Taylor Swift-themed cruise returns to Miami after search for missing woman suspended
MIAMI - The Allure of the Seas returned from a Taylor Swift-themed cruise to Port Miami early Friday after the search for a passenger who went overboard was suspended.
The ship left PortMiami on Monday on a five-day voyage to the Bahamas. But Tuesday night, the journey took a tragic turn when the woman went overboard.
The unidentified 66-year-old woman fell from the Royal Caribbean ship when it was about 17 miles north of Nassau, Bahamas.
Bradly Sriro was a passenger on the ship. He described the search as an "all hands on deck," with boats and planes searching the pitch-black water in the dead of night.
"I went out to deck five to try to see what was going on. They had all the doors blocked off by the security guards. Deck five is where they launched the rescue boat from. So I went up to deck 16 and there were a lot of people outside. They were obviously concerned. You had security all over the place, it was chaotic. The cruise director came on the intercom and said that the captain had authorized a search and rescue operation. Everybody was just there trying to see what was going on, that was about 10 p.m. We were there until about 2 a.m.," he said.
Sriro said the U.S. Coast Guard was flying overhead and the Utopia of the Seas came to assist in the rescue operation.
The search lasted for hours but was suspended on Wednesday afternoon. The cruise line has not said what led to the woman going overboard.
Last year, a passenger on Royal Caribbean's Spectrum of the Seas went overboard while the cruise ship was heading to Singapore, officials said at the time. In another incident earlier last year, a Royal Caribbean cruise ship passenger went overboard on a trip to Hawaii from Australia, a company spokesperson told CBS News.