Authorities are on the search for two people cruise ship passengers who may have fallen overboard on Wednesday.
An Australian couple from New South Wales state discovered missing on Thursday morning when the Carnival Spirit cruise ship docked at Sydney's Circular Quay ant the end of a 10-day cruise. It is believed that they fell off the ship on Wendesday night, the Associated Press reports.
According to New South Wales Police Superintendent Mark Hutchings, surveillance video shows the 30-year-old mand and the 26-year-old woman falling from the ship's mid deck when the ship was 65 nautical miles off the coast of Forster.
"This is a tragic event at the moment, but we're holding out hope we might be able to find these people alive," Hutchings said, according to AP.
The video is being watched closely to determine if the couple fell accidentally or jumped on purpose. There are about 600 surveillance cameras on the ship that are monitored, but no one said they saw the couple fall at the time.
According to Hutchings, one of the passengers may have tried to use a life preserver to rescue the other passenger, but no life preservers were missing from the ship.
A search is being conducted using an airplane, a helicopter and police boats. Together they're searching a 300-square-nautical mile area of the sea.
The couple was with seven other family members and friends on the 2,680 passenger ship. The ship last stopped at Mare Island in New Caledonia and it left on Monday to return to Sydney. When the passengers disembarked, the cruise line realized the couple was missing, Peter Taylor, spokesman for Carnival Cruise Lines told AP.
"The guests in question were traveling with family and friends, and initial reports indicate that the couple was last seen onboard the vessel last night," Taylor said in a statement. "The ship immediately initiated standard missing person procedures, including a full search of the vessel, as per protocol."
Police were notified two hours after the ship docked about the missing passengers.
This is just the latest incident for Carnival Corp, the world's largest cruise operator. Carnival Corp owns Costa Concordia, which ran aground off the coast of Italy last year, killing 32 people. Another Costa ship, the Costa Allegra caught fire and lost power in the Indian Ocean. The passengers had to deal without working toilets, running water or air conditioning for three days.
A similar incident occurred this February as the Carnival Triumph spent five days without power in the Gulf after an engine room fire disabled the ship.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
