The moment that the Italian authorities await for answers from the ship’s “black box”, the captain of Norman Atlantic  gives his version around the dramatic incident.

The 62 year old captain holds Greece accountable for the fate of the ship, since according to him, Greece did not respond to the calls for help and ANEK Lines allowed more people and vehicles onboard than they should.

At the same time after explaining that the flames reached even into his cabin and burned all of his nautical documents, he explained that Norman Atlantic had four lifeboats, each of which could accommodate 150 people, therefore, theoretically all passengers could have been saved.
Furthermore, the Italian captain explains to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera the details of how everything happened, always from his point of view.

He concludes, by saying that: “I did not want to abandon the ship. After all passengers and crew members disembarked, I remained in the ship with some officers of the Coast Department and insisted on staying to steer the ship in the harbor, but the Norman Atlantic was wayward and finally I gave in to the insistence of the officers. We had to abandon the ship. This is a hard decision for a captain to make”.