How Many Are Missing?
Cruise Lines Not Making Public Missing Overboards
July 21, 2007
In the past, when visitors came to our site to submit a new case for a missing or overboard passenger or crew member, there was already plenty of media accounts of the case, and we could easily verify that the incident took place.
"I've noticed a slight and obvious pattern. Basically, for American lines, the cheaper the line the higher amount of onboard crimes/disappearances/etc."
Recently though, we are seeing a troubling trend of cases submitted to us, we could not verify. This as it turns out, is not because the case didn't exist, but because the cruise line involved didn't make the incident public.
There are plenty of reasons to keep an incident silent, but the obvious reason is bad publicity can mean lower bookings and lower profits, when the public perception is cruising is not as safe as it used to be.
Regular Cruise Bruise visitor Jon S, has contacted us numerous times on the issue of safety onboard. His says in his latest observation, "I've noticed a slight and obvious pattern. Basically, for American lines, the cheaper the line the higher amount of onboard crimes/disappearances/etc." Jon, through one of this communications to us many months ago described himself as being a high school student. When a young teen can see this trend, through his online search of media reports and cruise line press releases, it is more than obvious bad publicity is making it to many sectors of society.
We are seeing more visitors telling us they have cruised, but will never cruise again, or they have never cruised though they considered it at one time, but now will never cruise due to all incidents they have read about. Is it no wonder then, that the cheapest cruise line, Carnival Cruise Lines, has had two cases brought to our attention by family members in the last week, where there was no media account of the disappearance.
"Any time a situation occurs that involves personal circumstances regarding a specific individual such as a man overboard, medical emergency, etc., it is not normal practice for an organization to issue a broad-based public announcement."
Carnival Cruise Lines
The son of Domenico Miuccio came to us on the 14th of July to ask what happened to his father, who simply vanished at sea. He speculated that his father has been kidnapped while he was working aboard the Carnival Imagination. It was a far reach for him, living in Italy, speaking Italian and little English. Yet, he crossed the language barrier in a desperate hope of finding out what became of his father.
In the second case, when friends, neighbors and family members were interviewed by the FBI the day after Kevin Klingele disappeared onboard the Carnival Pride July 5, they came to the web searching for answers as well. They too found no information on a man who was ultimately found dead in the sea six days after he was last seen. Two separate visitors came to Cruise Bruise asking for help.
In both cases, there is no evidence of a United States Coast Guard search and since there was no press release by Carnival Cruise Lines, boaters were also not alerted that there was likely a man in the water. There is also no sign that Carnival did a search of the sea.
When these cases were brought to light, Cruise Bruise received a response from Carnival.
"Any time a situation occurs that involves personal circumstances regarding a specific individual such as a man overboard, medical emergency, etc., it is not normal practice for an organization to issue a broad-based public announcement."
I think that the cruising public and those that are potential passengers would have guessed that if there was a major event, such as a man overboard, that the cruise line would take ALL prudent measures to find the person, which would include a search of the sea, and a public missing persons notification.
In addition, I don't really think the public has a real expectation that medical emergencies or victim names would be released to the public. There is no purpose in the cruise line doing that. However, in the case of an overboard passenger, there is no justification for withholding the information that "a person" has gone overboard and is missing at sea.
This expectation is logical. The passenger or crew member is floating in the middle of the sea. If they are not on the ship, then they must be in the sea. Whenever there is a confirmed missing person report, the police normally put out a missing person bulletin to the media. "Have you seen this person?"
But, on a cruise ship, simply asking the other people onboard a ship that very question is not enough. Once it is established that the person is no longer onboard, and they must be in the sea, it is time to step up the investigation into finding the missing person, to include everyone outside the cruise ship. Why then is this not being done?
There is also the issue of whether a person can simply fall overboard. The industry says this is not possible. This is absolutely untrue.
With the increasing numbers of people who have *deliberately jumped overboard or went overboard due to drunken antics, thereby stalling cruises for thousands of passengers,
it could very well be that Carnival Cruise Lines doesn't want the public perception to be that it is becoming common place to miss ports of call and miss excursions while the ship stops to look for those people who took a plunge overboard along the way. This article continues on the next page, see the link below.
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