ac360 starts right now. >> we begin tonight keeping them honest with breaking news. 360 has learned this waw not the first time that the costa conco concordia steered so close to shore. the cruise line not only knew about the route but approved it. the company that owns the ship said the accident was the result of a rogue decision that the captain and only the captain made. we learned the previous close call happened back in august. we have video, this is the video of the incident in august taken from the shore. the cruise line said the ship was a safe distance from the coastline. lloyds lip said it was dangerously close, closer, in fact, than it came on friday night when it hit the rocks. here is new satellite imagery of the wreck. look how big it is against the coast, just a massive, massive ship. the search for nearly two dozen was suspended when the wreckage began shifting. really dangerous for the rescue divers. a dutch salvage team has arrived to offload diesel fuel. also, today, we got our first look at an interview that the concordia captain, schettino, did a day after the grounding. in it, he maintains that the rock he hit was not on the map. >> i don't know if it was detected or not, but on the nautical chart it was marked just as waiter at some 100 to 150 meters from the rocks, and we were about 300 meters from the shore more or less. we should not have had this contact. there were more than 4,000 people and you were able to rescue everyone. the captain is usually the last one to abandon ship. what happened, captain? >> we were the last to leave the ship. >> last night, we showed you why that simply is not so. his own phone calls to the coast guard from the life boat during the evacuations is truth enough. his story has changed since the interview. he's saying, you might want to sit down for this. he said he somehow tripped and fell into a life boat. not kidding. tripped and fell into a life boat, got stuck in the life boat along with the rest of his senior officers. as for the rock he hit, we got the first up close look at it, and it, too, is breath taking. there are rocks and well water locations on the standard navigation chart of the area. you look at the images, the size of the rock that is embedded still in the hull of the ship, unanswered a eed whether the ca thought his ship was farther out to sea and clearer of the rock than it was which is why the lloyd's list story is intriguing. they track ships and they show the course taken on friday was not a new course. friday night as it tried to skim by the island right along the coast. the concordia's cheap stewart could wave to his family and friends on shore. that's the whole reason they got so close. now, according to lloyd's sat like tracking. this is the course it took on the 14th of august. the crossing point in the middle of the screen where concordia hit the rock. it came win 230 meters or two football fields of the island at one point. neither course is anywhere near the route that concordia and other cruise ships take which is art out to sea. monday, cruise line ceos blamed friday's grounding on the captain. >> we believe it to be a human error here, the captain did not follow the outlined route which is used very frequently, probably more than 100 times in one year we have this route from south chilean sea to the sea, and we think it's a tragic event. >> well, at the same news conference, a stunning admission that as you saw, concordia had been in the same dangerous waters on a nearly identical path last summer. it happened quote, under the thesation of the maritime authority, local maritime authority, with the authority and permission of costa, after having reviewed the route. he said nearby, not closer than 500 meters away from shore. and even 500 meters simply doesn't allow enough room for such dangerous waters. we contacted a representative from the company today because we wanted to know what the standard procedures are for approving course changes like the one in august and on friday. the spokesman saying, quote, onboard decisions about navigations are ultimately taking by the ship master who is responsible for the ship and passengers, in other words, the captain. joining us is adam smallman. if the cost aconcordia sail s just as close to the island in august, was it sheer luck that the disaster didn't happen then. >> it actually sailed closer and on the basis of the data that we looked at, which is exclusive analysis from shore based systems called ais, it got that close, 230 meters at one point, the closesh point on the voyage, closer than this voyage up until the last moment when it came in. so our estimate is that it must have come within slipping distance of the rock, the underwater rock way back in august. >> that's amazing. so when the cruise line said back in august, the ship was never closer than 500 meters to the island, you say that's simply not true. >> we don't believe it true based on the information we have seen. we went to the company today, waiting for a confirmation of our information. it's not 100% accurate, but we think it's pretty accurate. it's used around the world by governments and companies and corporations to track results. we have reason to believe it's accurate. when the court case comes down, there will be debate about precisely where it was. and there will be a lot of debate about what maps and navigation were in use at the time. >> regardless of what the ship has done or not done in the past, the responsibility for where the ship does, where it goes, ultimately still lies with the captain, right? >> absolutely lies with the captain. of course, he's got a massive responsibility. this is a cruise with lots of people who paid lots of money, and he knows where he's taking the ship, what kind of entertainment, what kind of places he's going to go with it. he needs to execute all that and in all that discussed, that was sanctioned. an interesting aspect is if he believed that the route that was taken then was of satisfaction to take again, then you know, that's going to lie right at the center of who is to blame for the dreadful accident. >> a lot of the blame, liability wise, is going to rest on which map the captain was or wasn't using, right? >> up to a point it will be. the question is with the right equipment and the right maps for the captain to do his job, you'll see debate about that. half a billion dollars worth of assets lying on its side in the ocean. a huge amount at stake, not just the civil liabilities but also the cost of the ship and who paid for all that, what is at stake, so there's a lot of debate around the detail of this, which makes the suggestion by the company a very quick and prompt suggestion that the captain was at fault without any hesitation at all, a little surprising. >> adam, thank you. i want to bring in two people, one to speak what it was like eboard the ship, and someone who may well be representing passengers in the legal action to come. georgia ananias who was one of the last to leave the concordia. and jack, who works for companies that own the cruise sh ships. georgia, you were outraged at what happened. i'm so glad you're okay. what is your reaction when you hear that according to satellite tracking data, the same ship was taking close to shore, the same route that caused the disaster, back in august. >> i'm shocked but now with the experience i had, not surprising. d disgusting, and there are so many blatant lies that have been going on with the whole incident, it doesn't surprise me anymore. >> we're showing you infrared images of passenger s crawling over and trying to get off the side of the ship, taking in infrared. you and your husband and two daughters were stuck on the ship for five hours. what was that like? were thru times when you thought you were not going to get off? >> absolutely. there were four times we thought we were dying, and we said our good-byes to each other. and we just said that, you know, there were so many things. >> what was it -- take me to one of the moments when you felt you weren't going to make it, why? >> one of the moments, when the ship was listing and we had to climb up and form a human chain to pull ourselves up into a stairwell, and a couple gave me their baby sxdz, take my baby. and i held a 3-year-old, and i was afraid the child was going to go down the stairwell, and i looked at my husband who was in the navy, and he said, this is it, and i handed the baby back to the parents and said, be with your baby. >> wow. what is -- what is that like to be with your family -- i can't imagine. >> it's an out of body experience, hard to believe. everything you would see on the titanic and worse. it was unbelievable. that was one incident. there were four incidents of that in the 5 1/2 hours, and not one person from the ship assisted in any manner. not one officer. we got on a life boat that wouldn't function, thrown against the walls of the ship, crawled down under, tried to get on the other side of the ship, they said if we got on the other side, we could get in a life boat, and at that time, the ship shifted again, we had to crawl back out, crawl a 20-foot ladder, blood falling down and people, the real heroes were the people, the other passengers onboard who lifted us up. we had to go through creates, and then we get to the top of the ship, and there were about ten people, the rest of the people left the ship. the coast guard and flashing lights. you think they're coming for you, and the next thing you know, they're taking somebody from the bridge and air lifting them out and we're standing there with our lights flashing and yelling, save us. >> you saw that? >> yes. >> and when you hear that the captain -- the captain now claiming that he tripped and fell into a life boat and got stuck in the life boat for an hour, does that make any sense to you? >> absolutely ridiculous. it's insulting to us, insulting to the people who died, insulting to the people like us that went through 5 1/2 hours. >> what i think a lot of people don't understand about the cruise ships is the ability to actually sue is very, very limited. especially if the ship hasn't been in a u.s. port. that the passenger takes a contract, which is an apparen y ly legally binding contract, it says any legal action has to take place in the courts in italy, in genoa, right? >> right, you make a good point, and the remedy, the rights and remedies of every passenger is governed by the document, which we printed one out. it's eight pages of about eight-point print. this is print that is much finer than newspaper print, and i seem to have lost my earpiece, but the right -- passengers do have rights and remedy, it's just that they're governed by this. in this particular case in this cruise line, the rights and remedies are to bring a claim in genoa, italy, only because this particular cruise did not touch a u.s. port. but there are rights and reme remedies, and the rights and remedies are different for other cruise lines and other cruises. >> if you're on a cruise that does not go to a u.s. port, you can't sue in the united states? >> no, that's not true. that is true with regard to costa, because costa happens to be based in italy, so the ticket contract provides that. with carnival, no matter where the accident is or where the cruise is or where theparage lives, you must sue carnival cruise lines in miami in federal district court in miami. so a lot of people don't know this. >> also under maritime law, aren't there very small numbers that you can actually -- the ability to win a large sum of money, you don't have that ability in maritime law. is that correct? >> no, that's not 100% correct, i'm sorry to dispute it. >> let me know what's going on. >> here is what is real. if the cruise does not touch a u.s. port, yes, there are limitations which apply, and that's the athens convection, and that's in the ticket. if the cruise does touch a u.s. port, there are no such limitation. there is an exception to the athices convectintion is one is there is intentional conduct. so in this case, even though you have to bring action in genoa, italy, and that can be done, and we are working with italian lawyers, but even if you bring an action in italy, if they raise this athens convention, certainly, this exception will apply here. i mean, the captain of the vessel, we have heard this incredibly, one of the most touching accounts of what happened, one of the most powerful accounts is that woman that just -- just recounted what happened. >> let me bring georgia bang in. how was it you were finally able to get off the ship? >> once we went up the 24-foot ladder, there were hardly any of us left. one of the cameras -- photographers from the ship and another journeyman had a rope, and we had to sit on our knees, hands and knees, all the way to the rope, and then go down from deck -- i want to say 7, 8, 10, i don't know which one, and we had to shimmy ourselves all the way down and that was like, you know, a chain. if one of us would have slipped and fallen, everybody would have gone down. we thought, we're safe. we're going to get in a life boat. what ended up happening is that the water shifted. so we had to time it to save our lives to jump onto the life boat. i and my younger daughter, we jumped to the top of it. and we saw another german lady with us who was left, she was before us, and my husband and daughter jumped. >> yet again, time after time, we see strangers reaching out and saving other strangers. and as you said, a lot of credit goes to them. georgia, thank you so much for being with us. i'm so glad your family is safe. >> my pleasure. >> jack, thank you so much. let us know what you think, we're on facebook, google plus. follow me on twitter. we're going to tweet right now. up next, the rescue operations are suspended because of the danger factor. and we have amazing new video of the work the divers have been doing despite the risk. we'll talk to butch hendrick a little bit coming up after the break. also later, andrew sullivan, president obama's accomplishments as he sees them and why that controversial title on his newsweek title reads are obama's critics so dumb a title that brings up a lot of controversy. bay buchanan joins the conversation as well. >> students in upstate new york want answers. they want to know why a dozen teenage girls at the same school developed a mysterial condition that looks a lot like tourette's syndrome. we have the story in 360 when we continue. ♪ [ woman ] when i grow up, i want to take him on his first flight. i want to run a marathon. i'm going to own my own restaurant. when i grow up, i'm going to start a band. 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[ female announcer ] discover what's next in your life. get this free travel bag when you join at aarp.org/jointoday. get this free travel bag when you join there is a platform built for the purpose of driving innovation. one that's transforming how companies from every industry-- and of every size-- are doing business. a platform built for now. and for what's next. this...is the cisco intelligent network. cisco. metamucil uses super hard working psyllium fiber, which gels to remove unsexy waste and reduce cholesterol. taking psyllium fiber won't make you a model but you should feel a little more super. metamucil. down with cholesterol. our breaking news tonight, word that not only did the "costa concordia" come dangerously close to disaster at least once before, the cruise line knew about it and approved it. that happened last august. we've also learned through precision tracking information from the shipping journal "lloyd's list" that on that occasion, the "concordia" came much closer to danger than the cruise line claims. 230 meters, not 500. in short, friday's disaster might just as easily have happened last summer. again, about two dozen people right now remain unaccounted for. as we said, underwater rescue and recovery was suspended today because of dangerous conditions. we've been talking about how dangerous this is for the divers for several nights now. as you can see in this kind of video, getting around the inside of an ocean liner is tough, even under the best conditions. that video, by the way, newly released by the italian coast guard. there is more, and to an expert eye, it shows just what these divers are up against. we're joined by veteran rescue diver, butch hendrick. he's been guiding us through the rescue operations all week. he joins us again. butch, what surprised you most about this new video of the underwater search and rescue mission? >> the thing that surprised me the most, anderson, was the amount of visibility they have. i was not expecting them to have that much visibility. >> and what do you attribute that to? is it not very silty down there? >> well, they're midwater at that point, so they're not on the bottom where they have the silt, but the water conditions are just very clear. they've got good 50 to 100-foot visibility, while they have light. >> and good visibility, that would seem like a very good thing, correct? >> yes. having good visibility is definitely a good thing, because it allows them to be able to work a whole lot of that ship quite freely, especially, you know, reducing the ability to get disoriented. >> at one point in the video, i see something that looks like lines that are in a "y" shape formation. are those like the lines that you used tuesday night on this program when you dove inside the wreck to basically mark your course? >> i believe they are. i was looking at the "y" point of that. you see the way they're connected, and they're using, obviously, a larger diameter rope. we used a little rec reel, but yes, i believe that's exactly what they are. they're setting up to be able to get in, get out, and move product, or move items in and out along those lines with them. >> we can also see the divers using a sledgehammer. that's the kind of tool that you would use underwater in these circumstances? >> it's not the tool i would use, it's what they're using. i would actually try and use, if you watch video that i'm sure you have on fdny, new york city fire department, the officers carry what's called a hallogen tool. it's about 28 to 32 inches long. it has a pry bar, a very large hammer side on it with a claw. it's a multiusable tool, and you can use it well with two hands. that's what i would be having my guys use. >> it's got to be tough for the divers, who are obviously invested in trying to recover people from this, to have to suspend operations. >> it's a point where they've decided that now they have to -- they're probably setting up lines, getting ready for the salvage company to come in. and yes, it's very difficult for the men to say, just one more dive. just one more dive. but at some point, the dives are over for now. >> and how long might they be suspended for? or is that undetermined, because you've just got to wait on the conditions? >> the conditions aren't bad. i think they're probably going to lay tracer lines slowly. they're going to work one compartment at a time. and then they're going to be deciding how are they going to salvage, if they're going to try to actually float this ship. >> butch, again, i appreciate your expertise. coming up tonight, "raw politics." a controversial "newsweek" headlines asks, quote why are obama's critics so dumb? that's on the cover of "newsweek." andrew sullivan wrote the article that's inside. he didn't write that head liner, but he wrote the article. he argues that the president will outsmart all his critics who cannot see that he's using a long game strategy. i'm going to speak with andrew sullivan about that and republican strategist bay buchanan. it's an interesting conversation. also ahead, a medical myster