How do you assess the crew? They seemed utterly disorderly. The captain did not even announce “Abandon ship!” – because he was not there! Just appalling. We would not have seen such hysterical images of people thrown into panic and having to pilot their own lifeboats. There would have been a better lifeboat evacuation if the captain had been at his post and in command. His main job is to stay at his command post and direct all this activity. But he must also maintain the discipline of the bridge, and send assessment parties out. So his duty ultimately would have included searching for trapped survivors himself. This is well known and it will trap people in their cabins. When a ship lists like that and goes out of vertical, the doorways and other interior structures are twisted. This captain should have stayed and helped save passengers. He lived, but he was the last one off his ship as it sank. I recall as well the captain of the Andrea Doria (Piero Calamai, an Italian) in 1956. Smith died, and I think “just as well that he did” because he would have been disgraced for life as the collision was completely his fault in every sense. That is what Commodore (Edward J.) Smith did on the Titanic. What should he have done?Ĭrunch should have stayed to the end. He will likely go to prison before he ever goes to sea again. For a captain to bug out and go ashore is just not done and that is going to brand him forever.
#DOES THE CAPTAIN GO DOWN WITH THE SHIP SERIES#
John Maxtone-Graham: Captain Crunch? Where do I start? Not only did he make a series of hugely foolish piloting decisions, he left the ship well ahead of many passengers and crew.
Aren’t they supposed to go down with the ship? In an interview Tuesday, he reflected on the ignominy of Captain Francesco Schettino and the titanic repercussions of the Costa Concordia debacle. His latest book, “Titanic Tragedy: A New Look at the Lost Liner” (Norton), arrives in March. He has written 25 books, most of them about ships, and spends more than half his year aboard cruise vessels lecturing to passengers. Author and lecturer John Maxtone-Graham is known as the dean of ocean-liner historians.
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