Costa Concordia: mystery of blonde on the bridge of doomed liner

Passengers suggested the pair had been enjoying dinner together half an hour
before the Concordia careered into rocks and suffered a catastrophic gash in
its hull.

An Italian couple, Angelo Fabbri and his wife Eleonora Rossi, inadvertently
photographed the couple at 8.44pm as they took pictures of the dishes served
to them in the Club Concordia restaurant. “Schettino, in a dark uniform, was
seated in front of the woman,”

Mr Fabbri, from Savona in northern Italy, told an Italian newspaper. “She
seemed young, first of all we thought she might be his daughter. They were
laughing, they seemed very happy. There’s no doubt that they drank the whole
decanter, the last drops were poured into the captain’s wine glass.”

According to the passengers, the captain, the woman and another officer sat
down to a four course meal of prawn cocktail, rice with gorgonzola and
asparagus, grilled swordfish and dessert, with the wine.

“They stayed until 9.05pm, I know that for sure because, to record the
evening, we photographed the dishes and in one, timed at 9.02pm, the captain
and the woman were still at the table,” said Mr Fabbri.

“He seemed to me a bit of a braggart, in contrast with other cruise captains
that we’ve travelled with.”

The captain reportedly left the restaurant with the woman and the officer at
9.05pm, 37 minutes before the collision. He has insisted to investigators
that he did not drink alcohol that night. Mr Schettino faces at least 12
years in jail if convicted of abandoning his ship and multiple counts of
manslaughter.

Italian judicial authorities want to interview Miss Cemortan. It is believed
she was not working on the Costa Concordia.

Interviewed by a Telegraph reporter on Saturday at the Hilton Hotel in Rome’s
Fiumicino airport, she defended of the captain’s actions, saying he had
saved lives by steering the ship towards Giglio’s harbour and grounding it
close to the shore.

Francesco Verusio, the chief prosecutor, was not available for comment but a
spokesman said he “could not confirm or deny” that Miss Cemortan was being
sought for questioning.

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