there were a number of other costa concordia employees serving time after admitting their role in what happened. i mean, that in and of itself does not bode well for mr. schettino. no, in fact, it doesn t because five people who wok for costa cruise lines including two people who are officers at the time of the accident have admitted their guilt and their role in the accident and what happened as all public record, the court already accepted that as truth so captain schettino is either going to have to contradict that and give his version of events or he will have to take some blame himself in the culpability but, again, you know, nobody died on impact. everybody died during evacuation and this manslaughter charge stems on whether or not that evacuation should have been carried out earlier. he s also facing charges for abandoning ship. there is no denying he got off the ship before the last of the passengers. he was seen on the island of
refloated. here s erin mclaughlin. reporter: it s been almost ten months since the costa concordia was pulled upright. in a maneuver hailed as one of the greatest engineering feats in maritime history. a relief because it s been a struggle. reporter: now the costa concordia is finally ready to float again. it s a phase that engineers say is just as tricky and dangerous, the next chapter in a tricky story. january 2012 when the massive cruiseliner carrying thousands struck some rocks off the italian island of giglio. i looked and said this is it. we re going to swim or we re going to die. reporter: 32 of the people on board were killed that night. the body of a 33-year-old waiter has never been find. the captain, francesco shchettio
abnormal with smells, with smoke, anything of that nature, particularly when you re halfway across the ocean, it s of great deal of concern and it has to be responded to immediately. reporter: in order to make a last-minute landing on the island, aviation experts say the pilot would have had to dump fuel before reaching the runway. passengers became more alarmed approaching the island because of turbulence. after that 40-foot drop it got really silent in the cabin. people prayed. we all prayed. i prayed. there s nothing wrong with that. reporter: midway island known for the battle of midway in world war ii was once the home of a naval air station. recently used for other emergency landings including a delta airline flight which touched down there in 2011. united airlines says it s still investigating the mechanical issue that forced the pilot to divert. this smell would be a smell from a spark, a wire that had come loose, a wire that had arced against the airframe of
make an emergency landing on a tiny remote island in the pacific ocean. cnn s alexander field describes the terrifyi ining ordeal. reporter: an emergency landing for 348 people. cell phone video captures their arrival on the kind of island you don t usually visit. midway is not an island that has hotels and things. it s just a diversion airport. reporter: the moments before touchdown terrifying united airlines passengers. we were all thinking of people at home and our own little ones we had with us. we had a family next to us with a 3-year-old and a real tiny baby. reporter: mechanical issues delayed united airlines flight 201 from the start. after 3 1/2 hours it was cleared for takeoff. the plane left honolulu and was headed to guam, but three hours into the flight over the pacific ocean the pilot was suddenly forced to reroute to a remote island because of a strong electrical odor. any time there s anything going on in an aircraft that s
that s where they began diving. they don t know if these are the remains of both of the people, a 50-year-old sicilian woman and an indian waiter. there s nothing identifiable at this point. they ll need to use dna to find out if those are, in fact, the two missing victims. captain of the ship, his trial continued on monday. he is arguing that he s a hero, that he saved 4,000 people, right? that s right. there were 4,229 people on that ship. 32 people died. he said he s not the villain, he s the hero because so many people lived, but, of course, he is also being charged with abandoning ship. he sort of, as he said, fell into a lifeboat the night of the accident and he was on ground on the island of giglio. before several thousand of passengers were on that island. it remains to be seen and this is what the prosecutors are trying to prove, that he was not