Cautionary Tales – Captain Coward and the Blame Game
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?
Further reading
Scapegoats: Transferring Blame by Tom Douglas contains a historical overview of the human practice of scapegoating. Available in Italian, La notte della Concordia is Mario Pellegrini’s book about his experiences, co-authored with Sabrina Grementieri.
A timeline and details of the accident can be found in the report of Italy’s Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport Marine Casualties Investigative Body, with useful additional perspectives in an in-depth report by Captain Michael Lloyd and a doctoral thesis by Craig Laverick, now a professor of maritime law.
Bryan Burrough and Josephine McKenna wrote the long-form article Another Night to Remember in Vanity Fair, a few months after the accident. We also drew from reporting in outlets including The Guardian, Der Spiegel, Seattle Times, Yachting and Boating World and Lloyds List.
