Man Overboard on a Cruise Ship: What Happens Next? 2023

Table Of Content

• What Does the Ship Do to Try to Rescue the Passenger?
• Why falling off a cruise ship is so deadly
• What Happens When Someone Falls Overboard?
• Reeta Sahani who 'could not swim' went overboard on a Royal Caribbean ship while traveling with her husband
• The 50 best Hollywood books of all time
• What Happens When Someone Falls Off a Cruise Ship

The chances of you falling overboard off a cruise ship are extremely low. A 35-year-old Australian man who fell overboard on his way back to Brisbane. A 7-year-old boy who died after falling into the ocean, followed by his mother, who tried to save him. From a business perspective, there’s also little incentive for the cruising companies to curb alcoholic indulgence. Each of the big three lines—Carnival Corporation & plc, Royal Caribbean Cruise Ltd, and Norwegian Cruise Lines—made between 26% and 30% of its 2017 revenue on drinks and extras sold onboard, according to their annual reports.

What Does the Ship Do to Try to Rescue the Passenger?

But despite the headline-grabbing tales of murky seas and foul play, overboard incidents remain a real rarity on cruise ships, according to industry data and experts. While grown-ups have been known to fall off cruise ships, and it's always a big news story when it happens, it's also an extremely rare occurrence. And that's because it's really, really hard to fall overboard without doing it intentionally or being extremely reckless. Professor Ross Klein of Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, has been gathering information regarding man overboard incidents since 1995. As of 2023, he has tracked 387 situations in which passengers or crew members on board cruise ships or ferryboats went overboard.

Why falling off a cruise ship is so deadly

A person can also become unconscious from hypothermia in as little as 15 minutes, depending on sea temperatures. In addition, Lloyd notes that plexiglass railings could be used, rather than ones that are easy to climb, as Broberg did. Written signage could alert passengers of high-risk areas where people have fallen overboard before. For cruise passengers on cruises that don’t visit US ports, the Athens Convention, passed in 1974 and revised in 2002, limits liability for death or personal injury to roughly $350,000 per case (in some cases, it can go up to roughly $550,000).

What Happens When Someone Falls Overboard?

Video footage of the man’s lifeboat rescue went viral, but it will be the last time he was able to travel on a Carnival cruise ship. On May 19, 2019, a passenger jumped off a Carnival Cruise Line vessel off the shore of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Fortunately, the irresponsible 19-year-old guest was rescued by Carnival’s rescue team, but he was held legally responsible for the incident and for putting the rescue team at risk. In a statement on the incident, a Carnival spokesperson expressed the cruise line’s deepest condolences, as well as prayers for family members of the missing passenger.

Walker says this is typical, noting that thorough investigations into MOBs that involve crew don’t happen often enough and that when they do, they rarely address the underlying issues of mental health that many crew members may be facing. And to that end, there have been numerous calls on popular crew center websites and petitions to put psychologists on board cruise ships to provide mental health support to crew. It’s hard to know for sure how many crew MOBs are a result of intentional acts or suicide. And of course, enough people work on cruise ships that it’s statistically probable some of them might commit suicide even if they never stepped on board. But Walker argues that there is little consideration of the fact that these harsh labor conditions might be leading some to jump.

Adequate deck railings, lifeboat dispatching capabilities, detection sensors, and response times must meet set standards. Today, we will take a deep dive into what happens if you jump off a cruise ship. Not only will we explore real-life incidents and their outcomes, but we will uncover overboard statistics and survival rates, onboard safety protocols, and the legal ramifications of these incidents. When Frank Jade fell off the deck of Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas on January 8, 2015, nobody noticed that one of the ship's 6,360 passengers had gone missing. Things were looking grim for the 22-year-old American tourist, who could only watch helplessly as his ship sailed away. Miraculously, Jade was later spotted by passengers sailing the same route on the appropriately titled Disney Magic cruise ship, and Tom Parsons (a fire chief from Ithaca, New York) threw him several buoys.

High railings on public decks prevent passengers from getting blown or swept off accidentally, and security cameras record what’s going on in public places. There’s no official detection system for people who fall overboard quite yet, but the Coast Guard reportedly has technology in the works. Of course, automatic MOB technology could also trigger other costs for cruise companies. With MOBs or serious crimes, of course law enforcement authorities are supposed to be alerted.

Can you survive jumping off a cruise ship?

‘They found her!’: Witness describes rescue of woman who fell overboard on Royal Caribbean ship - FOX 35 Orlando

‘They found her!’: Witness describes rescue of woman who fell overboard on Royal Caribbean ship.

Posted: Tue, 27 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

The biggest potential danger is that veranda balconies have furniture—typically a low table and two chairs—which a small child could, potentially, push next to the railing and climb upon. Of course, you should never leave a child unsupervised on a balcony. You could also ask your steward to remove the veranda furnishings as an extra precaution. By following the tips we’ve shared today, you increase the odds that you return safe and sound. They can even offer medicine so you can get back to enjoying your cruise as quickly as possible.

How long does it take to find someone who has gone overboard?

Why most cruise ships don't have tech to automatically detect people falling overboard - Business Insider

Why most cruise ships don't have tech to automatically detect people falling overboard.

Posted: Thu, 31 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

As noted above, going overboard is often the result of guest behavior while onboard. Guests who follow general safety procedures needn't worry so much about accidentally falling overboard. Because a man overboard situation can happen on any vessel in any part of the world, there are no specific statistics compiled by the U.S. government. You may have seen a headline like "Carnival cruise woman falls overboard" many times over, but it's usually the same online story circulating in a sensational manner.

CLIA, Norwegian, and Carnival did not respond to questions about flag of convenience registries. Using radars and infrared cameras, the company says its system has been shown two false positives per week on average (which it notes is low compared to other systems) and has been tested extensively in all maritime conditions. On the whole, the cruise industry has argued that the complete MOB technology is not yet advanced enough to be used.

In a 2020 study, a professor examined more than 620 cruise deaths from 2000 through the end of 2019. He found that overboard incidents — falling, jumping or being thrown — were the leading cause of death among passengers and crew members, accounting for 23 percent of all deaths. While it’s true that tens of millions of people vacation on cruise ships every year without incident, experts say a combination of mitigatable risks and loose safety regulations are contributing to deaths. Hill was reported missing by a travel companion hours after he was last seen. Experts say such time gaps between a fall and the start of a search are a big part of why overboard incidents are so deadly.

Most of the nearly 30 million passengers (pdf) who travel on a cruise each year, roughly a third of them American, are blissfully unaware of this reality. When “man overboard” incidents get tabloid headlines, they’re framed as macabre, bizarre, isolated occurrences—not a problem that an average cruiser needs to worry about. Of the millions of people like Samantha Broberg who step onto cruise ships each year, few are aware that their personal safety is in the hands of one of the world’s most globalized, legally complex, and opaque industries. While the vast majority will not meet tragic fates like Broberg’s, her story shows how the expectations passengers have about their rights and safety on board a cruise ship do not always match the reality. Broberg—who at 5’5,” weighed 120 lbs—was served 19 drinks, her husband alleges in an ongoing civil suit (pdf) he brought against Carnival. Just before 2am, after leaving a bar, she climbed onto a deck chair that was pushed up against a railing on the pool deck.