Costa Concordia ship captain ordered dinner after crash
A photograph taken early on January 14, 2012 of the Costa Concordia after the cruise ship with more than 4,000 people on board ran aground and keeled over off the Isola del Giglio, and Italian island, Friday night.
The captain of the Costa Concordia ordered dinner for himself and a woman after the ship struck rocks off Italy's coast, a cook from the ship told Filipino television station GMA Network.
Cook Rogelio Barista said the ship's captain Francesco Schettino ordered dinner less than an hour after the accident at 10:30 pm. Authorities say the ship struck the rocks at 9:41 pm local time.
"I did wonder, what the captain was doing… why was he still there" said Barista.
"We wondered what was going on," Barista told GMA. "At that time, we really felt something was wrong." He said "[we] realized how grave the situation was" once things started falling in the kitchen.
The vessel ran aground on Friday with 4,200 people on board. At least 11 died and another 21 are still missing,
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The ship's captain, Francisco Schettino, is under house arrest and facing possible charges of manslaughter, shipwreck and abandoning ship.
Rescue workers are continuing their search for the missing but may face worsening weather, the BBC reported. Meanwhile, salvage operators are standing by to start pumping fuel from the ship's tanks to avoid a potential environmental disaster.
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