The sinking of the Costa Concordia was a big, ugly thing – with most of the blame sitting squarely on Captain Francesco Schettino.  If you saw the Discovery Channel special on the catastrophe, you probably know most of it.  (If you missed it, someone has it uploaded to YouTube in 3 parts here, here, and here – and NOVA did a show called “Why Ships Sink” that you can find here.)

Well turns out that a preliminary trial started today.  And there were so many people – survivors and family members – who wanted to attend, that the Italian Court had to be convened in a theater.  The family members said that they wanted to “look him in the eye“.

This is gonna be a really interesting trial to watch!