose power in September 2010 as she was approaching Barcelona. On that occasion, the QM2 was able to carry on into open sea.
The expert said the harmonic interference – a type of power surge – could have caused a malfunction in the generators feeding the ship's six diesel electric engines with which the back-up systems could not cope.
This would have caused the ship to lose navigational power and steering control and veer off course, he said.
Asked for his assessment of the incident, Mr Latarche said: 'I would say power failure caused by harmonic interference and then it can't propel straight or navigate and it hit rocks.'
He added that once a ship experienced problems with the electrical supply to its main propulsion motors, it could lead to a problem with steering.
Mr Latarche said: 'It seems that this may have happened quite close to land, in shallow water. When you can't steer you are going to run aground and hit rocks at some point.'
The Costa Concordia, built in 2005, was designed to standards comparable with ocean liners.
Even though it had a rounded hull compared to the stronger V-shaped hull fitted to the Cunard flagship QM2, experts say it was capable of crossing the rough seas of the Atlantic.
Mr Latarche added: 'Although the damage caused to the ship was severe, there are many safeguards in the design of a state-of-the-art cruise ship to prevent it turning over.
'There is a second hull within the outer hull. Inside the inner hull there is a steel structure like an ice tray to contain the water and prevent it spreading through the ship.
'In this case, the Master rightly attempted to return it to the shore, but it seems to have keeled over because it hit shallow water on the coast.
'An ocean cruise ship is not designed to float in 20ft of water. It needs much more than that to remain upright.'
Disaster: Experts have said the cruise liner may have suffered power failure - caused by a power surge - causing it to veer off course
According to Mr Latarche, the fact that the average tonnage of cruise ships has doubled in the past decade makes a full-scale evacuation while at sea almost impossible.
Under regulations introduced by the International Maritime Organisation in 2010, the very latest ships are now designed to be able to return to port even in the event of a major fire or loss of power on board, in order to make evacuation unnecessary.
The Concordia was commissioned five years prior to the new rules but Mr Latarche said: 'Even if the most sophisticated ship in the world went into shallow water, the likelihood is it would turn on its side.
'This was a unique situation in which a number of circumstances all came together.'
Last night, Italian investigators trying to establish the cause of the accident arrested the Captain, Francesco Schettino, and were considering bringing manslaughter charges.
The investigators will study repair log books and fault reports for the vessel dating back several years.
They will also examine the experience of the officers and crew and examine the roles played by everyone on the day that the liner came to grief.
Since the Eighties the cruise industry has experienced a boom. More than 19 million passengers took a cruise last year and nine or more cruise ships of 100,000 tons or more have been built every year for the past decade.
Although cruise ships appear to be top-heavy, most of their weight is at the bottom, while the structure towards the top is designed to be comparatively light.
Traditionally, the vast majority of cruises have been taken by Americans to the Caribbean islands, but the Mediterranean market is rapidly expanding, with Italy the prime destination.
Cruise liners are designed for pleasure voyages, in which the surroundings and the luxurious amenities are the major focus of the experience, rather than the transportation itself.
As an industry, cruising has a safety record generally regarded as excellent. Over the past two decades, an estimated 90 million passengers have enjoyed a cruise without major incident.
The overwhelming majority of deaths on cruise ships are from natural causes or suicides.
Passenger ships – defined as any ship carrying more than 12 passengers – must comply with International Maritime Organisation regulations, which cover every aspect of the construction and operation.
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