A passenger, whose identity has not been officially confirmed, appears to have fallen overboard in the Singapore Strait while sailing aboard Royal Caribbean International’s Cyprus-flagged Spectrum of the Seas cruise ship.
In a news release, the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) said the Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) Singapore was notified at about 7:50 a.m. local time on Monday, July 31 that a passenger had gone overboard while Spectrum of the Seas was en route to Singapore.
MPA said that MRCC Singapore is coordinating the search efforts and, “immediately issued a navigational safety broadcast to vessels in the Singapore Strait and vessels in port to keep a lookout for the missing person and report any sightings.”
“The ship and crew immediately reported the incident to local authorities and launched a search and rescue operation," a Royal Caribbean spokesperson said in a statement sent to USA Today following the incident. “The shipboard team is working with local authorities and our Care team is now offering assistance and support to the family.”
According to the tracking website CruiseMapper, the Quantum-Ultra class Royal Caribbean vessel was returning to its homeport in Singapore at the tail end of a four-day, round-trip sailing to Malaysia that included calls in Klang and Penang, which had initially departed on July 27.
Spectrum of the Seas berthed in Singapore for a time to support initial investigations but later departed at around 4:30 p.m. on its next voyage, a 12-night itinerary that will take it from Singapore to Tokyo, with various stops in China and Vietnam.
Local outlet The Straits Times reported that the missing passenger is a 64-year-old Indian woman named Reeta Sahani, according to her son Apoorv Sahani, who was not on the cruise himself. According to him, his father Jakesh Sahani, 70, awoke in the middle of the night to find his wife missing from their stateroom.
Life preserver on a ship's deck. (photo via Pixabay/dimitrisvetsikas1969)
After searching the ship for her unsuccessfully for her, he informed crew members, which set events in motion. He was reportedly interviewed by police and told that the ship’s overboard detection system indicated that something had fallen from the vessel into the Singapore Strait.
Apoory Sahani told the outlet that his mother, tragically, cannot swim.
“We’ve asked to see the CCTV footage, but so far we’ve not received anything yet for us to confirm that it was her. All we know is that the ship’s crew thinks she jumped,” said the younger Mr. Sahani. “Eventually my father was told to get down from the ship because there was another cruise that was going to take place, but we think she may still be on the ship, stuck somewhere.”
Responding to the notion that his wife may have jumped off the ship voluntarily, the elder Mr. Apoorv said, “She was on a holiday enjoying herself and then this whole thing happened. It doesn’t make sense.”
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