Safety and welfare advocates have condemned the sentencing of Captain Francesco Schettino as “bloodlust”.

After a 19-month trial, the captain of the Costa Concordia has been found guilty of multiple charges of manslaughter and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

He had been charged with manslaughter, causing a shipwreck, delaying passenger and crew evacuation, and abandoning ship before all 4,229 passengers and crew had been rescued.

The captain claims he was made a “scapegoat”, and some within the maritime industry agree with this view and strongly urge a review of how ship casualties are investigated and blame apportioned.

Maritime trade union Nautilus International issued a statement after the verdict.

Allan Graveson, Nautilus’s senior national secretary, said: “This case may satisfy those with bloodlust, but the outcome deflects from the real issues and has obscured a much-needed debate about the design, construction, and operation of large passenger ships.

“There has been an absence of meaningful action to improve safety in response to the Costa Concordia accident, and this trial has simply served as a distraction from the important underlying issues,” he added.

By contrast, news of Schettino’s sentence drew an effective silence from the International Chamber of Shipping. When contacted by IHS Maritime, the organisation said it “is not appropriate for us to comment on a legal judgement”.

Earlier this week, Graveson had spoken to a legal audience about the unscientific approach to ship casualty investigations and trials.

Questioning the mass condemnation of masters such as Captain Schettino (Costa Concordia) and Captain Lee Joon-seok (Sewol), Graveson said to look beyond the apparent facts of crew incompetency or cowardice is necessary to address and reduce ship casualties.

He criticised the focus on “proximate causes”, the act from which an injury directly results as a natural consequence. The situation, he said, is more complex and “driven by the insurance market”.

He reasoned that if the proximate responsibility alone is singled out, “it is inevitable that it is the master that will be put in the frame”.

However, the weakness of this approach, he added, is that it fails to find and eradicate the actual cause.

Finding a proximate cause, he said, services the self-interest of economic and governmental parties and is facilitated by the thirsty “world of 24-hour news”. Long-term safety advocate Captain Michael Lloyd agreed.

Chair of the safety equipment company Salvare Worldwide Ltd, vice president of the executive committee of the International Cruise Victims Association, and a member of the advisory board for Human Rights at Sea, Lloyd has experience as a cruise ship captain as well as having served in the merchant marine, and with the Royal Navy.

He told IHS Maritime that society should guard itself against the “desire for emotions such as revenge overcoming the law”.

He said: “The tradition of the captain being the last off the ship is just that, tradition.

“[To be last of the ship] should of course be imbued in those of us who aspire for command, but there is no law stating this. So, while it is morally reprehensible, as far as I know the law does not deal with morals.

“Captain Schettino left the ship during the abandonment: that is for his conscience, not the law to deal with.”

Lloyd also reasoned that Schettino obeyed current IMO ideology on abandonment; the idea of using the ship as a life boat, which in practice means keeping passengers on board ship for as long as possible.

“In effect, Captain Schettino did this. That he abandoned ship before his passengers is morally reprehensible, but he left the ship during the abandonment process, as well as delayed the abandonment as per current IMO ideology.”

Lloyd said he believes that in cases such as this, any management executives who know about the practice of sail-by salutes, where the ship is taken close to the shore, should also be “in the dock”. He said that sail-by salutes are well-known manoeuvres.

The commonality of the practice in southwest Italy was confirmed to IHS Maritime by a leading Italian lawyer, who wished to remain anonymous. He said, “I can tell you of many cases. For one accident there are 99 other cases that, at the last minute, or by chance, managed to escape catastrophe.”

Known as ‘inchino’, which means to bow, curtsey, but also to lean, the captains of these ships “know that they are going past rocks”, said the lawyer, who added it is a cultural (Italian) issue that should be addressed.

But safety advocates, such as Nautilus International and Michael Lloyd, believe the cultural issue stretches further into the industry – to shipowners, operators, and regulators.