Cruise ship overboard detection systems: What are they?

Table Of Content

• Have you or someone you know had an emergency during a cruise sailing?
• Do People Always Die When Going Overboard from a Ship?
• Pay Attention During Safety Drill
• Lost at Sea
• A crew member went overboard off an AIDA Cruises ship but couldn't be found during a search
• Will My Cruise Be Delayed if a Passenger Goes Overboard?

In truth, studies have revealed that the majority of persons who “fall” off ships do so deliberately. She took a world cruise annually and died shortly after visiting the port of Honolulu in Hawaii. Peggy had been cruising since the 80s and died of a heart attack on board. I’ve cruised with Costa since the event and many people still refuse to cruise with the cruise line because of this accident. In reality, it wasn’t the fault of Costa cruise line but that of a severely negligent captain.

What happens when a cruise passenger falls overboard - The Telegraph

What happens when a cruise passenger falls overboard.

Posted: Tue, 12 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

Have you or someone you know had an emergency during a cruise sailing?

Cruise tragedies: 4 times passengers fell overboard, turning vacations into nightmares - Fox News

Cruise tragedies: 4 times passengers fell overboard, turning vacations into nightmares.

Posted: Wed, 07 Jun 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]

"The sooner the search can begin, obviously, the better the chance of recovery," he said. He noted that cruise lines have procedures in place to prevent overserving passengers, but in instances when a passenger believes the cruise line contributed to their going overboard, Winkleman said, they could bring a lawsuit. Most suits of that kind are resolved with confidential settlements. Defenders of the industry often characterize cruise ships as a microcosm of a city, with the same problems that come up on land. Sahani's husband, Jakesh Sahani, woke up in the middle of the night and discovered his wife was not in their cruise cabin, the Straits Times reported. He notified the ship's officials, who, according to the news outlet, told him that his wife was seen on CCTV footage sitting on the ship's railing at about 4 a.m.

Do People Always Die When Going Overboard from a Ship?

When a passenger fell off Oasis of the Seas in November 2015, the ship came to a stop in six minutes, traveling almost a mile from the site before it could turn around. As a passenger, you might feel the ship's movements as it performs these maneuvers. Even if you've never witnessed this emergency call firsthand, perhaps you've seen news headlines like "Carnival Cruise ship man overboard" or "man falls off cruise ship" and wondered how that's even possible with such an emphasis on cruise ship safety. Death rates for overboard incidents vary significantly among cruise lines, according to Klein’s calculations, which he said proves more can be done to protect passengers.

Pay Attention During Safety Drill

The US Coast Guard told Quartz that “once the final ISO standard is promulgated, the Coast Guard will use that standard as the basis to draft enforceable regulations” in the US. Meanwhile, MARSS says its system is already compliant with a draft version of the standard—and falls well under the ISO’s maximum false positive rate of one per day on average—based on independent testing done by its clients. She sat for a few brief moments on the more than 3.5-foot-high railing, with her back to the sea, according to Carnival’s trial brief (pdf). Then she fell backward into the Gulf of Mexico, a moment that was caught by the vessel’s thermal camera system. Additional variables include the temperature of the ocean; hypothermia can develop when the sea temperature falls below 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

Of course, there is also rarely a body to recover, autopsy, and determine what an individual’s blood alcohol level was when they fell, jumped, or were pushed. For cruise industry critics who want to see these systems installed across the entire industry, there is a glimmer of hope. The International Organization of Standardization (ISO) has been working with stakeholders in the industry—including Klein, cruise safety advocates, and CLIA—to establish a non-binding global standard for how these systems should work and be installed.

A crew member went overboard off an AIDA Cruises ship but couldn't be found during a search

CLIA and Carnival did not comment on any questions regarding labor practices on cruise ships. On the whole, the cruise industry has argued that the complete MOB technology is not yet advanced enough to be used. That said, cruise lines remain vague when it comes the status of MOB-detection technology on their ships. While some cruise lines have mentioned installations of this technology in media reports, an evidence submission to the Coast Guard, and a press release, those lines declined to discuss specifics when asked by Quartz. Klein has testified in front of the US Congress four times, and been an expert witness or contributed expert opinions in several court cases, including Broberg’s.

Thanks to chest-high railings surrounding the passenger decks, it’s very difficult to fall from a cruise ship – but people do. Two weeks ago, American teenager Sigmund Ropich plunged into the sea from the world’s largest cruise ship, Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas, as it sailed off the coast of Cuba after departing Port Canaveral in Florida. Between 2009 and 2019, there were 212 overboard incidents globally involving passengers and crew, according to statistics compiled for CLIA by consulting firm G.P. "The best thing you can do in the first few minutes of immersion is try to rest, relax, float," he says, suggesting that restricting movement and conserving energy is the best strategy to increase your survival odds.

Reeta Sahani who 'could not swim' went overboard on a Royal Caribbean ship while traveling with her husband

They are also often, tragically, the result of suicides in which people purposefully jump, experts have said. In November 2021, a 28-year-old man spent almost 20 hours treading water after going overboard a Carnival cruise ship before he was successfully rescued. Several safety regulations including uniform minimum railing and balcony heights, as well as structural barriers are in place on all commercial cruises to keep people on the ship, Sarah Kennedy, a spokesperson for CLIA, told The Points Guy in 2018. In 2019, the last full year of pre-Covid data, 25 people went overboard according to a 2020 CLIA report.

Grimes, who was found about 20 miles south of Southwest Pass, Louisiana, told PEOPLE magazine in December that he remembered having some drinks and winning an air-guitar competition before waking up in the water. "I have my moments where I break, but I'm keeping the faith," she told Business Insider as the search continued. The cruise line at first told Barnett's sister, who was also on the ship, that there was no surveillance footage of her brother that night, Reid said. But unless the person was seen going over or spotted immediately, the odds may be against them. If the ship is moving the person may be rapidly swept away and if the location isn't known a single person's head can be extremely difficult to see in the vast, rolling ocean. An estimated 20.4 million people took cruises in 2022, according to statistics site Statista, with signs of higher numbers this year.

But there is actually no entity which polices whether or not flag states enforce these IMO regulations on the vessels they register. In other words, the IMO can’t prevent a flag state from continuing to register ships, even if that state is failing to uphold the standards and regulations that the IMO establishes. Klein’s data only includes a relatively small number where alcohol was definitively confirmed as a cause. But he emphasizes that those are only cases where media could confirm intoxication prior to the incident. Given that media reports are often based on information provided by the cruise lines, he notes that this number likely under-represents the role of alcohol. There is no centralized reporting mechanism and cruise lines are not required to divulge this information to anyone.

According to a set of data compiled by Cruise Junkie, 313 unlucky people have fallen overboard since 2000 — some of whom were never seen again. The highest number of reported incidents happened in 2015, when a total of 27 passengers toppled over the barrier and into the ocean. Indeed, though most cruise ships have video surveillance equipment installed, someone has to be monitoring those images at all times to know if a person has gone overboard—no easy feat on a mega-ship carrying thousands of people. A so-called “complete” MOB-detection system eliminates the need for a human to witness the incident in real time, either in person or on a CCTV screen. It does this by installing a network of sensors (including radar, infrared, and/or video) designed to detect when a body has fallen overboard. It then sends an automated alert to crew, who can immediately view roughly 10 seconds of footage from the triggered location on the ship to see if a search-and-rescue mission should be launched (or if it was a false alarm triggered by a seagull or wave).

Here are five of our best tips to help you and those in your crew stay safe. With impaired judgment, many passengers take risks they wouldn’t otherwise consider. Climbing on or over railings or entering restricted areas are the most common risks. So while it is possible to survive falling off a ship, it’s typically not likely. The potential for a tragedy is far too high, and it’s not worth it. These numbers are extremely small considering 20 million people go on cruises each year, but it doesn't hurt to be extra careful about the lengths you go to get a selfie, where you go to the bathroom, and how eager you are to reenact scenes from Titanic.

While the incident ended with his safe return to shore, it raised questions about cruise ship overboard detection systems – a new technology that aims to cut down on response time and notify the crew as soon as someone goes overboard. Hill's travel companion reported him missing after he wasn't seen all day. A Carnival spokesperson said that the cruise line determined Hill "jumped" from the ship "after an exhaustive on-board search and a review of security camera video." In 2018, a cruise ship worker was rescued when another cruise ship spotted him 22 hours after he went overboard northwest of Cuba, long after the Coast Guard had called off the search. Such arguments don’t make sense if you consider how air travel and the air industry have extreme security and safety protocols in place to protect their passengers. Although the chances of a plane crashing in the sea are very low, airlines must demonstrate safety protocols before the flight and have life jackets under each seat in case of such incidents.

In October, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lifted its “no sail” order on U.S. cruise ships and set out a framework that would allow them to start sailing again, bringing relief and hope to a decimated industry — and to many cruise fans. The majority of people who die on cruise ships do because of natural causes. Common causes are strokes and heart attacks as these strike quickly with little warning.

Alcohol is involved in up to 60 percent of overboard cases, according to Klein, and alcoholic drinks have become one of the leading sources of onboard revenue for cruise lines in recent years. 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. A person can also become unconscious from hypothermia in as little as 15 minutes, depending on sea temperatures.