Costa Concordia captain Francesco Schettino defended his actions at a pre-trial hearing yesterday, recalling the terrifying night of a cruise ship tragedy that claimed 32 lives.

Schettino went through “step by step the orders he had given in the moments before and after the crash and why he had given them,” a participant at the closed-door hearing in Grosseto in central Italy said.

The captain, widely attacked for apparently abandoning the cruise liner before the evacuation was complete, said he had given clear orders to the helmsman in the moments before the ship hit a reef, the participant said on condition of anonymity.

The hearing was the latest in a series that began on Monday and will pave the way for a trial expected next year into the January 13 ship disaster, which happened with 4,229 people from dozens of countries on board. Some survivors have attended the hearings and said they were still traumatised nine months after the crash near the Tuscan island of Giglio, which sparked a panicked night-time evacuation from the sinking cruise ship.

A total of 10 people are being investigated including Schettino and six other crew members, as well as three managers from ship owner Costa Crociere, which is part of the world’s biggest cruise operator, US-based Carnival.

Investigators have until January to press charges. (AFP)