Audio: Coast Guard Ordered Cruise Captain Back On Board

ROME (CBSMIAMI/AP) – "You Get on board! This is an order!", that was the command given to the captain of the stricken cruise ship Costa Concordia by an Italian Coast Guard official after the ship hit rocks Friday night.

Authorities in Italy seemed to believe Capt. Francesco Schettino had abandoned ship with passengers still on board as evidenced in shocking new audio of the ship's captain.

In the audio, the captain of the damaged cruise ship is heard making excuses as a coast guard official tries to get him to return to the ship to oversee the rescues and evacuation.

Schettino has insisted that he stayed aboard until the ship was evacuated. However, a recording of his conversation with Italian Coast Guard Capt. Gregorio De Falco that emerged Tuesday indicates he fled before all passengers were off — and then resisted De Falco's repeated orders to return.

"You go on board and then you will tell me how many people there are. Is that clear?" De Falco shouted in the audio tape.

Schettino resisted, saying the ship was tipping and that it was dark. At the time, he was in a lifeboat and said he was coordinating the rescue from there.

De Falco shouted back: "And so what? You want to go home, Schettino? It is dark and you want to go home? Get on that prow of the boat using the pilot ladder and tell me what can be done, how many people there are and what their needs are. Now!"

"You go aboard. It is an order. Don't make any more excuses. You have declared 'Abandon ship,' now I am in charge," De Falco shouted.

The Costa Concordia was carrying more than 4,200 people when it hit a reef off the Tuscan island of Giglio when Schettino made an unauthorized deviation from the cruise ship's programmed course, apparently as a favor to his chief waiter, who hailed from the island.

Schettino was finally heard agreeing to reboard on the tape. But the coast guard has said he never went back, and had police arrest him on land.

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Prosecutors have accused Schettino of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning his ship.

A judge ruled Tuesday that Schettino will remain jailed pending a later decision on whether to release him while authorities investigate his role in the disaster. He could face up to 12 years in prison on the abandoning ship charge alone.

Meantime, the death toll nearly doubled to 11 on Tuesday when divers located five more bodies, all of them adults wearing life jackets, in the rear of the ship near an emergency evacuation point, according to Italian Coast Guard Cmdr. Cosimo Nicastro. He said they were thought to have been passengers.

Italian naval divers also exploded holes in the hull of the grounded cruise ship Tuesday, trying to speed up the search for the missing while seas were still calm.

The Miami-based Carnival Corp., which owns the Italian operator, estimated that preliminary losses from having the Concordia out of operation at least through 2012 would be between $85 million and $95 million, along with other costs. The company's share price slumped more than 16 percent Monday.

Carnival said its deductible on damage to the ship was approximately $30 million. In addition, the company faces a deductible of $10 million for third-party personal injury liability claims.

Carnival said other costs related to the grounding can't yet be determined.

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