A cruise ship passenger who mysteriously disappeared and is feared to have gone overboard did not appear on any of the ship’s CCTV cameras before he vanished.
The 72-year-old man was travelling on a Princess Cruises ship ahead of its arrival in San Francisco on Monday, but remains missing, company officials have said. The Ruby Princess docked at around 6:50am to allow crew members to scour the ship in hopes to find the passenger, but after an extensive review of the ship’s security footage, the man could still not be traced.
Authorities say they are currently treating the case as a man overboard incident, having already ruled out other possibilities. US Customs and Border Protection has picked up the investigation and Princess Cruise officials say they are fully cooperating with authorities.
Hunter Schnabel of the Coast Guard said: “What information we have to go off kind of does make it a little more difficult. To search a wide area of the ocean does take a lot of time and there is a lot that goes into that.”
Princess Cruises said in a statement: “We extend our heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of the guest who was traveling alone.” The remaining passengers on the ship disembarked on Monday. That evening, the ship departed on a 16-day voyage to Hawaii. The Ruby Princess is 195 feet high, has 19 decks and can hold more than 4,000 people on board.
Recommended Article
The Ruby Princess was making the journey back from a five-day trip to Ensenada that left on November 27. Staff say the ship’s is set to embark on another 16-day trip to the Hawaiian Islands this week.
As of around 5:40pm on Monday, the man had still not been found, prompting the Coast Guard to discuss a possible suspension of the search unless new information was received, according to Coast Guard spokesperson Loumania Stewart.
An initial air crew aboard a C-27 plane was dispatched from Sacramento at roughly 3pm to conduct searches in an area around 45 miles off the coast of Monterey. A second Coast Guard crew was sent from San Francisco on a helicopter at roughly 4pm, Stewart said, but neither were able to locate the man.
