The captain is the last to disembark

The captain and his soldiers remain on the sinking HMS Birkenhead while women and children board a lifeboat (painting by Thomas Hemy around 1892)

The captain goes down with the ship or the captain goes down with his ship is a maritime rule and tradition according to a captain in the sinking of the vessel to the end responsibility for the ship, crew and passengers wearing and must save them.

shipping

history

The phrase was made famous by the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 , but existed at least eleven years earlier.

The concept is closely related to another rule written in the 19th century: “ Women and children first! “Both embody the ideal of chivalry , as a result of which honor, service and respect for the disadvantaged were required of the upper classes.

practice

The concept literally means that the captain is the last person to leave a ship before it sinks or is completely destroyed, and that if he is unable to save his crew and passengers, he will also go to the rescue has to give up his own life. In maritime law , the presence of the captain is of the utmost importance, regardless of the condition of the ship, so that leaving the ship has legal consequences, especially for foreigners' right to rescue . Even if the captain leaves the ship in an emergency, his responsibility does not end and he is obliged to return to his ship as soon as the danger subsides.

If a military captain leaves a ship in wartime, it can be punished as a capital crime, such as desertion or mutiny , provided that he does not subsequently sink the ship or wait for it to sink. In many countries, the “premature departure of the ship by the ship's command” and the “leaving behind of those in need” are criminal offenses (for example the Italian Codice della Navigazione §§ 303, 1097).

Under German criminal law, the ship's command leaving the ship prematurely is not a separate criminal offense. However, the captain can be liable to prosecution for manslaughter by omission (§§ 212, 13 StGB ) and failure to provide assistance (§ 323c StGB), since he has a guarantor position towards his passengers, which results from maritime law regulations. However, it is not necessary that he literally be the last on the ship. It is enough if he does everything possible to save his passengers without putting his life in danger.

The Swiss Maritime Law , Article 134, explicitly stipulates: The captain who is not the last to leave a Swiss ship in danger will be punished with imprisonment or a fine. Even a seaman who leaves a ship in danger without the permission of the captain can expect a penalty.

Examples

The captain stayed until the end

The sailing ship Bounty sank during Hurricane Sandy .

September 12, 1857: William Lewis Herndon , the captain of the sinking mail steamer Central America , succeeded, despite a storm still all on board women and children and 44 male passengers on the brig Marine to remarket before it by the storm was stripped . Captain Herndon stayed with the rest of the passengers on the ship and went down with it.
June 22, 1893: Vice Admiral Sir George Tryon sank with his flagship HMS Victoria after a collision with a warship. 357 people died and 358 were saved. Tryon had caused the accident with a ship in his fleet himself through his maneuver orders.
April 15, 1912: Edward Smith , the captain of the Titanic , knew a few minutes after the collision with an iceberg that the ship could not be saved, but did everything in his power to avoid panic . When the ship sank, he headed for the bridge and probably died shortly afterwards under unexplained circumstances. Its last recorded words were: "Be British" (" be British ").
January 23, 1930: Captain Theodor Dreyer died while trying to leave the aground passenger ship Monte Cervantes . Due to the slow progress of the shipwreck, all passengers were able to save themselves the day before and all crew members on board on the day of the sinking.
June 5, 1942: Rear Admiral Tamon Yamaguchi stayed aboard the damaged aircraft carrier Hiryu during the Battle of Midway and the ship's commander, Captain Kaku, followed suit.

December 9, 1971: Mahendra Nath Mulla , the captain of the Indian frigate Khukri , remained on board with at least 194 crew members when it sank within 2 minutes.

March 23, 2008: The shrimp catching ship Alaska Ranger sank in the Bering Sea , with the captain sunk with the ship, but 42 of the 47 crew members were rescued.

October 29, 2012: Robin Walbridge, the captain of the 1961 launched Bounty , was washed off the ship during the evacuation of the crew. 15 crew members were rescued, one died shortly afterwards in hospital, the captain was missing. The official investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board sees the "negligent decision of the captain" to drive an aging ship and an inexperienced crew into a predicted hurricane as the main cause of the shipwreck .

December 28, 2014: According to media reports , captain Argilio Giacomazzi was the last to leave the ship in the wreck of the Norman Atlantic .

The captain did not stay until the end

The underlying Costa Concordia . In the hull is a piece of the rock that the ship collided with.

August 4, 1991: Some officers of the sinking cruise ship Oceanos left it in one of the first lifeboats. 225 people had to stay behind, including the elderly and children, because the remaining lifeboats were no longer accessible. Captain Yiannis Avranas was one of the first at the later air rescue, who let himself be pulled up from the deck of the now with 40 degrees listed ship by a helicopter.
January 13, 2012: Francesco Schettino , the captain of the cruise ship Costa Concordia , left his ship before the evacuation was complete. He was taken into custody by the Italian authorities and charged with several offenses (including negligent bodily harm and homicide, as well as failure to provide assistance due to leaving the ship prematurely). On February 11, 2015, Schettino was sentenced to 16 years' imprisonment in the first instance. The court convicted him of shipwreck, negligent homicide and negligent bodily harm as well as leaving people in need behind in the act of leaving the ship prematurely.
April 16, 2014: On the sinking RoRo ferry Sewol with 476 people on board, the 68-year-old captain Lee Joon-seok left the ship, apparently 30 to 40 minutes after it had tilted. The crew had asked the passengers to return to their cabins after the emergency call was made. The 174 rescued, including most of the crew and the captain, had resisted this request about half an hour after the ship had tilted. Of the 46 lifeboats on board the Sewol, only one was launched. On June 10, 2014, the trial of Captain Lee Joon Seok and 14 other defendants began in the Gwangju City Court. On November 11, 2014, the captain was sentenced to 36 years in prison, his crew members were sentenced to prison terms of 15, 20 and 30 years respectively.

aviation

Ditching of US Airways flight 1549 on the Hudson River

In aviation, the concept was explicitly transferred to the pilot in command .

Chesley Sullenberger , the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549 , was the last person to leave the plane successfully ditched on the Hudson River after searching the entire plane twice for potential remaining occupants.

railroad

On the railroad, the train driver and the engine driver are responsible for the safety of their passengers.

Shortly before the impending railway accident at Gare de Lyon, train driver André Tanguy repeatedly asked passengers via the train's intercom to leave the train immediately. When he saw the train approaching him, he stayed at the microphone and repeated his warning. In doing so, he saved the lives of many passengers. He himself did not survive the impact.

literature

Robert Esser , Susanne Bettendorf: Does the captain have to be the last to disembark? In: New Journal for Criminal Law 2012, pp. 233–237.

Individual evidence

↑ "... for if anything goes wrong a woman may be saved where a captain goes down with his ship." The Night-hawk: a Romance of the '60s , p. 249, Alix John, Frederick A. Stokes Company, New York, 1901.

↑ Codice della navigazione: 'Abbandono della nave in pericolo' , accessed on February 26, 2013

↑ Codice della navigazione: 'Abbandono di nave o di aeromobile in pericolo da parte del comandante' , accessed on February 26, 2013

↑ Christoph Drösser: Right? Does a captain have to be the last to leave the sinking ship? ... asks Johannes Meißner from Berlin. zeit.de, February 2, 2012, last accessed October 20, 2015.

↑ Esser, Bettendorf: Does the captain have to be the last to disembark? NStZ 2012, pp. 233–237.

↑ SR 747.30

^ Testimony of Charles Herbert Lightoller

^ The Longest Night. GQ

↑ " Witness recounts Claudene Christian's last minutes on Bounty ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this note. , Beverly Ware, South Shore Bureau, Herald News , Feb.15, 2013. @1@ 2

^ Sinking of Tall Ship Bounty , National Transportation Safety Board, Feb. 6, 2014.

↑ Italy Celebrates a New Hero , Stern-Online, December 29, 2014, accessed December 30, 2014

↑ First off board - the "Oceanos" accident revealed: Heroism is becoming rare among skippers. Der Spiegel 33/1991.

↑ Marike Frick: Better go down with it. ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2 archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Mare No. 79, April 2010. Retrieved December 8, 2013.

↑ Dario Thuburn: Captain arrested, 41 missing after Italian cruise disaster . January 14, 2012. Archived from the original on January 15, 2012. Retrieved January 15, 2012.