A 41-year-old cruise ship passenger is missing after falling overboard on a Royal Caribbean voyage to the Bahamas.
Officials said the Coast Guard responded to reports of a passenger falling off the cruise at around 7:17pm on Sunday, falling off the vessel around 127 miles east of Charleston, South Carolina.
The company said the passenger, who has not been named, fell from the ‘Vision of the Seas’ ship, sparking a huge search-and-rescue mission through the night.
Despite a large law enforcement presence being mobilized to search for the missing passenger, on Monday morning the Coast Guard said it had called off the rescue mission, reports WCBD.
A 41-year-old cruise ship passenger is missing after falling overboard on a Royal Caribbean voyage on the ‘Vision of the Seas’ vessel (pictured) to the Bahamas
The Coast Guard said its efforts to find the passenger included deploying two C-130 Hercules planes, one from North Carolina and another from Clearwater, Florida.
The rescue mission saw the cruise stop in place as a strobe lamp desperately scanned the ocean for around six hours.
Despite the best efforts of crews, the man has not been seen since he was aboard the Royal Caribbean ship on Sunday, which was named the ‘8 Night Bahamas & Perfect Day Holiday Cruise.’
Passengers said the cruise departed from Baltimore on Friday.
New Jersey film student Jake Utzinger, 21, told the Post and Courier that he was vacationing with his girlfriend’s family when the tragedy struck, with the captain announcing a passenger had fallen overboard at around 7:45pm.
‘I instantly felt sick to my stomach knowing that one of our fellow travelers had been lost at sea,’ he said.
Utzinger said passengers raced to the side of the vessel to lend an ‘extra pair of eyes’ to the search.
Colin Schappi, another passenger, said he realized the dire situation was unfolding earlier in the evening at around 7:15pm, when he heard crew members declaring: ‘Oscar! Oscar! Oscar! Starboard!’
The call is used by those at sea to alert others that someone has fallen overboard.
‘We were wondering what was going on with that,’ he told WCBD.
‘We also noticed that all the staff kind of made a face at each other,’ he continued. ‘They reacted to that news, but overall no one knew what was going on at first.
‘Then they did another announcement explaining what happened a few minutes later.’
Passenger Colin Schappi (pictured) said he knew something was wrong when he heard crewmembers declaring: ‘Oscar! Oscar! Oscar! Starboard!’ The call is used by those at sea to alert others that someone has fallen overboard
Passengers have shared the heartbreaking moment the captain of the ship announced someone had fallen overboard, and they raced to the side of the vessel to lend an ‘extra pair of eyes’ to the search
Following the news that the search for the missing passenger has been stood down, Utzinger said it is ‘definitely going to be rough continuing this voyage knowing that a family is missing their loved one.’
The cruise is set to continue sailing through the Caribbean for the rest of the week, and is only returning to Baltimore on Saturday after several more stop-offs including the next one at Port Canaveral, Florida.
According to the company’s website, the Vision of the Seas vessel has a total capacity of 2,000 passengers and 700 crew, and is 915-feet long.