Cruise Law News : Maritime Lawyer & Attorney : James M. Walker : Walker & O'Neill Law Firm : Admiralty Law, Cruise Ship Accidents & Injuries

In the past two months, two citizens from the United Kingdom have disappeared during cruises.  Disney crewmember Rebecca Coriam went missing from Disney's Wonder in March while the cruise ship was sailing from California to Mexico.  This month, U.K. passenger John Halford vanished from the Spirit cruise ship operated by Thomson Cruise Lines while the ship was approaching Egypt. 

Disappearances from cruise ships are an issue the cruise lines hate to talk about.  In an age where the shipping industry faces the risk of terrorism and pirates and there is a need to focus close attention on the rails of cruise ships to protect the passengers and crew, it is inexplicable that anyone can simply vanish into thin air during a cruise.  The fact that it happens raises two possibilities in my opinion:  The cruise ships have insufficient security personnel and an absence of an effective closed circuit television (CCTV) apparatus to monitor who enter or exit (voluntarily or involuntarily) the ships.  Or, the cruise ships have adequate CCTV and security systems in place, but they are simply not being honest with the families about what happened to their loved ones.

In both cases, the families have gone public to state that their missing family members were happy and enjoying life.  In Rebecca Coriam's situation, the disappearance involved a popular and cheerful young woman, undoubtedly adored by her family and well liked by her friends, who enjoyed her job.  Our web site has received at least one comment from a Disney passenger who raved about Rebecca's wonderful skills at interacting with and entertaining the passenger's daughter.  

Mr. Halford's family describe their missing father in similar terms.  According to the Milton Keyes Citizen newspaper, Ruth Halford described her husband, John, like this: "He was happy, certainly not depressed, enjoying his cruise and meeting people but looking forward to getting home again to be with me and the children . . . "

The last known publicly disclosed facts about each disappearance leave room for speculation.  CCTV showed Rebecca speaking on the telephone in a public area the night before she went missing.  A search was not initiated until she did not appear for work until the next morning at 9:00 a.m.  Certainly there must be additional CCTV images if she went overboard from one of the decks.  Crew members obviously do not have private balconies.  Where is the CCTV of what happened?  Why didn't Rebecca's cabinmate or friends notice her missing earlier?

The last known facts about Mr. Halford indicate that he was last seen on board the cruise ship at 11:45 p.m. the night before he disappeared, drinking cocktails in the bar when the ship was approaching its final port, according to the Milton Keyes newspaper.  But when the ship reached port and the passengers were disembarking at 7:00 a.m., there was no trace of him. 

Did he end his own life?  That seems far fetched.  He was looking forward to his silver wedding anniversary in June and dearly loved his three children by all accounts.

The fact that there are two families grieving about these "mysteries" reflects poorly on the cruise industry.  It is inexcusable that no CCTV tape exists to reveal what happened, if in fact no CCTV tape exists. 

Ruth Halford tells her local newspaper:  “It’s terrible for the children. We are trying to cope together and not to give up hope but it is so difficult.”

“If anyone has seen him or knows what happened that night it would be so helpful. Not knowing is terrible and it is getting worse and worse by the day.”

If foul play was involved in either situation, the fact that a victim can "disappear" without a trace on a cruise raises profound questions about the issue of shipboard crime and whether the concept of "cruise ship justice" is at best an illusion.  If the disappearances involved accidents or intentional decisions to go overboard, the families deserve to know this and try and understand why this happened. 

They should not live a lifetime of doubt and speculation.  They are entitled to some sense of closure, if that is possible.

To contact the Coriam family, go to the family's website: Rebecca-Coriam.com

To read about other articles about Ms. Coriam, click here.

To contact the police in Mr. Halford's case, please call 845 8 505 (country code 41).

To read other cases about Mr. Halford, click here.

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There have been a number of articles about Royal Caribbean initial efforts to down-play the effects of the storm which rocked the Brilliance of the Seas off of the coast of Egypt last week.  The cruise lines corporate office here in Miami are electronically linked to the cruise ships and  instantly receive electronic images and video transmitted from the ships to the corporate offices at the port in Miami.

There undoubtedly are incredible closed circuit television (CCTV) video from the vessel's surveillance and security cameras showing the interior of the Brilliance as it violently rocked from side to side.  But the company keeps CCTV tapes like this secret to avoid embarrassing images being shown around the world.  

Just last September the internet was a buzz today with the release of CCTV films of the interior of the P&O Cruises' Pacific Sun, which ran into a bout of heavy weather in June 2008.

P&O also understated the effects of the storm on the cruise ship and passengers, and it was successful keeping the CCTV under wraps for over two years.

But the video (below) finally made its way out of P&O's control this fall.  When the truth came out, the public went nuts and the video went viral!  The CCTV shows complete bedlam.  A number of passenger were injured. You can clearly see one young lady smash her face into a column at the 47 second mark in the first video of the lounge area.  A second video (not shown) is of a lower deck showing a forklift narrowly miss running over a crew member.

Cruise lines are experts keeping video like this secret.  The risk management departments of cruise lines keep these types of video away from the public's eyes. This permits the cruise lines to contest the passengers' accounts of injuries and lets the defense lawyers claim that the passengers are exaggerating.

Would you have believed what occurred in the video if you did not see it?

What honest soul at the cruise line will leak similar CCTV videos of the Brilliance during the storm to the public?  

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Yesterday, I boarded Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas cruise ship at the Port of Miami for what maritime lawyers call a "vessel inspection."  I boarded the cruise ship with my co-counsel on the case, Jonathan Aronson, and a top engineering expert.  

Our client, a passenger, had been seriously injured when she fell on a wet deck around the FlowRider water attraction on the cruise ship.  Shortly before we boarded the ship for the inspection, Royal Caribbean finally provided us, only after a Court order was entered, with one video clip taken from an aft / starboard closed circuit television (CCTV) camera. But it didn't show what happened to our client.  The cruise line claimed that there were no videos of our client's "alleged" accident as they put it.  

When we boarded the cruise ship yesterday, we immediately realized that the camera of the video they provided us was not pointed at the accident scene and, in any event, the video was taken over three hours after our client's accident occurred.  We also realized that there were a dozen video cameras and CCTV cameras pointing to the FlowRider and the surrounding decks, including the area where our client's accident occurred.  None of these videos have been produced.  

Cruise lines control the scene of the accident and access to witnesses.  Passengers who are injured on cruise ships should not inspect cooperation from the cruise line.  Our client promptly reported her accident and was taken from the scene because she was seriously injured.  If the cruise line's security officers wanted to document what happened, they would have looked at the dozen cameras and quickly determined which cameras captured the accident and preserved the video. 

Instead, we now have a game of hide and seek.  Cruise lines have a reputation of keeping evidence only when it tends to help the ship's legal interests and destroying evidence which supports the passenger's claim.  

Passengers who are injured on cruise ships need to document the location of CCTV cameras (they are usually numbered) and request that the cruise ship retain the evidence.

Otherwise they may find that after they make a claim, there is no evidence left and the cruise line will deny that the accident even occcurred.

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The internet has been a buzz today with the release of closed circuit television video (CCTV) of the interior of the P&O Cruises' Pacific Sun, which ran into a bout of heavy weather in June 2008.  

A number of  passenger were injured.  You can clearly see one young lady smash her face into a column at the 47 second mark in the first video of the lounge area.

The second video is of a lower deck showing a forklift narrowly miss running over a crew member.

Cruise lines are experts keeping video like this secret.  The security and risk management departments of cruise line keep these types of video away from the public's eyes. This permits the cruise lines to contest the passengers' accounts of injuries and lets the defense lawyers claim that the passengers are exaggerating. 

Would you have believed this if you did not see it?

What honest soul at the cruise line leaked these tapes?      

The marine accident report for this incident can be viewed here.  A travel website summarized the pertinent findings of the report as follows:

• The Pacific Sun was on a tight schedule and this placed the captain in a "difficult situation" to return to Auckland to ensure the following cruise left on time.
• By not heaving-to earlier, the report said, he "inadvertently placed" the ship in the worst sea conditions, 322km northeast of North Cape;
• The crew were essentially flying blind, unable to see or monitor abnormal swells of up to 7m in darkness;
• The ship's stablisers were inoperative - one was worn out and the other was rendered useless in the slow speeds that the ship was reduced to;
• Two of the four muster stations - areas where passengers are meant to congregate in an emergency - were also rendered useless because of the damage and mess caused by unsecured furnishings; and 
• The accident damaged the ship's main satellite system, reducing officers' abilities to communicate with shore.

Many passengers were concerned to see crew wearing lifejackets, while they were not.

Passengers' injuries ranged in severity from broken bones, to cuts and bruises, with seven seriously hurt and three were greeted by ambulances when the ship berthed in Auckland two days later.

One passenger had part of a finger amputated. The report said other passengers suffered anxiety attacks.

The cruise line offered the passengers a small discount off on a future cruise.

For another incredible video, watch what a cruise ship looks like in a cyclone: Cruise Ship Social Media: Everyone Loves A Disaster Movie

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While reading cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein's most excellent cruise site - Cruise Junkie - I found an excerpt of a letter written by a grandmother who was upset that her two grandchildren were booted from the Sapphire Princess cruise ship.  As it turns out, security personnel reviewing the surveillance cameras spotted the kids throwing some food overboard. 

Dr. Klein found the conduct of the cruise line "outrageous" for no other reason than the cruise ship itself regularly discharges liquefied food waste as part of normal discharge operations. 

Indeed, as I have written about in prior blogs, this is more than a little bit ironic because  Princess Cruises has repeatedly violated waste water regulations:    

In September, the Diamond Princess, Island Princess, Pacific  Princess, Sapphire Princess and Sea Princess were cited for violating the Alaska waste water quality standards.  Again, in October, the Diamond Princess, Island Princess, Pacific Princess, Sapphire Princess and Sea Princess - together with the Golden Princess - were cited for water discharge violations.  In November, the same culprits - the Diamond Princess, Island Princess, Sea Princess, Golden Princess and Diamond Princess were busted for pollution.

Princess Cruises ruined a family's vacation for some kids throwing a couple of chicken wings overboard while the cruise lines routinely discharges copper, ammonia, zinc, bacteria and nasty fecal matter into Alaska's pristine waters?

Nuts!

While I agree that Princess Cruises' conduct is ridiculous, my perspective is a little bit different.

As we have written about in prior articles, a Princess Cruises' crewmember Angelo Faliva "disappeared" from one of the Princess cruise ships last November.  There are hundreds of surveillance cameras throughout the cruise ship.  Yet the cruise line claims that it has no idea what happened to this young man?

Nuts! 

Now let me ask you this:  How can the Princess security kick some teenagers off a cruise ship after seeing them throwing some food overboard based on their surveillance cameras - and then claim that its surveillance cameras could not detect a 6 foot tall man going overboard?

Like the Coral Princess where Mr. Faliva "disappeared," the Sapphire Princess has lots of surveillance cameras, as well as wedding cams and bridge cams which you can see detailed images 5,000 miles away from the comfort of your home.  But the Coral Princess doesn't have a single surveillance cam of an adult man going overboard? 

Nuts!  

Does this cruise line destroy surveillance films when its crewmembers go overboard but arbitrarily use surveillance films to kick children off of its cruise ships?   

You decide.  Read some of the articles about the plight of the Faliva family, and then consider how this family on the Sapphire Princess was abused by Princess' selective use of the cruise ship's surveillance cameras: 

For Christmas, my husband and I gave our two grown sons and their families a cruise to Mexico on the Sapphire Princess departing and returning to Los Angeles. We were spending Christmas on the ship. It would have been the first time I had managed to get both families together in 20 years for the holiday. On Dec. 23, at sea between Mazatlan and Cabo San Lucas, my two grandsons, age 13 ands 15, were in a cabin of another boy they had met on the ship and they had thrown some articles of food overboard including a fork. Apparently, they were spotted on camera by security.

The next day in Cabo San Lucas (Christmas Eve day), my son, his wife and the two boys were ordered off the ship by Captain Tony Herriott and had to pay their own way back to Los Angeles. Three other families whose sons were also involved were ordered off the ship. The Captain's actions devastated us all. Needless to say, Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were very depressing days for the seven of us that remained on board.

There is now a new Christmas Grinch out there and he is the Captain of a Princess cruise ship!

Credits:    Wedding and Bridge Cams             Princess Cruises

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The family of Angelo Faliva continues to search for answers regarding the "disappearance " of Angelo Faliva from Princess Cruises' Coral Princess cruise ship on November 25, 2009.

Mr. Faliva's younger sister, Chiara Faliva, has appeared on television in Italy to plea for help, following the reported lack of cooperation from Princess Cruises and the Government of Bermuda.

Newspapers in Italy report that Ms. Faliva has complained that the cruise line did not timely send the tapes from the onboard cameras to the investigators from Bermuda.  What type of CCTV system did the cruise ship have?  What is the quality of the CCTV images?  

Why the delay sending the images to Bermuda? 

Princess Cruises has a very high tech "wedding cam" on all of its cruise ships. This is part of its "romance at sea" marketing theme.  The image below to the right is the live via satellite "wedding cam" on the Coral Princess.  The image is crystal clear.  You can sit at home thousands of miles away seeing exactly what is happening in the chapel on the cruise ship.  Certainly Princess Cruises has the same technology for its onboard security systems?  If so, then there should no doubt be images of Angelo Faliva available to explain what happened to him.

There is also a suggestion that no one interviewed the passengers in Sabatini's restaurant (photograph above), where Angelo Faliva worked as a chef. 

Has anyone other than the cruise line interviewed the other crew members who worked with Mr. Faliva in Sabatini's? 

Where is Mr. Faliva's laptop computer and cell phone?  Has a qualified expert retrieved the data on the computer and telephone?  Who knows?

The Faliva family remains in the dark.

Where you a passenger on the Coral Princess on November 25, 2009? 

We have heard from a few people, but certainly others must have some information?

Please contact me @ jwalker@cruiselaw.com 

Credits:    

Sabatini's restuarant                    CruiseWeb.com

Coral Princess wedding cam     Coral Princess, Princess Cruises 

Video                 Sky.it

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The Seattle Times reports that the passenger who disappeared from Princess Cruises cruise ship Sapphire Princess is Ms. Edelgard Carney, a resident of Sutter Creek, California. 

The newspaper also reports that the U.S. Coast Guard has narrowed its search to an area approximately 15 miles south of Ketchikan.  A Coast Guard officer is quoted as saying: "Based on new information it was determined that the passenger went overboard shortly after the ship departed from Ketchikan on Monday evening."

If Ms. Carney did fall from the ship on Monday, this is a rather amazing announcement.  Princess Cruises did not report her missing until the cruise ship arrived in Vancouver on Wednesday.  Her cabin would have been cleaned on Tuesday and Wednesday morning, and the cabin attendant certainly would have noticed that no one had been in the cabin for two days. This would be similar to the case of Mirrian Carver who "disappeared" from a Celebrity cruise ship and the cabin attendant knew she was missing from the cabin but did nothing. 

This announcement probably indicates that there is surveillance video of Ms. Edelgard which pinpoints the approximate time of her disappearance.

Why did it take so long for the cruise line to report the disappearance?  Does Princess Cruises monitor the shipboard cameras?  

I can watch a ship cam from the Sapphire Princess from my desk here in Miami. Why don't the Princess Cruises security guards and CCTV operators watch the surveillance cameras on their own cruise ships?   

Photo credit:

Sapphire Princess Web Cam        Princess Cruises 

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