Marine Police met late Thursday to plan how to proceed in their search for a 65-year-old Canadian cruise-ship passenger, reported missing on Tuesday morning from the Independence of the Seas.
By Thursday afternoon, no trace had been found of the missing man, despite wide-ranging searches of the sea north of Cayman, leaving only a deepening mystery as to his whereabouts.
“It’s now back at the agency because of the weather [Wednesday night]. The problem is we don’t know when he went overboard or even where,” he said. In fact, police are not even sure the man went overboard.
“We have no evidence,” the Detective Chief Inspector said. “We have a crew member who said he heard a splash, but there was no evidence of anyone. It could have been anything. He said that he looked and there was nothing.
“The ship took certain measures and they couldn’t find anything either.”
The man, whose identity officials have not released, was initially reported missing to the ship’s crew at 7.25 a.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 31, by his wife. The Independence of the Seas, operated by Royal Caribbean, arrived in George Town 15 minutes later, at 7.40 a.m., according to the Port Authority, but police did not receive a missing persons report until two hours later, at 9.42 a.m.
Officers immediately launched a full search of the 15-deck, 1,112-foot long ship, carrying 4,283 passengers and 130 crew, interviewing staff and witnesses, and viewing CCTV tapes, but finding nothing.
The wife told police the couple had gone to bed about 1 a.m. on Tuesday, but when she awoke about six hours later, her husband had vanished. After a fruitless search, she reported his absence to the crew.
Investigators subsequently theorized the man might have fallen overboard at 6 a.m. that morning, approximately 13 miles northwest of Grand Cayman.
Mr. Beersingh detailed the logistical problems facing searchers: “If you consider, from 10 a.m. to 7.15 a.m., and the ship cruising at 10 knots.”
Ship staff conducted a cursory search, he said, but did not report to police until nearly 10 a.m.
“And they do not physically search the boat itself,” he said. “They don’t go into the cabins, but knock on doors and ask.
“With the drift and the currents over all that time, we would have to look at the entire Caribbean Sea. Look at the projections: He could be off the coast of Honduras by now.”
Acknowledging the vast spaces involved, Mr. Beersingh said, “We are talking to our partners abroad and other agencies.”
Still, he said, without evidence of a plunge overboard, searchers were not prepared to convert their search from rescue to recovery.
“Not necessarily. People can survive for weeks at sea, and he may not have gone overboard at all. There is no blood or other evidence. We just don’t know,” he said.
The Independence of the Seas set out from Fort Lauderdale on a six-night cruise on Sunday, Dec. 29. It left Cayman little more than nine hours after its 7.42 a.m. arrival, at 5 p.m., headed for Jamaica and Haiti. The wife did not continue with the boat, according to a Royal Caribbean spokesman. The tour is due back in Florida on Saturday
“We had a guest-care team taking care of her and her sister,” said Tracy Quan, associate vice president of global corporate communications for the tour line. “In cases like this, we have a team that tends to guests in need. They make sure the guests get where they’re going.”
She was unable to say, however, if the wife remained in Grand Cayman or had left the island.
She explained the tour line’s protocols: “When a guest is reported missing, onboard announcements are made … and an extensive ship-wide search and investigations are conducted by the security team.
“The global security team at Royal Caribbean’s Miami [offices] is also notified and assists with the investigation, if needed.
If the guest may have gone overboard, she said, standard procedure is “for the ship to coordinate an immediate search-and-rescue operation with assistance from a dedicated team at the corporate office.”
Local authorities are alerted, she said, in hopes of gaining additional help.
A ship will only leave a search and rescue operation when it is released by local authorities, she said.
If the missing person is found, Royal Caribbean works with its local agents to render assistance and settle any logistical issues.
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