Search suspended after young Brit falls off Royal Caribbean cruise ship near Croatia
Rescue crews suspended their search efforts Sunday for a young British man who fell off a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in the waters near Croatia early Friday morning.
The passenger, who has not been publicly identified, fell overboard into the Adriatic Sea while traveling on the cruise line’s Explorer of the Seas in the early morning hours, according to local Croatian news outlets.
The man plunged nearly 100 feet off the ship into waters near the uninhabited island of Jabuka, the local news station 24 SATA reported.
Royal Caribbean crew members who witnessed the man’s fall immediately tossed over a life ring but could not see him in the water, according to the station.
A massive multi-agency search — spearheaded by the National Center for Coordination of Search and Rescue at Sea — was launched from both sea and air and continued over the weekend.
The rescuers were hopeful that if the Brit survived the fall, he would be able to survive in the warmer waters of the Adriatic Sea during this time of year.
“Survival in these conditions is more than 12 hours, and the search lasts twice as long, at least 24 hours,” Radovan Linić, the coordinator of the search and rescue agency, told 24 SATA in Croatian.
But after three days of searching, the rescue teams were unable to locate the missing man and officially called off the search at around 2 p.m. Sunday, Croatian outlet HRT reported.
The seven-day Royal Caribbean cruise from Greece was headed to Zadar when the man tumbled into the sea.
Another passenger aboard the cruise ship said she was awakened by an emergency message blasting “Oscar Oscar Oscar off the port side. Man overboard” at around 3:40 a.m., she shared on X.
The ship canceled its docking in Zadar but continued on its path after hours of searching when the Croatian coast guard took over the immediate search, Nicole Bullock wrote.
The Post has reached out to Royal Caribbean for comment.
In May, a man reportedly jumped from Royal Caribbran’s Icon of the Seas, the world’s largest cruise ship, on the first night of his week-long voyage soon after it left Florida. His body was recovered, and he was pronounced dead.
A month before, a 20-year-old man believed to be drunk allegedly jumped off Royal Caribbean’s Liberty of the Seas as it sailed between Cuba and the Bahamas while on a vacation with his family.
