A 67-year-old passenger is the latest "disappearance" from a cruise ship. This case involves a U.S. citizen who sailed on Princess Cruises’ cruise ship Sapphire Princess from Alaska en route to Vancouver. She has not been identified.
According to Dr. Ross Klein, the leading authority on passenger disappearances in the world , there have been over 120 "disappearances" from cruise ships over the past ten years. Princess Cruises claims that it did not know that the passenger was noticed missing until she did not leave the cruise ship at the Port of Vancouver, British Columbia.
The last time the Sapphire Princess was in the news was when it returned to port with a dead whale impaled on its bow.
Princess Cruises issued the usual scripted press release: "We notified authorities and are offering our full cooperation . . . " The public relations statement was issued by cruise line PR representative Julie Benson.
The cruise industry lost its credibility long ago, by systematically attempting to explain away each "disappearance" by blaming the passenger. I previously commented that the usual cruise line PR ploy is to label the disappearance a suicide long before the FBI or U.S. Coast Guard have concluded their investigations.
The Seattle Times is reporting on the story. As of the posting of this article, there are three comments to the article which pretty much sum up the cruise industry’s sorry reputation when it comes to passenger over-boards:
"Great, now that the criminals have found out how easy it is to rob cruise ship passengers, and toss them overboard, safety will never be the same."
"ANOTHER passenger missing on a cruise ship..?? W..T..F..??? Is this the new method of ‘suicide’, or murder..?"
"Cruise ships are notorious for crap that goes on. This recent spate of these events could reflect sexual assault and murder or they could be people just falling overboard but the scope of ill aspects of taking a cruise is something the cruise lines work hard to suppress from the media."
At this point, little information has been revealed. Will Princess Cruises keep the public informed? Based on my experiences with this cruise line, Princess Cruises completely lacks transparency. The only useful information will come from the FBI or from passengers on the cruise ship itself.
The cruise line is versed with social media and has a Twitter account @PrincessCruises and its PR representative is @juliebenson. Do I expect there to be any information forthcoming from an organization like this?
No. Hopefully there will be some honest passengers who have information to share with the investigating authorities.
Photo credit
Photo of Sapphire Princess PO Cruises