Belfast Telegraph  Thursday 25 December 2014  Costa captain
'fled packed ship'  The Costa Concordia trial has heard hundreds
of people were still on board when the captain fled the sinking
ship (AP)  Hundreds of people were still on the sinking Costa
Concordia liner when the captain fled the ship in a lifeboat, a
court has been told.  Italian Coast Guard official Gregorio De
Falco become a national hero after repeatedly ordering captain
Francesco Schettino to return to the badly listing vessel.
Schettino is on trial for manslaughter, abandoning ship, and
causing the 2012 shipwreck by sailing too close to the Tuscan
island of Giglio. A reef gashed the hull, water rushed in and 32
people died.  The court in Grosseto, Tuscany, heard recorded
phone conversations in which Schettino told Captain De Falco
about 10 people were left aboard. Captain De Falco said hundreds
were still there. Schettino never went back on the ship.
Captain De Falco told the court that the Concordia sent out its
first distress signal 53 m