Royal Caribbean Passenger, 41, Falls Overboard Off South Carolina Coast

Mar. 15, 2025

The Vision of the Seas.Photo:Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

Gerard Bottino/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

A 41-year-old man fell overboard on aRoyal Caribbeancruise shipbound for the Bahamas on Sunday, officials said.

The U.S. Coast Guardannounced on X, formerly known as Twitter, that it launched a search for the man who went over from the Vision of the Seas cruise about 127 miles east of Charleston, S.C., at around 11 a.m. local time.

In asecond updateissued just before 7:30 p.m. local time, the agency said that search efforts were suspended after about “8 hours” during which time crews “searched more than 1,625 square miles” in the area where the man fell.

A Royal Caribbean spokesperson confirmed the incident to PEOPLE, saying that the “ship and crew immediately reported the incident to local authorities and launched a search and rescue mission.”

“Out of privacy for the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share,” their statement added.

The Coast Guard then dispatched a rescue crew in a C-130 airplane from Elizabeth City, N.C., after 11 p.m., and another C-130 crew from Clearwater, Fla., to relieve the first crew, per the outlet.

The ship’s captain informed fellow passengers that a passenger had fallen overboard, passenger Jake Utzinger told the paper. Utzinger, who was on vacation on the cruise with his girlfriend’s family, said he was lying in bed around 7:45 p.m. when the captain gave the update.

“I instantly felt sick to my stomach knowing that one of our fellow travelers had been lost at sea,” he said.

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After the announcement, Utzinger toldThePost and Courierthat the 21-year-old, his girlfriend and several other passengers went to the deck to offer an “extra pair of eyes” with the search efforts.

Utzinger said the crew also stopped the ship and dropped a strobe lamp to search for the passenger, according to the newspaper. However, their search efforts were unsuccessful after six hours.

He said the ship continued its voyage around 2 a.m. to its next destination, Port Canaveral, Fla. The ship will then travel through the Bahamas before returning to its origin in Baltimore on Saturday.

“It’s definitely going to be rough continuing this voyage knowing that a family is missing their loved one," Utzinger said.

source: people.com