Why. WHY.

[gothikmaus]

When we finally think the world will stop making fun of us because of our Prime Minister, THIS happens:

Click to view

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*headdesk multiple times*

I'm sorry to say this, because it was a tragedy and people died, but really? Did the captain really think he could get away with such a ridiculous excuse? He deserves all the mocking he's getting.

Comments

[gothikmaus]

That's what I said as well: he's the captain of a cruise ship, not a battleship, so I don't expect him to react like a military man, but still, he was trained to handle emergencies. I can understand he panicked, but when the port authority officer told him to get back on board, he should have gone straight away. Instead he took his time and came up with lame excuses.

And I can't believe the black box had been out of order for 2 weeks and no one knew or did anything about it. Just, no.

[gothikmaus]

Well, he couldn't consult a lawyer because he got the call from the port authority just after the fact, when people were still trying to leave the ship (while he had already left). And when the officer told him "Go back right now, there are casualties, for fuck's sake!" he replied "Um, casualties? How many?" And the officer just lost it and shouted "You're the one who's supposed to inform me about that, not the other way around!"

I didn't know about the black box either, but apparently it was broken. I'm not sure, but I think there's more than 1 black box on ships that big.

[angrylogic]

As much as the captain has been an idiot, I do feel like he has been made a bit of a scape goat. Surely his second officer or others should have stopped him? There is a reason there is a structure of crew. If the captain bailed, the rest of the crew should have stepped in. Maybe they weren't trained properly, but then why is the actual company not being prosecuted? I just don't feel like he's wholly responsible and while he deserves whatever he gets, others should be held accountable too, and not just for bailing or messing up the evacuation.

[gothikmaus]

I'm sure the company is involved in some way or other, we'll just have to find out how much they knew. As for the crew, they did step in, they basically did all the evacuation operations by themselves, because the captain had already left the ship at that point. Someone even talked about "mutiny" (which is an exaggeration), because they did everything without consulting with the captain. Well, hello, he had already left, what were they supposed to do? Let people panic while waiting for instructions?

[angrylogic]

I was thinking more about the crew acting before and immediately after the ship struck the rocks. I agree that the captain was a complete wuss and failed in his duty during the evacuation, but there's really not been a lot in the news here about why the accident happened to begin with :\ I mean, was the captain fully responsible for taking the course that he did? Did he make that decision all by himself? I've heard that he's possibly being prosecuted for manslaughter, but I'd also like to hear what else he responsible for. Even if no one had died, he would still be in a shit-ton trouble.

[gothikmaus]

>> but there's really not been a lot in the news here about why the accident happened to begin with

We don't know either. Someone says the captain was sailing manually and didn't realise there were rocks right there (which is a lame excuse because everyone knows there are rocks there), other people say he sailed as close as possible to the shore to "show off the ship", possibly for marketing purposes, someone says he was sailing too close to the shore, someone else says the ship wasn't too close but it was sailing too fast.

Long story short: no one has an idea what really happened.

[kiviraat]

Wow, America... Just wow... I have to say that I've not seen any evidence of mocking on British tv (unless it's been kept to the one satirical programme we have but I don't think it's airing just now) Most people here just seem to be struck by how tragic and avoidable it all was. We've had so many different translations of the captain's conversation with the coastguard as well but I suppose they all tell the same story just in slightly dfferent ways.

[kiviraat]

Silly thing posted my comment early. The story is slipping out of the news here unless they find another body so I'm not even sure what's been happening the past few days but will look online for latest news

[gothikmaus]

Not much has happened to be honest, they're still looking for corpses and trying to recover the fuel before it spills into the sea. The police and coast guard are investigating and trying to understand what happened, but it'll take ages, I guess.