Criminal proceedings against Costa Concordia Master in shipwreck Essay

Criminal proceedings against Costa Concordia Master in shipwreck - Essay Example On one account, the captain has been taken to court with regard to the fact that he was careless in the way he managed the ship before the accident. His actions are seen to have been the cause of the accident. For instance, he took the ship to give a salute at the port where the ship got an accident. In doing this, the captain had to deviate from the computer-programmed route of the ship and this has been seen as a form of carelessness that the captain must be held responsible for. On the other hand, the captain has attained the informal salute was ordered by the company and it was not his own decision. Whether the company ordered the salute or not, the truth is that both the captain and the company as a whole are responsible and must take responsibility. Deviating from the computer-programmed navigation route was a careless mistake and this mistake led to the loss of 32 lives and injuries of many people as well as mental trauma of all aboard the ship. Although the court has said tha t all passengers should be paid ten thousand Euros each, this cannot be enough to pay those who lost their loved ones and the company must pay more in order to be an example to other similar firms. The other legal issue coming from the case is the captain’s conduct after the accident. ... This leaves a very huge responsibility on him and this is one case he has to answer in court. The concept behind requiring the captain to be the last to leave the ship in such an incident is that since the captain is the one on whom the safety of the ship is bestowed, the captain should be the one to take the biggest responsibility. This should motivate such a captain to be more careful in the way he conducts himself in the ship and making sure that all safety measures are being taken in order to make sure that everybody, including him, is safe and sound in the ship. The captain has not been able to explain fully why he left the boat as soon as possible and left over two thousand people stranded in the wrecked ship. This, combined by the fact that the accident was also as a result of his obvious carelessness, leaves the captain in a hard position and he has to make sure he is able to convince the court that the he acted as responsibly as he could have. The captain, in his defence, ha s said that the shipwreck was as a result of his officers failing to take his order and ignoring his orders. This argument is not necessarily the best considering that as a leader he could have done a better job to take better control of his staff. By failing to do this, the captain failed to meet his duty as the captain of the ship and, thus, will be legally considered primarily responsible of the accident. More than that, evidence showed that the captain and his crew were indifferent towards the needs of the suffering passengers. In a certain court hearing a few months from the time the disaster happened, evidence in the form of a video footage shows the captain and his crew doing the peaking