How it came to deviate from its course by 3-4 nautical miles - and why it capsized so quickly - will be central for investigators trying to establish the cause of the accident.
The investigation will focus on why a modern ship, with the latest safety equipment, travelling on the same route it travels 52 times every year, seemingly veered off course and hit what the cruise company has described as "a big rock".
There are a large number of possibilities ranging from human error, to technical failure, to a combination of the two.
It is possible the crew simply made a mistake and steered off course. They may have been misled by faulty navigation equipment.
Other reports suggest there may have been some kind of power failure.
These big ships rely on their electric generators for steering, power, lighting and so on. But that is why they have back-up systems that kick-in in case of emergencies.
However, Cristiano de Musso, a cruise company spokesman, said the ship had not deviated from the course it follows “52 times a year.”
Passengers described scenes of chaos as they tried to evacuate. Ms. Grasso said waiters instructed diners to remain seated even as the ship began listing. The captain initially told passengers that the ship had an electrical problem, according to media reports.
Once she boarded a lifeboat, Ms. Grasso said, the helmsman appeared ill equipped to bring the scores of travelers on his vessel to safety: he kept banging into the ship, unable to steer the lifeboat to the shore, until a passenger shoved him aside and took the lead.
A crew member, Fabio Costa, told BBC News that he had been working when he heard a crash. “We had no idea how serious it was until we got out and we looked through the window,” he said. “We saw the water coming closer and closer.”
Of the struggle to reach the lifeboats, as passengers pushed one another and stumbled on stairs amid falling objects, Mr. Costa said, “People panicking and pushing each other didn’t help at all.”
Mr. Onorato, the cruise company president, said only that the captain “initiated security procedures to prepare for an eventual ship evacuation.” He did not respond to further questions on the matter.
The cruise company said that the passengers included about 1,000 Italians, 500 Germans and 160 French, and the crew numbered about 1,000. The United States State Department estimated that 126 Americans had been onboard. It was not known whether any were among the missing.
Giancarlo Sammatrice, 22, a cook from Vittoria, Sicily, was on vacation with his girlfriend. “I have always been scared of those boats, but my girlfriend kept on saying that it was romantic, and I gave in,” he said. “There were not enough lifeboats. The pilots were not sailors but waiters who had no idea how to maneuver and kept on having us turning in circles.
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