The ship was not pulling in to a port at the time, therefore no local pilot was aboard.
What's odd to me is that it was an Italian crew, sailing off the coast of Italy. They should have known those waters like the back of their hands.
Perhaps they were distracted by something. The passengers say there were announcements about an electrical problem. Perhaps the crew was dealing with the electrical problem, and not paying attention to navigation.
It's way too early to know... all we can do is speculate at this point. We'll find out eventually what happened, although it could be a long time before there is a final report from whatever the Italian equivalent of the NTSB is.