Coast Guard searching for cruise line crew member who went overboard
The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for a 26-year-old crew member on Royal Caribbean’s Majesty of the Seas who went overboard Thursday morning.
The crew member went overboard 37 miles east of Hillsboro Inlet. The Coast Guard, one of the agencies working without pay during the government shutdown, is using the Cutter Paul Clark, a MH-65 Dolphin helicopter out of Miami and HC-144 Ocean Sentry airplane out of Miami.
At about 2:35 a.m. Thursday, crew members witnessed their fellow crew member going overboard, Royal Caribbean corporate communications manager Owen Torres said in a statement. At 2:42 a.m., the Majesty of the Seas ship alerted the Coast Guard that the crew member had gone overboard.
The cruise ship turned around and searched for the missing crew member until 6:43 a.m. when the Coast Guard took over. The 2,767-passenger ship returned to Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale Thursday morning. At the time of the incident the ship was on a five-day cruise to the Bahamas.
The Majesty of the Seas crew member is the first person to go missing on a cruise ship this year. In December, four people went overboard on cruise ships in the Caribbean, including 20-year-old Royal Caribbean crew member Arron Hough on Christmas Day. None of those people were found.
This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 9:09 AM.
