Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford - Captain Coward and the Blame Game

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Off the coast of an Italian island, an enormous cruise ship - seventeen floors high, three soccer pitches long - is tilting noticeably to one side. The local mayor is horrified: there are thousands of people on board the Costa Concordia, and it's only a matter of time before the ship capsizes altogether. How did a routine trip go so terribly wrong? And why is the captain nowhere to be found? For a full list of sources, see the show notes at timharford.com.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey there, it's Michael Lewis, author of Going Infinite, The Big Short, Moneyball, and Liar's Poker. On the latest season of my podcast, Against the Rules, I'm exploring what it means to be a sports fan in America and what the rise of sports betting is doing to our teams, our states, and ourselves. I'm heading to Las Vegas and New Jersey and beyond to understand America's newest form of legalised gambling. Listen to Against the Rules on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Against the Rules and start listening. 49-year-old Mario Pellegrini runs a hotel in Giglio, an island off the coast of Tuscany,

Italy. Giglio is a tiny island, just eight square miles, but in summer it's bustling. Tourists come to laze on the island's sandy beaches, explore its hidden coves, sample wine in its vineyards, and hike through the pine forest to see the medieval stone-walled fortress on the hill. In winter, Giliot is quiet, the tourists have gone, the holiday homes are shuttered, the hotels and restaurants are mostly closed. Just a few hundred people live on the island all year round. Mario Pellegrini is the island's deputy mayor. At 10 o'clock in the evening, on Friday the 13th of January 2012, his phone rings.

It's the chief of the island's police. I've been trying to call the mayor, says the policeman. We've had a report that there's a ship in difficulty outside the harbour. Do you know anything about it? Pellegrini doesn't know anything about it, but says he'll drive over to that side of the island to have a look. He also tries to call the mayor, but can't get through. That's no surprise.

Cell phone reception is patchy. He reaches a friend whose house overlooks the harbor and asks, can you go and look out of your window? Sure, says the friend. Then, oh, oh my god. Pellegrini rounds a bend in the road and sees what his friend saw. A gigantic cruise ship. They never get

this close to the island. Seventeen decks high, the length of three soccer pitches, a few hundred metres past the harbour, where the rocks are, tilting noticeably to one side. There must be thousands of people on there, thinks Pellegrini. He's right, 4,229 to be exact. Pellegrini drives onto the harbour. He meets his friend. The mayor's there too. What's going on? Pellegrini asks.

No idea, says the mayor. We've had no communication whatsoever from the ship or the Coast Guard. They see a lifeboat slowly being lowered from the listing ship. They realise that they're going to have to find shelter for everyone. They start to make calls to their fellow islanders. Open the school, open the church, bring food, bring blankets. The first of the lifeboats arrives in the harbour and scrapes up against the concrete jetty.

They help the passengers off and ask, what's happening on the ship? But nobody responds. Maybe they don't understand Italian, or maybe they're just too cold and stunned to speak. One of us should go on board, says Pellegrini, to see what's going on. The lifeboat's about to go back to the ship to pick up more passengers. Wait! yells Pellegrini. He gets on.

I didn't really think this through, Pellegrini later says. As the lifeboat approaches the cruise ship, Pellegrini makes out its name written on the side. The Costa Concordia. The lifeboat bumps up against a rope ladder. The ships leaning over them, the ladder dangling in the air. Pellegrini grabs a rong. The ladder sways.

He starts to clamber up. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. It's nine o'clock in the evening on Friday the 13th of January on the Costa Concordia and Captain Francesco Scattino is eating dinner. He's in one of the ship's restaurants. It has five, along with 13 bars, four swimming pools, five jacuzzi, a disco, a casino and a movie theatre. Keeping all the passengers on a cruise ship fed and entertained is no small task. Of the 4,000 plus people on board the Costa Concordia, over a thousand are crew. Earlier that day, the ship had picked up passengers in the port of Civitavecchia, near Rome.

They're looking forward to a week of puttering around the Mediterranean Sea, skirting the coasts of Italy, France and Spain, they haven't yet been through their mandatory safety briefing on what to do in case of emergency. The law says that the briefing must be held within 24 hours of passengers getting on board, and surely there's no rush. Francesco Scattino is 51 years old. He has a wife, back at home. He also has a mistress, half his age. And he's with her now. She's also employed by the cruise company, but currently off duty. Scattino has asked to be told when they're a few miles from Giglio, and now he gets that call.

The captain and his lover finish up their meals and make their way together from the restaurant to the ship's bridge. Picture a space like an airplane's cockpit, but on a grander scale. Screens and dials, knobs and levers, wrap around windows with a view of what's ahead. When Scatino arrives, the first officer is in command. Also on the bridge are the third officer and a helmsman. And someone else too. The ship's maitre d' the head waiter. He wouldn't normally be on the bridge, but he's from the island of Giliot, and Scattino has promised him a salute. It's common practice, a courtesy from the captain to a valued member of the crew. You veer slightly off the planned route and pass closer to the shoreline,

so your family and friends on land can admire the impressive size of the ship. Passengers enjoy these salutes too – it can give them a closer look at a picturesque island – not that there'd be much to see tonight, at half past nine on a dark January evening. It should all be routine. But as Scattino arrives on the bridge, there are some causes for concern. The speed is 15 knots, about 17 miles an hour. That's a touch too fast for comfort. For a ship this big and this close to land, the quicker you're going, the more difficult it is to judge your turns. And the automated navigation system is still engaged. It shouldn't be. Scattino says to the First Officer, don't we normally use paper charts and manual manoeuvring

when we're this close to shore? The paper charts, in truth, might not be as much help as you'd expect. The Costa Concordia carries only small-scale charts of the seabed this close to Gilió. That's because detours like this, to salute an island, aren't part of the officially planned route, even if they are common practice. The planned route runs closer to the middle of the 10-mile channel between the island and the mainland. Scatino has done this swing-by close to Giglio, often enough before.

And still it does look like they're heading closer to the island than they'd usually get. Through the bridge's big windows you can see flashes of white as waves break on the shore. The maitre d' is on the phone, chatting to an old friend, also originally from Giglio, a retired cruise ship captain. He passes the phone to Scattino to say hello. The two men know each other, though they haven't spoken in years. Scattino skips the pleasantries.

How deep is the seabed close to Giliot? He asks. Like 800 yards from the harbour? The retired captain is surprised. You don't need to go that close, he says. It's January. There'll be hardly anyone on the island. And it's night time. Nobody's going to be looking out of their windows to see you go by. They'll all be watching television with their curtains closed. Just say hi and stay away, says the retired captain. Scattino is trying to make sure he stays away.

He wants to ease the ship towards the right to run parallel to the island's coastline. Three, two, five degrees, he tells the helmsman. The helmsman repeats it back. Three, one, five degrees. He's Indonesian. He doesn't speak very good English. Or Italian. Now the first officer interjects to clarify. 335 degrees. He's not helping. Scattino repeats himself. 325.

Despite these communication difficulties, the mood on the bridge still seems relaxed. Nobody yet appears to appreciate the extent of the danger they're in. Then, Scattino sees the rock. Hard to starboard, hard to port. The helmsman tries to turn the ship, but it's too late. As the back of the ship swings round,

it crunches up against the rock. There was a loud bang, one passenger later told reporters from Vanity Fair, followed by a great big groaning sound. A long and powerful vibration, said another, like an earthquake. The rock rips a gash in the side of the ship, over 150 feet long. Back in the restaurant, other passengers are still eating dinner. Back in the restaurant, other passengers are still eating dinner. I took the first bite of my eggplant and feta, says one, and I literally had to chase the plate across the table.

It was exactly like the scene in Titanic, recalls another. Dishes went flying, glasses went flying, waiters went flying all over. Then, across the restaurants and bars, the Jacuzzis and the disco, the casino and the theatre, the lights went out. Hey there, it's Michael Lewis, author of Going Infinite, The Big Short, Moneyball, and Liar's Poker. On the latest season of my podcast, Against the Rules, I'm exploring what it means to be a sports fan in America and what the rise of sports betting is doing to our teams, our states, and ourselves.

I'm heading to Las Vegas and New Jersey and beyond to understand America's newest form of legalized gambling. Listen to Against the Rules on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Against the Rules and start listening. RUPERT Francesco Scattino is currently in prison, serving a 16-year sentence for his role in the sinking of the Costa Concordia. There's not much public sympathy, for reasons we'll come to. But not everyone is comfortable with what happened to Francesco Scattino.

He's been scapegoated, the captain's lawyer insisted. An Italian consumer rights organisation that represented some of the passengers on the ship, agreed. Scatino should be punished, said a spokesperson, but he has been made a scapegoat. The head of a European association of shipmasters used the same word, scapegoat. But what exactly is a scapegoat? The word comes from a story in the Old Testament. A priest lays his hands on the head of a goat. He confesses all the sins of his people, which mystically transfers all those sins into the goat.

Then he allows the goat to escape his clutches and it wanders off into the wilderness, the escape goat, carrying with it the sins of the people. The underlying idea seems to run deep in the human psyche, says the author Tom Douglas in his book, Scapegoats, Transferring Blame. Whenever an early society came to believe in a god that could punish them for their sins, they often also developed the reassuring belief that they could escape God's punishment by transferring their sin onto something or someone else.

Different societies came up with different rituals. In ancient Athens, for example, the metaphorical scapegoat was an unfortunate human who would be ceremonially whipped on the genitals with the branches of a fig tree, then paraded through the streets and pelted with stones. Whatever the details of the ritual, says Douglas, the intended outcome was the same. The sins of the community are removed, like the disposal of rubbish. Douglas argues that much the same dynamic plays out today. When a community or organisation collectively screws up, its members may instinctively try to escape the consequences by shifting all the blame onto one individual.

This process isn't as mystical or ritualistic as in olden times. More often, it's cynical and strategic. And the punishment we want to avoid isn't typically from God, it may be from the courts of law or public opinion. Mario Pellegrini reaches the top of the rope ladder and hauls himself onto the deck. Or one of the decks. The Costa Concordia, remember, has 17 levels. It's the length of three football pitches. Pellegrini has no idea how to find his way around. The deck is filled with frightened passengers, trying to get onto one of the many lifeboats that members of the crew are lowering to the water.

Pellegrini finds some people in uniform and asks what's happening. They have no idea, they say. But Juan wants to know why he's not wearing a life jacket. Oh, I'm not a passenger, Pellegrini explains. I'm the deputy mayor of Giglio. I've come on board to ask what help you need. Sir, you have to put on a life jacket.

Pellegrini tries again. I want to talk to whoever's in charge. Where can I find them? On the bridge, replies the crew member. But you won't be allowed on the bridge. You're a civilian. Pelegrini walks off in search of the bridge. He can't find it. Every time he encounters someone in uniform,

he asks what's going on and who's in charge, but nobody can give him a useful answer. At length, he finds himself back on the deck where the lifeboats are, on the opposite side of the ship, this time the side that's angled upwards. And while he's been exploring, the ship has tilted further. It's now at such an angle that from this side, they can't lower any more lifeboats to the sea. Suddenly, Pellegrini finds himself lying on top of a woman. He's not sure what just happened.

He apologises, tries to stand up, and falls right back down again. It was very disorientating, Pellegrini recalls. You couldn't tell which way was up or down. Very disorientating, Pellegrini recalls. You couldn't tell which way was up or down. The ship must be properly capsizing onto its side now, Pellegrini realizes. All he can do is find something to grab onto and wait for the ship to settle on the rocks. It all started with that loud bang, then a great big groaning sound.

Plates of eggplant and feta flew across the table. The lights went out. There were screams in the darkness. After a while, a voice over the public address system. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention please. I speak on behalf of the captain. We are currently experiencing a blackout due to an electrical fault. The situation is under control. An electrical fault?

That felt like more than an electrical fault. The ship's emergency backup lights come on and they illuminate a scene of chaos. Waiters are picking themselves up. Plates and glasses are everywhere. Panels have fallen from the ceiling. The ship appears to be noticeably listing. An electrical fault?

One passenger calls her daughter, who lives in central Italy. She describes what just happened and says she's not convinced that the situation is under control. The daughter, not sure what else to do, phones the local police. The police think perhaps they'd better call the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard is surprised to get the call. Usually when a ship's in trouble, the ship calls them. The Coast Guard doesn't normally have to call the ship.

We've had a report that you're in trouble, says the Coast Guard to the Costa Concordia. No, everything's fine, comes the response. We just had a blackout, that's all. So you don't need assistance? No, we don't. The Coast Guard doesn't believe them. Are they in denial? Hoping perhaps that they can make it to the next port and avoid the embarrassment of having to call

for help? He sends a boat to investigate, but precious time has been lost. Many of the passengers are just as sceptical as the Coast Guard. They put on life jackets and head straight for the lifeboats, ignoring messages from the crew to kindly return to your cabin, everything is under control. Later, some tell how they got into a lifeboat and demanded that members of the crew lower it into the water. The crew members didn't want to,

because they hadn't yet received orders from the captain to abandon ship. What was happening with Captain Scattino up on the bridge? He was getting reports about how many of the ship's compartments had flooded, enough to be sure that the ship would sink. But he didn't seem to be taking the information in, according to the testimony of one crew member. He was out of his routine mental state. He was under shock. He wasn't the person I knew. A video from the bridge shows him looking stunned, says one expert analyst. The captain really froze. It doesn't seem his brain was processing. Scatino was also on the phone to the cruise company's crisis coordinator.

What exactly were they saying to each other? Later, their accounts would differ. But eventually, over an hour after the collision with the rock, the order came over the public address system. Abandon ship. One 72-year-old woman tells how she tried to get on a lifeboat, on the side of the listing ship that was closer to the water. It's full! People yelled from one boat. And the next. And the next.

I think there was room, she says, but those already on the boats were shouting at the crew members to lower them down straight away. The ship was tilting alarmingly. She saw that land really wasn't that far away. She was a strong swimmer. She jumped. Every 50 feet I would stop and look back, recalled the woman. I could hear the ship creaking and was scared that it would fall on top of me

if it capsized completely. Not long after midnight, the ship finally did capsize completely. This was the moment when Mario Pellegrini found himself lying on top of a woman, wondering what just happened. You couldn't tell which way was up or down. 32 people died on the Costa Concordia that night. Experts believe that this was the moment, the final capsize, when most of their fates were sealed. Would some of those 32 have already been off the ship

if the order to evacuate had been given more quickly? Perhaps. Since he gave that order, Francesco Scattino has changed out of his captain's uniform into civilian clothes. He can no longer be so readily identified as the person who should be in charge. Scattino too later tells a story of losing his footing as the ship suddenly shifts. In his case, he explains, he slipped and accidentally fell into a lifeboat. He then had no choice but to allow the lifeboat to take him safely to shore. Hey there, it's Michael Lewis, author of Going Infinite, The Big Short, Moneyball, and Liar's

Poker. On the latest season of my podcast, Against the Rules, I'm exploring what it means to be a sports fan in America and what the rise of sports betting is doing to our teams, our states, and ourselves. I'm heading to Las Vegas and New Jersey and beyond Deputy Mayor of Giglio, Mario Pellegrini, can find his feet again. He looks around and takes in his new situation. He's standing on what used to be a wall.

It's difficult to walk along it because it's strewn with things like lamps and fire extinguishers and doors. There used to be doors in the wall that led into corridors. Now they're doors in the floor that lead to vertical shafts. You don't want to fall through one of those and plunge into the dark and chilly water below. It's hard to see because the emergency lights have gone out. Only shafts of moonlight now illuminate the ship.

Dozens of people are still on board. How are they going to get off? First, it's clear that they'll have to climb upwards to get onto what's now the top of the ship that used to be its side. That's not going to be easy. They'll have to scale a now near vertical depth. Someone brings an aluminium ladder. As everyone realises that's the only way up, all hell breaks loose. Pellegrini watches people crowd around the ladder, all trying to push their way to the front. It was horrible, Pellegrini later says. I just remember all the children crying. A woman starts to climb the ladder.

A man behind her passes up a toddler in a life jacket. Someone else shoves him out of the way. The mother on the ladder clings to the life jacket. The cord pulls tight around the falling toddler's neck. Her face starts to turn purple. Pellegrini barges through the crowd, yelling in anger. You're going to kill that child. Don't be animals.

Let the parents with children go up first. When the panic subsides, Pellegrini hears shouts for help. They're coming from below, down what used to be a corridor and has now become a well. Together with the ship's doctor, Pellegrini finds a rope and drops it into the shaft. Someone below ties it into a harness.

The deputy mayor and the doctor heave on the rope, and up comes a woman, a member of the crew. She's drenched and terrified. They lower the rope again and fish out the next person, and the next. At last, a man in a waiter's uniform says to Pellegrini, I'm the last. There's no one else down there, or no one's still alive.

I saw a man and child, he adds, through the window in the restaurant, floating past me, dead. Pellegrini puts down the rope and looks at his hands. They're covered in blood. Francesco Scattino, meanwhile, is sitting on the rocks on the island of Giglio, looking at the capsized ship. He gets a call on his mobile phone. It's the Coast Guard, who wants to know how many people still need to be rescued. I don't know, Scatino says. I'm not on board anymore. You what? The Coast Guard is flabbergasted. Captains aren't supposed to leave their ships.

Everyone knows that. Get in a boat, says the Coast Guard. Get back on board and tell me how many people still need rescuing. Scatino says he'd rather coordinate things from where he is now. What are you coordinating from there? asks the Coast Guard. Get back on board! But it's dark, says Scatino.

When the recording of this conversation is later leaked to the media, a line from the Coast Guard becomes iconic. Vada a bordo, cazzo! Which roughly translates as, get the fuck on board. Scattino does not try to get on board. He stays on Gilio. Later in the night, he meets a priest

who says the captain broke down and sobbed for a very long time. Francesco Scattino was sentenced to 16 years in prison for his role in the Costa Concordia disaster. But disasters like this are very rarely the fault of just one person. Surely others could have done better too. Italian prosecutors brought charges against five other individuals. The first and third officers and the helmsman from the bridge, the officer whose job it was to coordinate the evacuation, and the cruise company's crisis coordinator, who spoke to Scattino on the phone from his office in the period after the collision and before

the decision to admit to the Coast Guard that they needed help, or the decision to give the order to abandon ship. All five entered into plea bargains. They were given short prison sentences, short enough that on a technicality they didn't actually have to serve them. Scattino, too, asked if he could plea bargain. The prosecutors said no. What about the cruise company itself? It's their job, after all, to make sure that everyone's properly trained and following procedures, that the helmsman can understand English and so on.

They knew, or should have known, that it was common practice for their ships to deviate from the official route to perform a salute to picturesque islands. The cruise company also cut a deal with prosecutors. They agreed to pay a fine of one million euros. Relative to the cost of a cruise ship, or the value of a human life, one million euros isn't exactly a lot of money. It takes some work to summon much sympathy for Captain Scatino, but 16 years in prison compared to a trivial fine for his employer? No wonder there's been some disquiet about that.

It's hard to disagree with the conclusion of the Italian consumer rights organisation I mentioned earlier. Scattino should be punished, but he has been made a scapegoat. In his book, Scapegoats Transferring Blame, the author Tom Douglas discusses how societies through the ages have gone about choosing their scapegoats. With actual goats, the question doesn't arise – one, after all, is much like another. But what about the people in Athens who were whipped in the genitals with the branches of a fig tree?

They, says Douglas, were typically chosen because they were different, ugly or deformed. In other cases, scapegoats were chosen because they'd broken a law. If you've got someone who clearly deserves to be punished for something anyway, it makes sense to take the opportunity to load them up with everyone else's sins as well. When disaster strikes, for which lots of people may bear some portion of blame, you can expect those people to cast around for one individual, who might plausibly be made to carry all the blame, letting everyone else off the hook.

Captain Scattino practically thrust up his hand to volunteer for the role. It was all too easy to paint him as a cartoonish villain. Captain Coward, the newspapers called him. The sleazy, brazen adulterer, giving orders on the bridge with his much younger mistress by his side. The captain who abandoned his ship by accidentally falling into a lifeboat. Scattino made mistakes. He played his part, with others, in the accident and the chaotic response. But he surely would have made it harder in the accident and the chaotic response.

But he surely would have made it harder to scapegoat him if he'd reacted differently to the crisis he helped to create. If he'd reacted, for example, like the deputy mayor of Gileo. Mario Pellegrini, at last, takes his turn to climb the aluminium ladder. At its top, he meets a young man, a second officer on the cruise ship. What's happening from here? Pellegrini asks him.

The young officer explains. Rescue boats are waiting, he says, in the water below. But the only way to get to them is to descend the steep and slippery slope of the upturned bow. There's a rope ladder for people to cling to as they shuffle themselves down, but it takes time. And it's hard work. Lose your grip and you'll slide into the sea. Pellegrini sees that the second officer is wearing only a shirt. He must be freezing. I've got both a jacket and a sweater on, he says.

Let me give you one of them. No, no, says the young officer. I'm not feeling cold at all. But other passengers are. As they wait their turn on the rope ladder, some people are clearly at risk of hypothermia. Pellegrini and the Second Officer wonder what they might do to help.

They see the canvas cover of a life raft. They find a knife and cut lengths of canvas to wrap around the shivering shoulders of those who are suffering most. Together, Pellegrini and the Second Officer to wrap around the shivering shoulders of those who are suffering most. Together, Pellegrini and the Second Officer help the remaining passengers off the ship. First to clamber over some metal railings, then to negotiate the rope ladder. At half past four in the morning, there's no one left to help.

Or no one they can see. I'm going down to check if anyone's still trapped below, says the second officer. I'll come with you, says Pellegrini. They carefully make their way along the floor that used to be a wall. They heave open door after door and shine a torch into the blackness. Is anyone down there? Knock on something if you hear me. Door after door, only the sounds of splashing water come back. At nearly six in the morning, they finally come across some people. But they're not passengers in need of rescue.

They're professional rescuers who've been helicoptered in. We'll take over from here, say the rescuers. You can leave the ship now. The second officer starts to protest. I mustn't leave the ship, he says, until I'm sure that no more passengers need help. The rescuers gently insist. We'll take over.

You've done enough, look at yourself. The young second officer looks down. He sees how much his hands are shaking. He's still wearing only a shirt. And all of a sudden, he does now feel the cold. He turns to Mario Pellegrini and asks, does that offer of your sweater still stand? This script relied on a book by Mario Pellegrini and Sabrina Gramentieri on investigators'

accounts of the incident, and contemporary reporting in outlets such as Vanity Fair. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at timharford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright. The show is produced by Alice Fiennes with Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the scripts. Cautionary Tales features the voice talents of Ben Crow, Melanie Guthridge, Stella Harford,

Gemma Saunders and Rufus Wright. The show wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilley, Greta Cohen, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Kiera Posey and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded at Wardour Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review, it does really make a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show ad free, sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at pushkin.fm slash plus. Hey there, it's Michael Lewis, author of Going Infinite, The Big Short, Moneyball,

and Liar's Poker. On the latest season of my podcast, Against the Rules, I'm exploring what it means to be a sports fan in America and what the rise of sports betting is doing to our teams, our states, and ourselves. I'm heading to Las Vegas and New Jersey and beyond to understand America's newest form of legalized gambling. Listen to Against the Rules on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Open your free iHeart app, search Against the Rules,

and start listening.