Speaker 1: Pushkin. Forty nine year old Mario Pellegrini runs a hotel
Speaker 1: in Gilio, an island off the coast of Tuscany, Italy.
Speaker 1: Gilio is a tiny island, just eight square miles, but
Speaker 1: in summer it's bustling. Tourists come to lays on the
Speaker 1: islands sandy beaches, explore its hidden coves, sample wine in
Speaker 1: its vineyards, and hike through the pine forest to see
Speaker 1: the medieval's stone walled fortress on the hill. In winter,
Speaker 1: Gilio is quiet. The tourists have gone. The holiday homes
Speaker 1: are shuttered, the hotels and restaurants are mostly closed. Just
Speaker 1: a few hundred people live on the island all year round.
Speaker 1: Mariopelogrini is the island's deputy mayor. At ten o'clock in
Speaker 1: the evening on Friday, the thirteenth of January twenty twelve,
Speaker 1: his phone rings. It's the chief of the island's police.
Speaker 2: I've been trying to call the.
Speaker 1: Mayor, says the policeman.
Speaker 2: We've had a report that there's a ship in difficulty
Speaker 2: outside the harbor. Do you know anything about it?
Speaker 1: Pellegrini doesn't know anything about it, but says he'll drive
Speaker 1: over to that side of the island to have a look.
Speaker 1: He also tries to call the mayor but can't get through.
Speaker 1: That's no surprise. Cell phone reception is patchy. He reaches
Speaker 1: a friend whose house overlooks the harbor and asks.
Speaker 2: Can you go and look out of your window?
Speaker 1: Sure, says the friend. Then, oh, oh my god. Pellegrini
Speaker 1: rounds a bend in the road and sees what his
Speaker 1: friend saw. A gigantic cruise ship. They never get this
Speaker 1: close to the island, seventeen high the length of three
Speaker 1: soccer pitches, a few hundred meters past the harbor, where
Speaker 1: the rocks are tilting noticeably to one side. There must
Speaker 1: be thousands of people on there, thinks Pellegrini. He's right,
Speaker 1: four thousand, two hundred and twenty nine to be exact.
Speaker 1: Pellegrini drives onto the harbor. He meets his friend. The
Speaker 1: Mayor's there too. What's going on, Pellegrini asks, no idea,
Speaker 1: says the mayor. We've had no communication whatsoever from the
Speaker 1: ship or the coastcard. They see a lifeboat slowly being
Speaker 1: lowered from the listing ship. They realize that they're going
Speaker 1: to have to find shelter for everyone. They start to
Speaker 1: make calls to their fellow islanders. Open the school, open
Speaker 1: the church, bring food, bring blankets. The first of the
Speaker 1: lifeboats arrives in the harbor and scrapes up against the
Speaker 1: concrete jetty. They help the passengers and ask what's happening
Speaker 1: on the ship, but nobody responds. Maybe they don't understand Italian,
Speaker 1: or maybe they're just too cold and stunned to speak.
Speaker 1: All of us should go on board, says Pellegrini, to
Speaker 1: see what's going on. The lifeboat's about to go back
Speaker 1: to the ship to pick up more passengers. Wait, hees Pellegrini.
Speaker 1: He gets on. I didn't really think this through, Pellegrini
Speaker 1: later says. As the lifeboat approaches the cruise ship, Pellegrini
Speaker 1: makes out its name written on the side, the Costa Concordia.
Speaker 1: The lifeboat dumps up against a rope ladder, the ships
Speaker 1: leaning over them, the ladder dangling in the air. Pellegrini
Speaker 1: grabs a wrung. The ladder sways, he starts to clamber up.
Speaker 1: I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to cautionary tales. It's
Speaker 1: nine o'clock in the evening on Friday. The thirteenth of
Speaker 1: January on the Costa Concordia and Captain Francesco'scatino is eating dinner.
Speaker 1: He's in one of the ship's restaurants. It has five,
Speaker 1: along with thirteen bars, four swimming pools, five chacoozies, a disco,
Speaker 1: a casino, and a movie theater. Keeping all the passengers
Speaker 1: on a cruise ship fed and entertained is no small task.
Speaker 1: Of the four thousand plus people on board the Costa
Speaker 1: Concordia over a one thousand a crew. Earlier that day,
Speaker 1: the ship had picked up passengers in the port of Cibdovekia,
Speaker 1: near Rome. They're looking forward to a week of puttering
Speaker 1: around the Mediterranean Sea, skirting the coasts of Italy, France
Speaker 1: and Spain. They haven't yet been through their mandatory safety
Speaker 1: briefing on what to do in case of emergency. The
Speaker 1: law says that the briefing must be held within twenty
Speaker 1: four hours of passengers getting on board, and surely there's
Speaker 1: no rush. Francesco Scatino is fifty one years old. He
Speaker 1: has a wife back at home. He also has a
Speaker 1: mistress half his age, and he's with her now. She's
Speaker 1: also employed by the cruise company but currently off duty.
Speaker 1: Scatino has asked to be told when there are a
Speaker 1: few miles from Giglio, and now he gets that call.
Speaker 1: The captain and his lover finish up their meals and
Speaker 1: make their way together from the restaurant to the ship's bridge.
Speaker 1: Picture a space like an airplane's cockpit, but on a
Speaker 1: grander scale. Screens and dials, knobs and levers wrap around
Speaker 1: windows with a view of what's ahead. When Skatino arrives,
Speaker 1: the first officer is in command. Also on the bridge
Speaker 1: of a third officer and a helmsman, and someone else too,
Speaker 1: the ship's matre d the headwaiter. He wouldn't normally be
Speaker 1: on the bridge, but he's from the island of Gilio,
Speaker 1: and Scatino has promised him a salute. It's common practice,
Speaker 1: a courtesy from the captain to a valued member of
Speaker 1: the crew. You veer slightly off the planned route and
Speaker 1: pass closer to the shoreline so your family and friends
Speaker 1: on land can admire the impressive size of the ship.
Speaker 1: Passengers enjoy these salutes too. It can give them a
Speaker 1: closer look at a picturesque island. Not that there'd be
Speaker 1: much to see tonight at half past nine on a
Speaker 1: dark January evening. It should all be routine, But as
Speaker 1: Scatino arrives on the bridge there are some causes for concern.
Speaker 1: The speed is fifteen knots, about seventeen miles an hour.
Speaker 1: That's a touch too fast for comfort for a ship
Speaker 1: this big and this close to land. The quicker you're going,
Speaker 1: the more difficult it is to judge your turns, and
Speaker 1: the automated navigation system is still engaged. It shouldn't be,
Speaker 1: Scatino says to the first officer. Don't we normally use
Speaker 1: paper charts and manual maneuvering when we're this close to shore.
Speaker 1: The paper charts, in truth might not be as much
Speaker 1: help as you'd expect. The Costa Concordia carries only small
Speaker 1: scale charts of the seabed this close to Giglio. That's
Speaker 1: because detours like this to salute an island aren't part
Speaker 1: of the officially planned route, even if they are common practice.
Speaker 1: The planned route runs closer to the middle of the
Speaker 1: ten mile channel between the island and the mainland. Scatino
Speaker 1: has done this swing by close to Gilio often enough before. Still,
Speaker 1: it does look like they're heading closer to the island
Speaker 1: than they'd usually get through the bridges big windows. You
Speaker 1: can see flashes of white as waves break on the shore.
Speaker 1: The matre d' is on the phone chatting to an
Speaker 1: old friend, also originally from Gilio, a retired cruise ship captain.
Speaker 1: He passes the phone to Scatino to say hello. The
Speaker 1: two men know each other, though they haven't spoken in years.
Speaker 1: Scatino skips the pleasantries. How deep is the seabed close
Speaker 1: to Gilio, he asks, like eight hundred yards from the harbor.
Speaker 1: The retired captain is surprised.
Speaker 2: You don't need to go that close.
Speaker 1: He says. It's January. Hardly anyone on the island, and
Speaker 1: it's nighttime. Nobody's going to be looking out of their
Speaker 1: windows to see you go by. That will be watching
Speaker 1: television with their curtains closed.
Speaker 2: Just stay hi and stay away.
Speaker 1: Says the retired captain. Scatino is trying to make sure
Speaker 1: he stays away. He wants to ease the ship towards
Speaker 1: the right to run parallel to the island's coastline three
Speaker 1: two five degrees, he tells the helmsman. The helmsman repeats
Speaker 1: it back, three one five degrees. He's Indonesian. He doesn't
Speaker 1: speak very good English or Italian. Now, the first officer
Speaker 1: interjects to clarify three three five degrees, he's not helping,
Speaker 1: Scatino repeats himself three two five. Despite these communication difficulties,
Speaker 1: the mood on the bridge still seems relaxed. Nobody yet
Speaker 1: appears to appreciate the extent of the danger therein. Then
Speaker 1: Scatino sees the rock hard to starboard, hard to port.
Speaker 1: The helmsman tries to turn the ship, but it's too late.
Speaker 1: As the back of the ship swings round, it crunches
Speaker 1: up against the rock. There was a loud bang, one
Speaker 1: passenger later told reporters for Vanity Fair, followed by a great,
Speaker 1: big groaning sound, A long and powerful vibration, said another,
Speaker 1: like an earthquake. The rock rips a gash in the
Speaker 1: side of the ship over one hundred and fifty feet long.
Speaker 1: Back in the restaurant, other passengers are still eating dinner.
Speaker 1: I took the first bite of my eggplant and feta,
Speaker 1: says one, and I literally had to chase the plate
Speaker 1: across the table. It was exactly like the scene in Titanic,
Speaker 1: recalls another dishes went flying, glasses went flying, the waiters
Speaker 1: went flying all over, Then across the restaurants and bars,
Speaker 1: the jacuzzis and the disco, the casino and the theater.
Speaker 1: The lights went out. Cautionary tales will be back after
Speaker 1: the break. Francesco's Scatino is currently in prison serving a
Speaker 1: sixteen year sentence for his role in the sinking of
Speaker 1: the Costa Concordia. There's not much public sympathy for reasons
Speaker 1: will come to but not everyone is comfortable with what
Speaker 1: happened to Francesco's Scatino. He's been scapegoated. The captain's lawyer
Speaker 1: insisted an Italian consumer rights organization and that represented some
Speaker 1: of the passengers on the ship, agreed Scatino should be punished,
Speaker 1: said a spokesperson, But he has been made a scapegoat.
Speaker 1: The head of a European association of shipmasters used the
Speaker 1: same word scapegoat. But what exactly is a scapegoat? The
Speaker 1: word comes from a story in the Old Testament. A
Speaker 1: priest lays his hands on the head of a goat.
Speaker 1: He confesses all the sins of his people, which mystically
Speaker 1: transfers all those sins into the goat. Then he allows
Speaker 1: the goat to escape his clutches, and it wanders off
Speaker 1: into the wilderness, the escapegoat carrying with it the sins
Speaker 1: of the people. The underlying idea seems to run deep
Speaker 1: in the human psyche, says the author Tom Douglas in
Speaker 1: his book Scapegoats Transferring Blame. Whenever an early society he
Speaker 1: came to believe in a God that could punish them
Speaker 1: for their sins, they often also developed the reassuring belief
Speaker 1: that they could escape God's punishment by transferring their sin
Speaker 1: onto something or someone else. Different societies came up with
Speaker 1: different rituals. In ancient Athens, for example, the metaphorical scapegoat
Speaker 1: was an unfortunate human who would be ceremonially whipped on
Speaker 1: the genitals with the branches of a fig tree, then
Speaker 1: paraded through the streets and pelted with stones. Whatever the
Speaker 1: details of the ritual, says Douglas, the intended outcome was
Speaker 1: the same. The sins of the community are removed, like
Speaker 1: the disposal of rubbish. Douglas argues that much the same
Speaker 1: dynamic plays out today. When a community or organization collectively screwed,
Speaker 1: its members may instinctively try to escape the consequences by
Speaker 1: shifting all the blame onto one individual. This process isn't
Speaker 1: as mystical or ritualistic as in olden times. More often
Speaker 1: it's cynical and strategic, and the punishment we want to
Speaker 1: avoid isn't typically from God. It may be from the
Speaker 1: courts of law or public opinion. Mario Pellegrini reaches the
Speaker 1: top of the rope ladder and hauls himself onto the
Speaker 1: deck or one of the decks. The cost of Concordia, remember,
Speaker 1: has seventeen levels. It's the length of three football pitches.
Speaker 1: Pellegrini has no idea how to find his way around.
Speaker 1: The deck is filled with frightened passengers trying to get
Speaker 1: onto one of the many lifeboats that members of the
Speaker 1: crew are lowering to the water. Pellegrini finds some people
Speaker 1: in uniform and asks what's happening. They have no idea,
Speaker 1: they say, But one wants to know why he's not
Speaker 1: wearing a life jacket. Oh, I'm not a passenger, Pellegrini explains.
Speaker 1: I'm the deputy mayor of Jilio. I've come on board
Speaker 1: to ask what help you need, sir. You have to
Speaker 1: put on a life jacket. Pellegrini tries again, I want
Speaker 1: to talk to whoever's in charge. Where can I find
Speaker 1: them on the bridge, replies the crew member. But you
Speaker 1: won't be allowed on the bridge, you're a civilian. Pellegrini
Speaker 1: walks off in search of the bridge. He can't find it.
Speaker 1: Every time he encounters someone in uniform, he asks what's
Speaker 1: going on and who's in charge, but nobody can give
Speaker 1: him a useful answer. At length, he finds himself back
Speaker 1: on the deck, where the lifeboats are on the opposite
Speaker 1: side of the ship, this time the side that's angled upwards,
Speaker 1: and while he's been exploring, the ship has tilted further,
Speaker 1: now at such an angle that from this side they
Speaker 1: can't lower any more lifeboats to the sea. Suddenly, Pellegrini
Speaker 1: finds himself lying on top of a woman. He's not
Speaker 1: sure what just happened. He apologizes, tries to stand up,
Speaker 1: and falls right back down again. It was very disorientating,
Speaker 1: Pellegrini recalls, you couldn't tell which way was up or down.
Speaker 1: The ship must be properly capsizing onto its side. Now,
Speaker 1: Pellegrini realizes all he can do is find something to
Speaker 1: grab onto and wait for the ship to settle on
Speaker 1: the rocks. It all started with that loud bang, then
Speaker 1: a great, big groaning sound. Plates of eggplant and feta
Speaker 1: flew across the table. The lights went out. There were
Speaker 1: screams in the darkness. After a while, a voice over
Speaker 1: the public address system. Ladies and gentlemen, your attention, please,
Speaker 1: I speak on behalf of the captain. We are currently
Speaker 1: experiencing a blackout due to an electrical fault. The situation
Speaker 1: is under control, an electrical fault that felt like more
Speaker 1: than an electrical fault. The ship's emergency backup lights come
Speaker 1: on and they illuminate a scene of chaos. The waiters
Speaker 1: are picking themselves up, Plates and glasses are everywhere. Panels
Speaker 1: have fallen from the ceiling. The ship appears to be
Speaker 1: noticeably listing an electrical fault. One passenger calls her daughter,
Speaker 1: who lives in central Italy. She describes what just happened
Speaker 1: and says she's not convinced that the situation is under control.
Speaker 1: The daughter, not sure what else to do, phones the
Speaker 1: local police. The police think perhaps they'd better call the
Speaker 1: coast guard. The coast guard is surprised to get the
Speaker 1: call when a ship's in trouble. The ship calls them.
Speaker 1: The coast guard doesn't normally have to call the ship.
Speaker 2: We've had a report that you're.
Speaker 1: Says the coastguard to the cost to Concordia. No, everything's fine,
Speaker 1: comes the response, we just had a blackout, that's all.
Speaker 1: So no, we don't. The coast guard doesn't believe them.
Speaker 1: Are they in denial? Hoping perhaps that they can make
Speaker 1: it to the next port and avoid the embarrassment of
Speaker 1: having to call for help. He sends a boat to investigate,
Speaker 1: but precious time has been lost. Many of the passengers
Speaker 1: are just as skeptical as the coast guard. They put
Speaker 1: on life jackets and heads straight for the lifeboats, ignoring
Speaker 1: messages from the crew to kindly return to your cabin.
Speaker 1: Everything is under control. Later, some tell how they got
Speaker 1: into a lifeboat and demanded that members of the crew
Speaker 1: lower it into the water. The crew members didn't want
Speaker 1: to because they hadn't yet received orders from the captain
Speaker 1: to abandoned ship. What was happening with Captain Scatino up
Speaker 1: on the bridge. He was getting reports about how many
Speaker 1: of the ship's compartments had flooded enough to be sure
Speaker 1: that the ship would sink, but he didn't seem to
Speaker 1: be taking the information in. According to the testimony of
Speaker 1: one crew member, he was out of his routine mental state.
Speaker 1: He was under shock. He wasn't the person I knew.
Speaker 1: A video from the bridge shows him looking stunned, says
Speaker 1: one expert analyst. The captain really froze. It doesn't seem
Speaker 1: his brain was processing. Scatino was also on the phone
Speaker 1: to the crew's company's crisis coordinator. What exactly were they
Speaker 1: saying to each other? Later their accounts would differ, but eventually,
Speaker 1: over an hour after the collision with the rock, the
Speaker 1: order came over the public address system. Abandoned ship. One
Speaker 1: seventy two year old woman tells how she tried to
Speaker 1: get on a lifeboat on the side of the listing
Speaker 1: ship that was closer to the water. It's full. People
Speaker 1: yelled from one boat, and the next and the next.
Speaker 1: I think there was room, she says, but those already
Speaker 1: on the boats were shouting at the crew members to
Speaker 1: lower them down straight away. The ship was tilting alarmingly.
Speaker 1: She saw that land really wasn't that far away. She
Speaker 1: was a strong swimmer. She jumped every fifty feet. I
Speaker 1: would stop and look back, recalled the woman. I could
Speaker 1: hear the ship creaking and was scared that it would
Speaker 1: fall on top of me if it capsized completely. Not
Speaker 1: long after midnight, the ship finally did capsize completely. This
Speaker 1: was the moment when Mario Pellegrini found himself lying on
Speaker 1: top of a woman, wondering what just happened. You couldn't
Speaker 1: tell which way was up or down. Thirty two people
Speaker 1: died on the cost of Concordia that night. Experts believe
Speaker 1: that this was the moment the final cap size, when
Speaker 1: most of their fates were sealed. Would some of those
Speaker 1: thirty two have already been off the ship if the
Speaker 1: order to evacuate had been given more quickly. Perhaps since
Speaker 1: he gave that order, Francesco Scatino has changed out of
Speaker 1: his captain's uniform into civilian clothes. He can no longer
Speaker 1: be so readily identified as the person who should be
Speaker 1: in charge. Scatino, too, later tells a story of losing
Speaker 1: his footing as the ship suddenly shifts. In his case,
Speaker 1: he explains he slipped and accidentally fell into a lifeboat.
Speaker 1: He then had no choice but to allow the lifeboat
Speaker 1: to take him safely to shore. Cautionary tails will be
Speaker 1: back In a moment, the ship that last has come
Speaker 1: to rest on its side, and the Deputy Mayor of Giglio,
Speaker 1: Mario Pellegrini, can find his feet again. He looks around
Speaker 1: and takes in his new situation. He's standing on what
Speaker 1: used to be a wall. It's difficult to walk along
Speaker 1: it because it's strewn with things like lamps and fire
Speaker 1: extinguishers and doors. There used to be doors in the
Speaker 1: wall that led into corridors. Now they're doors in the
Speaker 1: floor that lead to vertical shafts. You don't want to
Speaker 1: fall through one of those and plunge into the dark
Speaker 1: and chilly water below. It's hard to see because the
Speaker 1: emergency lights have gone out. Only shafts of moonlight now
Speaker 1: illuminate the ship. Dozens of people are still on board.
Speaker 1: How are they going to get off? First? It's clear
Speaker 1: that they'll have to climb upwards to get onto what's
Speaker 1: now the top of the ship that used to be
Speaker 1: its side. That's not going to be easy. They'll have
Speaker 1: to scale a now near vertical death. Someone brings an
Speaker 1: aluminium ladder. As everyone realizes that's the only way up,
Speaker 1: all hell breaks loose. Pellegrini watches people crowd around the ladder,
Speaker 1: all trying to push their way to the front. It
Speaker 1: was horrible, Pellegrini later says, I just remember all the
Speaker 1: children crying. A woman starts to climb the ladder. A
Speaker 1: man behind her passes up a toddler in a life jacket.
Speaker 1: Someone else shoves him out of the way. The mother
Speaker 1: on the ladder clings to the life jacket. The cord
Speaker 1: pulls tight around the falling toddler's neck. Her face starts
Speaker 1: to turn purple. Pellegrini barges through the crowd yelling in anger.
Speaker 1: You're going to kill that child. Don't be animals. Let
Speaker 1: the parents with children go up first. When the panic subsides,
Speaker 1: Pellegrini hears shouts for help. They're coming from below down
Speaker 1: what used to be a corridor and has now become
Speaker 1: a well. Together with the ship's doctor, Pellegrini finds a
Speaker 1: rope and drops it into the shark. Someone below ties
Speaker 1: it into a harness. The deputy mayor and the doctor
Speaker 1: heave on the rope and up comes a woman, a
Speaker 1: member of the crew. She's drenched and terrified. They lower
Speaker 1: the rope again and fish out next person, and the next.
Speaker 1: At last, a man in a waiter's uniform says to Pellegrini,
Speaker 1: I'm the last. There's no one else down there, or
Speaker 1: no one's still alive. I saw a man and child,
Speaker 1: he adds to the window in the restaurant floating past me.
Speaker 2: Dead.
Speaker 1: Pellegrini puts down the rope and looks at his hands.
Speaker 1: They're covered in blood. Francesco Scatino, meanwhile, is sitting on
Speaker 1: the rocks on the island of Giglio, looking at the
Speaker 1: capsized ship. He gets a call on his mobile phone.
Speaker 1: It's the coastguard, who wants to know how many people
Speaker 1: still need to be rescued. I don't know, Scatino says,
Speaker 1: I'm not on board anymore. You what, The coastguard is flabbergasted.
Speaker 1: Captains aren't supposed to leave their ships. Everyone knows that.
Speaker 1: Get in a boat, says the coastguard. Get back on
Speaker 1: board and tell me how many people still need rescuing.
Speaker 1: Scatino says he'd rather coordinate things from where he is. Now,
Speaker 1: what are you coordinating from there, asked the coastguard. Get
Speaker 1: back on board, but it's dark, says Scatino. When the
Speaker 1: recording of this conversation is later leaked to the media.
Speaker 1: A line from the Coastguard becomes iconic vada a bordo katso,
Speaker 1: which roughly translates us, get the fuck on board. Scatino
Speaker 1: does not try to get on board. He stays on Gilio.
Speaker 1: Later in the night, he meets a priest who says
Speaker 1: the captain broke down and sobbed for a very long time.
Speaker 1: Francesco Scatino was sentenced to sixteen years in prison for
Speaker 1: his role and the cost to Concordia disaster. But disasters
Speaker 1: like this are very rarely the fault of just one person.
Speaker 1: Surely others could have done better too. Italian prosecutors brought
Speaker 1: charges against five other individuals, the first and third officers
Speaker 1: and the helmsman from the bridge, the officer whose job
Speaker 1: it was to coordinate the evacuation, and the crew's company's
Speaker 1: crisis coordinator, who spoke to Scatino on the phone from
Speaker 1: his office in the period after the collision and before
Speaker 1: the decision to admit to the coast Guard that they
Speaker 1: needed help, or the decision to give the order to
Speaker 1: abandon ship. All five entered into plea bargains. They were
Speaker 1: given short prison sentences, short enough that on a technicality,
Speaker 1: they didn't actually have to serve them. Scatino, too, asked
Speaker 1: if he could plea bargain. The prosecutors said, no, what
Speaker 1: about the cup's company itself. It's their job, after all,
Speaker 1: to make sure that everyone's properly trained and following procedures,
Speaker 1: that the helmsman can understand English, and so on. They knew,
Speaker 1: or should have known, that it was common practice for
Speaker 1: their ships to deviate from the official route to perform
Speaker 1: a salute to picturesque islands. The cruse company also cut
Speaker 1: a deal with prosecutors. They agreed to pay a fine
Speaker 1: of one million euros. Relative to the cost of a
Speaker 1: cruise ship or the value of a human life, one
Speaker 1: million euros isn't exactly a lot of money. It takes
Speaker 1: some work to summon much sympathy for Captain Scatino, but
Speaker 1: sixteen years in prison compared to a trivial fine for
Speaker 1: his employer, no wonder there's been some disquiet about that.
Speaker 1: It's hard to disagree with the conclusion of the Italian
Speaker 1: Consumer Rights Organization I mentioned earlier. Scatino should be punished,
Speaker 1: but he has been made a scapegoat in his book Scapegoats,
Speaker 1: Transferring blame. The author Tom Douglas discusses how societies through
Speaker 1: the ages have gone about choosing their scapegoats with actual goats.
Speaker 1: The question doesn't arise. One after all is much like another.
Speaker 1: But what about the people in Athens who were whipped
Speaker 1: in the genitals with the branches of a fig tree? They,
Speaker 1: says Douglas, were typically chosen because they were different, ugly,
Speaker 1: or deformed. In other cases, scapegoats were chosen because they'd
Speaker 1: broken a law. If you've got someone who clearly deserves
Speaker 1: to be punished for something anyway, it makes sense to
Speaker 1: take the opportunity to load them up with everyone else's
Speaker 1: sins as well. When disaster strikes, for which lots of
Speaker 1: people may bear some portion of blame, you can expect
Speaker 1: those people to cast around for one individual who might
Speaker 1: plausibly be made to carry all the blame, letting everyone
Speaker 1: else off the hook. Captain Skatino practically thrust up his
Speaker 1: hand to volunteer for the role. It was all too
Speaker 1: easy to paint him as a cartoonish villain, Captain Coward.
Speaker 1: The newspapers called him the sleazy, brazen adulterer giving orders
Speaker 1: on the bridge with his much younger mistress by his side,
Speaker 1: the captain who abandoned his ship by accidentally falling into
Speaker 1: a lifeboat. Scatino made mistakes. He played his part with
Speaker 1: others in the accident and the chaotic response, but he
Speaker 1: surely would have made it harder to escapegoat him if
Speaker 1: he reacted differently to the crisis he helped to create,
Speaker 1: if he'd reacted, for example, like the deputy mayor of Gilio.
Speaker 1: Mario Pellegrini at last takes his turn to climb the
Speaker 1: aluminum ladder. At its top, he meets a young man,
Speaker 1: a second officer on the cruise ship. What's happening from here,
Speaker 1: Pellegrini asks him. The young officer explains, rescue boats are waiting,
Speaker 1: he says, in the water below, but the only way
Speaker 1: to get to them is to descend the steep and
Speaker 1: slippery slope of the upturned bow. There's a rope ladder
Speaker 1: for people to cling to as they shuffle themselves down,
Speaker 1: but it takes time and it's hard work. Lose your
Speaker 1: grip and you'll slide into the sea. Pellegrini sees that
Speaker 1: the second officer is wearing only a shirt. It must
Speaker 1: be freezing. I've got both a jacket and a sweater on.
Speaker 1: He says, let me give you one of them. No, no,
Speaker 1: says the young officer. I'm not feeling cold at all,
Speaker 1: but other passengers are. As they wait their turn on
Speaker 1: the rope ladder. Some people are clearly at risk of hypothermia.
Speaker 1: Pellegrini and the second officer wonder what they might do
Speaker 1: to help. They see the canvas cover of a life raft.
Speaker 1: They find a knife and cut lengths of canvas to
Speaker 1: wrap around the shivering shoulders of those who are suffering most. Together,
Speaker 1: Pellegrini and the second officer help the remaining passengers off
Speaker 1: the ship, first to clamber over some metal railings, then
Speaker 1: to negotiate the rope ladder. By half past four in
Speaker 1: the morning, there's no one left to help, or no
Speaker 1: one they can see. I'm going down to check if
Speaker 1: anyone still trapped below, says the second officer. I'll come
Speaker 1: with you, says Pellegrini. They carefully make their way along
Speaker 1: the floor that used to be a wall. They heave
Speaker 1: open door after door and shine a torch into the blackness.
Speaker 1: Is anyone down there knock on something? If you hear me?
Speaker 1: Door after door, only the sounds of splashing water come back.
Speaker 1: But nearly six in the morning, they finally come across
Speaker 1: some people, but they're not passengers in need of rescue.
Speaker 1: They're professional rescuers who've been helicoptered in. We'll take over
Speaker 1: from here, say the rescuers. You can leave the ship now.
Speaker 1: The second officer starts to protest and mustn't leave the ship,
Speaker 1: he says, until I'm sure that no more passengers need help.
Speaker 1: The rescuers gently insist we'll take over. You've done enough.
Speaker 1: Look at yourself. The young second officer looks down. He
Speaker 1: sees how much his hands are shaking. He's still wearing
Speaker 1: only a shirt, and all of a sudden he does
Speaker 1: now feel the cold. He turns to Mario Pellegrini and asks,
Speaker 1: does that offer of your sweater still stand. This script
Speaker 1: relied on a book by Mario Pellegrini and Sabrina Grammentierdi,
Speaker 1: on investigator's accounts of the incident, and contemporary reporting in
Speaker 1: outlets such as Vanity Fair. For a fullness of our sources,
Speaker 1: see the show not notes at Timharford dot com. Cautionary
Speaker 1: Tales is written by me Tim Harford with Andrew Wright.
Speaker 1: The show is produced by Alice Fines with Marilyn Rust
Speaker 1: the sound design and original music for the work of
Speaker 1: Pascal Wise. Sarah Nix edited the script. Cautionary Tales features
Speaker 1: the voice talents of Ben Crowe, Melanie Guttridge, Stella Harford,
Speaker 1: Jemma Saunders and rufus Wright. The show wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Ryan Dilly, Greta Cohen,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Kira Posey and Owen Miller.
Speaker 1: Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries. It's recorded
Speaker 1: at Wardoor Studios in London by Tom Berry. If you
Speaker 1: like the show, please remember to share, rate and review.
Speaker 1: It doesn't really make a difference to us and if
Speaker 1: you want to hear the show ad free, sign up
Speaker 1: to Pushkin Plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: or at pushkin dot Fm, slash plus