“It is human error here,” Costa chairman and CEO Pier Luigi Foschi told reporters dialed into a conference call this morning. “The captain did not follow the authorized route that is used by Costa ships very frequently.”
Foschi says Costa ships travel the passage near where the ship ran into rocks on Friday more than 100 times a year but always stay further out to sea. There has been only one other time when a Costa ship has traveled close to the island of Giglio, where it ran aground, he said, and that was in August 2011 to view a celebration. In that case, the maneuver near the island was authorized and the ship stayed a safe distance from shore.
When asked if he knew why the captain, Francesco Schettino, had taken the ship off course, Foschi suggested that the 10-year veteran of the company wanted to show off the ship to the port area of Giglio that it was passing.
