Costa Concordia captain 'failed to understand' scale of disaster "The water was rising fast, it was terrible," Mr Iaccarino said. I called the bridge to make them aware of the seriousness of the situation and they responded in an incredibly calm way. I was desperate because no one was giving any orders and the water was already up to the stern's elevators. The crew's comments came after an audio recording at a hearing in Grosseto last week revealed confusion on the bridge as Capt Schettino told his crew to turn the crippled ship one way while his second-in-command told them to steer it in the other direction. But Capt Schettino remained defiant when he too appeared in an interview on the same Italian TV programme as his crew members on Sunday. "I don't want to contradict anyone, least of all the prosecutors," he said. I only want to say if I had not stopped the ship, if I had dropped the anchor at a depth of 100 metres, the ship would never have made it to the coast. Schettino also said it was a "beautiful feeling" to shake hands with the ship's survivors at the Grosseto hearing. "I promised them the truth will come out," he said. Thirty-two people died after the Concordia capsized off the Italian coast of Giglio on the night of Jan 13.