In the early hours today, reports emerged that a passenger went overboard from the cruise ship sailing in the Adriatic Sea. Passengers aboard the Explorer of the Seas, which was on a seven-day cruise through Greece and Croatia, stated that a young man fell overboard between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. (Another passenger mentioned on Twitter that the announcement of the incident happened around 3:40 a.m.) Details surrounding how the passenger fell overboard, including the specific location, remain unclear. However, an announcement regarding the situation was made on the ship.
According to AIS data, the cruise ship altered its course multiple times as the Royal Caribbean vessel began its search and rescue operations.
At least one passenger is sharing updates on this incident via Twitter:
The Explorer of the Seas set sail from Ravenna, Italy, on August 3rd, with stops in Dubrovnik, Croatia, Piraeus-Athens, Greece, and Santorini, Greece, before heading to Zadar, Croatia, today, and ultimately returning to Ravenna.
It is important to note that the Explorer of the Seas lacks a modern man overboard (MOB) system, which includes advanced motion detection, infrared, and radar technology that could have automatically alerted the ship’s bridge and tracked the individual in the water.
This incident marks at least the 414th occurrence of a person falling overboard from a cruise ship or large ferry in the last 25 years, as tracked by leading cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein, who maintains a record of such events online.
As of now, the ship continues its search and rescue operations.
We will provide further updates as additional information becomes available.
If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to leave one below, or join the conversation on our Facebook page.
Image credit: Explorer of the Seas (in Greece) Kefalonitis94 – CC0 commons / wikimedia; AIS data – cruisemapper.
Update:
Royal Caribbean has not yet issued an official statement regarding the incident and has not disclosed any details about the passenger who went overboard, including their identity, age, or nationality.
According to Croatian media outlet Slobodna Dalmacija, the missing individual is described as a “young citizen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.”
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