Coast guard searching for Royal Caribbean crew member who fell off cruise ship

Elise Solé
A crew member of Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas has gone missing. (Photo: Getty Images)
A crew member of Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas has gone missing. (Photo: Getty Images)

A Royal Caribbean crew member has gone overboard with search-and-rescue efforts underway.

The U.S. Coast Guard announced on Twitter and in a press release that a 26-year-old employee of the Majesty of the Seas went overboard and emergency services are working 37 miles east of Pompano Beach, Fla.

A representative of Royal Caribbean International tells Yahoo Lifestyle that on Thursday at approximately 2:35 a.m., crew members witnessed a fellow employee going overboard. “The ship’s Captain immediately stopped the ship to begin rescue efforts and alerted the U.S. Coast Guard. At 6:43 a.m., the U.S. Coast Guard advised the ship that they would be assuming control of the search. The ship was then released from the search and able to continue to Port Everglades,” the spokesperson says. “Our Care Team is providing support to the crew member’s family and friends, and our thoughts and prayers are with them.”

Shortly after the incident, unnamed passengers began messaging the legal website Cruise Law News. “We are on the Majesty of the Seas. It was just reported that we will be late to get to port today because a crew member went overboard,” one allegedly wrote. “No other information has been given to us. They said we assisted in the efforts last night to look, but no one was found.”

“Currently on Royal Caribbean majesty of the seas…search and rescue underway with coast guard for crew member that threw themselves overboard,” wrote a second passenger.

Two other Royal Caribbean employees have recently fallen overboard. In November, crew member Daniel Ackroyd, 27, went missing. He was last seen on the deck of the Adventure of the Seas at 4 a.m. while the ship was sailing to the Mexican island of Cozumel, wrote the Miami Herald. The Mexican Coast Guard reportedly conducted an unsuccessful 96-hour search.

In December, ABC News wrote that Aaron Hough, 20, a British employee of Harmony of the Seas, went overboard 267 miles northwest of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. A company spokesperson told People “that after a review of the ship’s closed-circuit camera footage, he was observed entering an area on Deck 5 at around 4 a.m. and was not seen again.”

Cruise Law News reported that Royal Carribean does not have the technology to detect whether passengers have fallen overboard. In December, CEO Richard Fain told Quartz, his “understanding is the tech is not yet at a viable stage. Like many areas of technology, the promise is often better than the actuality today … You do need technology to work. And actually work in real life, not in a laboratory and not in a sales brochure.”

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