Woman Overboard on Allure

[snorklr45]

This just in...

ABC News’ Seni Tienabeso reports:

The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a 21-year-old female cruise-ship passenger who officials say fell overboard Sunday night.

The ship Allure of the Seas was sailing to the Bahamas when a passenger reported seeing another passenger go overboard, according to a statement from Royal Caribbean Cruises.

The ship immediately stopped, turned around and alerted U.S. and Bahamian Coast Guard officials.Crew members began a complete search of the ship and marked its location on GPS. Two other ships nearby began aiding the search until the Coast Guard took full control. About 320 square miles of open water have been searched, to no avail.

Video from cameras on board the ship show the unnamed Tennessee woman falling off the ship.

The Coast Guard has a ship, helicopters and aircraft, including a C-130, involved in the search, and will deciding this evening what to do next after several searches have yielded no traces of the passenger.

In a statement to ABC News, Royal Caribbean wrote, “Royal Caribbean’s Care Team is providing support to the guest’s family and our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

The Allure of the Seas missed its scheduled stop to the Bahamas, but is now back out to sea and is scheduled to arrive in St. Thomas, as scheduled, Wednesday.

[Trip]

There are also reports out there RCI waited two hours to report this.

It's amazing that not so many years ago, this was highly unusual..and now look how often it is reported...sad.

[Donna]

It is not so easy to fall overboard on any ship, unless there is something else at play here. I do hope to hear, that she is found and OK.....Yes, we do hear about this too often, very sad indeed.

[Paul Motter]

The ship has many things it has to do before it reports the overboard - like make sure it really happened.

I assume there was something about the video that didn't make what happened clear or else they would have reported it sooner.

I read that they assembled all the passengers and took a roll call first (on Allure? 6000 passengers!)

[snorklr45]

I just dont see how anyone could slip and fall off of a ship. Seems like they'd need help with that or really have to make an effort..I really hope she is found.

[Paul Motter]

Unfortunately - as much as we have tried we have not come up with a better word for the physical event that happens when you go overboard on a ship.

It does not matter if you slip, jump, do a swan dive.... you still end up falling, so "fall" is the word they use, but it does not mean she accidentally fell.

Usually, if they have video they know what really happened, and if it appears that she jumped then they do not say that out of respect for the family who deserves to know what happened first and to be able to choose how to describe what happened.

It makes the cruise industry look bad, and lord knows plenty of lawyers, etc, try to use every case like this to imply cruise ships are not safe - however the cruise industry quietly takes the criticism and does the right thing by the family.