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

The Crew Center website reports that two cruise which arrived in Lisbon, Portugal from Brazil earlier this week were arrested for possession / smuggling of seven kilograms of cocaine.

Two two passengers were Argentinean and had boarded an unidentified MSC cruise ship in Santos, Brazil. They arrived in Lisbon after a transatlantic cruise on a cruise ship to Lisbon in possession of the drugs.

The arrests took place in the cruise terminal of Santa Apolonia, as the two men disembarked the cruise ship into the Portuguese capital.  The men were around 40 years old. The cocaine was reportedly contained in wrapped packages that the men were carrying in two backpacks. 

Photo Credit: Crew Center 

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A reader of Cruise Law News sent me these photographs today showing crew members on an unidentified MSC cruise ship washing the tops of tenders.  

The two crew members to the left seem to be wearing life vests but its less than clear whether they are wearing harnesses and are tethered to the ship.

Upon closer inspection, the bottom photo shows an employee obviously wearing no life vest or harness.

A slip and fall from that height would be a good way to drown or suffer serious injury.

Crew members who contact us often talk about "ship life."

"Ship Life" seems to be the state of reality that actually exists on cruise ships.  It is different from what the company policies and procedures say and what the cruise line projects as the company's image.

Sometimes upon the rush to get the job done, there is pressure to cut corners and not use the proper safety equipment. The same pressure to proceed to get the work accomplished often exists even if the proper equipment is not available or the equipment is faulty or not adequately maintained.

We all remember the five deaths and three injuries in January when a Thomson Majesty lifeboat with 8 crew members dropped upside down into the water.   

What do you of the photo below?  Whose responsibility is it that work is not performed under these circumstances?

PS. I don't know who took these photos so please contact me if you want credit. Anyone know which ship this was and where it was docked? 

Leave a comment below or join the discussion on our Facebook page.

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Cruise Law News received a message late Saturday night indicating that a passenger went overboard from the MSC Fantasia.  Here's the message:

MSC Fantasia is in first day of a Carnival cruise. It embarked 4000 drunk pax today in Santos, Brazil and around 7 PM, the time to leave the port, we had one passenger go from deck 11 straight into the sea. It's 11.30pm and we're still looking for the passenger. We have the Federal Police on board and divers and we don't know where is the passenger . . .  was to drunk so he couldn't save himself.  Then they lowered a lifeboat but by the time they manage to get close to him, Costa Favolosa was getting out from the port so two small waves and the passenger was nowhere to be found.  We're standing by now but the party at the pool is at the MAX.  Drinks, music and naked pax. This is Brazil!

A newspaper in Brazil is covering the story.

This is the second passenger overboard from a MSC cruise ship in two days. Yesterday we reported on a Portuguese passenger who went overboard from the Divina in the Mediterranean.  

In December 2012, we reported on a cruise passenger who fell from an upper deck of the MSC Fantasia and died.

As you can see from the Fantasia's web cam, there seems to be quite a partying crowd on the cruise ship.

Please leave a comment if you have information about what happened.

February 10 2013 Update: The missing passenger was identified as Luciano De Lucca, age 30, from passenger cabin number 11063, located on the 11th deck.

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A reader of Cruise Law news has alerted me to another person going overboard from a cruise ship.

A newspaper in Italy states that a Portuguese man, 46 years old, was found dead off of the coast of Corsica. He was sailing as a passenger on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean sea when he went overboard for reasons not disclosed.

The Expresso XL newspaper reports that "the victim has been formally identified as a Portuguese man of 46 years who had disappeared from the vessel MSC Divina . . . "

The passenger had been reported missing from the MSC cruise ship at 1:00 PM today. The weather was calm.

Helicopters and a jet searched for the unidentified man after he was reported missing.  An investigation is being conducted into the case by shoreside maritime officials in France.

The French maritime authorities released the following statement (translated):

"This Saturday, February 9 shortly before noon, the body of a lifeless man spotted ten miles southwest of Bonifacio by a customs plane. He had taken part in the device search to try to find a passenger MSC Divina missing since 1am in the area.

Hoisted by the helicopter PUMA Solenzara, the victim has been formally identified as a Portuguese man of 46 years who had disappeared from the ship.

An investigation will be launched to determine the exact circumstances of his death."

Anyone with information please leave a comment below. 

Photo credit MSC Divina - Wikimedia Commons / Mllturro

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A number of sources are reporting on the death of a Brazilian man who fell from an upper balcony on the MSC Fantasia cruise ship today.

Some are saying that he fell from the eight or ninth deck to the fifth deck, apparently from an interior balcony.

The cruise ship was sailing between Santos and Rio de Janeiro, carrying 3780 passengers on a three-night cruise. The passenger is identified as Theobald Perelo. One newspaper in Brazil, A Tribuna, referred to him as the owner of one of the largest wholesale distributors in the region and a figure well known and respected in Ilheus, Bahia.

Another source said that the businessman was awarded a cruise and was traveling in the company of his son in law and some employees of the company (Distributor Perelo). The wife remained in Ilheus during the cruise.

There is a great deal of speculation about what happened, with reference to a possible heart attack which seems strange. How do you have a heart attack and then fall over a railing?  

Anyone with information please leave a comment below.

December 7 2012: we received this information from someone on the cruise ship:  

The guy fell from the balcony of his cabin from the ninth deck to the seventh deck onto to his head . . . he was 52 and had possible heart attack when he fell because he went straight down like a stone. He had no signs of alcohol in the blood. The ship was cruising from Santos to Ilhabela and was about 1:00 am when it happened. The police came today on board but they just took the body and left in less than an hour. The passenger was shearing the cabin with his son in law who was not present at that time. The Brazilians on board are saying that the police is corrupt big time and the captain got rid of them very fast.

Photo Credit:  Blog do Gusmao

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On October 8, 2012, we reported on four crew members aboard the MSC Orchestra who were sickened with meningitis. 

According to AFP in Rome, today one of the crew members, Ermandiasa Gede, age 32 from Indonesian, died of the infection nine days after being hospitalized.

Two of the other crew members, a 26-year-old Brazilian crew member and a 32-year-old Filipino, reportedly recovered. However, the fourth sick crew member, a 47-year-old Italian cook, remains on life support.

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Early this Monday morning I reported on an outbreak of meningitis aboard the MSC Orchestra cruise ship.  Four MSC crew members were hospitalized yesterday in Livorno, Italy once the cruise ship reached this Italian port. Newspapers in Italy, France, Germany and Spain mentioned the disease outbreak.

But no one in the U.S. mentioned the story.

Meningitis is a serious and often deadly disease.  Meningitis developing on a cruise ship filled with several thousand passengers and crew members is a big event, particularly considering that one or more of the crew members worked in the ship's galley and could infect the unsuspecting passengers though saliva from their mouths and/or throats, or coughing and spewing infected mucous on food or into beverages. 

I tweeted my article this morning "Crew Members Aboard MSC Orchestra Stricken With Meningitis."  The cruise community on Twitter operating under the #cruise hash tag is relatively small, with cruise agents, and cruise lines and the cruise trade groups all incessantly and incestuously re-twitting everyone else's tweets about the joys of cruising.  But aside from one travel agent who re-tweeted my article about the MSC meningitis cases this morning, none of the major bloggers or cruise publications tweeted or blogged a word about the disease.

The big boys in the world of cruising, like USA TODAY's CruiseLog and the Expedia-owned Cruise Critic, didn't mention a thing. Nor did the Miami Herald or the many travel agent publications or any of the regular cruise and travel bloggers. Instead, we had USA TODAY CruiseLog's last blog about "Princess' Next Ship to Have a Water and Light Show" and CruiseCritic writing about "Work Starts on Biggest P&O Cruise Ship."

Finally late tonight we have CNN reporting the story, commenting that more than 2,800 doses of antibiotics (Ciprofloxacin and Rifampicin) were issued for passengers. CNN repeated the Italian Health Ministry's comments that "the strand was found in the crew that worked in the kitchen and that, therefore, they should not have had continuous and close contact with passengers."  CNN also brought forth the ominous information from the Ministry in Italy that passengers who have disembarked in the past week from the prior cruise should take similar antibiotics.   

This morning I mentioned that the press in Italy reported that some 400 children were aboard the Orchestra and were told to take the antibiotics out of concern of possible exposure to the diseased crew members.  Certainly this is not the type of a cruise story involving at least one or more infected galley workers that only a little blog like mine and a few random twitters should cover and the major U.S. media should ignore until CNN reports on it 12 hours later.

Are the travel publications and major cruise bloggers afraid to offend their friends in the cruise industry?  Are they just trained monkeys who see, hear and speak no evil?    

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A newspaper in Italy is reporting that four crew members of the cruise ship MSC Orchestra have contracted bacterial meningitis. Two of the four crew members are considered to be in serious condition. They were all hospitalized once the cruise ship reached port yesterday.

According to this newspaper, one crew member is a 32 year old Indonesian who is currently in septic shock in the intensive care unit of a hospital in Livorno, Italy. He apparently worked in the engine room. A second crew member is a 47 year old Italian who works in the cruise ship's galley, who also is in the intensive care unit. Two other crew members include a Brazilian and a Filipino, whose conditions are described as less serious. They are hospitalized in the hospital's infectious disease department. 

Other newspapers state that the serious cases involve an Indonesian, age 32, and a Filipino, age 30, both of whom worked in the engine room. 

Meningitis is an infection of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.  Bacterial meningitis is very serious and can be fatal.  It is not common on cruise ships, although it has occurred on other cruise ships as this case illustrates.

All of the crew members were given prophylactic antibiotics, which were also offered to the passengers. The 2,800 dosages were described as an "unprecedented quantity over a period of time so limited."  The medicine consisted of an antibiotic tablet of 500 milligrams for adults and syrup for about 400 children who were on board. An epidemiological survey was also conducted among the crew members who in recent days have been most in contact with the hospitalized crew.

The Orchestra is continuing its cruise as planned and has meanwhile docked in France's Villafranche, with next stops including Valencia, Ibiza, Tunis, Catania and Naples.

Photo credit:  Wikipedia (Ömür Tanyel)

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The UK's Mail Online newspaper has some interesting photographs today regarding the ongoing protests by environmental groups in Italy who are trying to protect the beautiful city of Venice from the effects of water pollution, air emissions and erosion of historical building by traffic from huge cruise ships.

Earlier this week we addressed this issue in our article Italian Environmentalists Urge Sofia Loren to Stop "Monster of the Sea" from Attacking Venice.  

Over the past 25 years, the number of cruise passengers cruising into Venice increased from 280,000 to 1,800,000 last year.

Over 650 gigantic cruise ships sail into Venice every year now.  Unlike the quaint gondolas historically associated with the city, cruise ships today are 1,000 feet long, weigh 140,000 tons and have drafts well over 25 feet. They pose a substantial risk to this fragile Italian city which is struggling against mass tourism and the deterioration of the city's underwater foundations. 

Here is my view of the problem last year: Are Cruise Ships Ruining Venice Or Just Memories From My Youth? 

Take a look at the spectacle below.  Do you trust the titans of the cruise industry with the survival of historical sites like this?  Do you trust the Micky Arisons of the world to be the curators of Venice?  

Photo credit: Getty Images via Mail Online 

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A reader of Cruise Law News in Brazil has informed us that a crewmember of the Armonia cruise ship, operated by MSC Cruises, died yesterday after being admitted to the hospital in serious condition.

A newspaper in Brazil (G1 in Sao Paulo) reports that a local woman, Fabiana Pasquarelli, age 30, was taken from the MSC cruise ship and was eventually admitted to the intensive care unit of Hospital Ana Costa.

The deceased crewmember worked as a waitress and was taken to the hospital on Wednesday with a fever and cough and was apparently diagnosed with pneumonia.  

There is also speculation that she may have died of swine flu.

Five other crewmembers are also sick and have been under observation in the hospital since Friday. 

The cruise line said that passengers are disembarking the cruise ship today and new passengers will board.

If you have information about this incident, please leave a message below.  

February 18, 2012 Update:  Passengers from the cruise ship have also been hospitalized in serious condition.

Another Brazilian newspaper, A Tribuna, has an account and reports that the diagnosis is unclear although it is the result of an infectious process.  

Ms. Pasquarelli died of an acute respiratory failure after being placed on a ventilator.  

February 19, 2012 Update:

A newspaper in Brazil states that seven people of the ten passengers and crew from the cruise ship were released from the hospital. Three remain hospitalized.  The hospital ran tests to determine the type of infection that caused the sickness.

Five crewmembers have contacted us, wishing to remain anonymous, complaining that Ms. Pasquarelli's medical treatment was delayed.  Read comments below.

February 21, 2012 Update:

A spokesperson for MSC left a comment below.

Also, a newspaper in Buenos Aires reports that heath authorities in Uruguay were on board the MSC cruise ship, which docked this morning at the main port in Montevideo after fears of a flu outbreak. The ship is expected to arrive to Buenos Aires tomorrow.  Osvaldo Fabacchi, the head of Port Administration in Montevideo, stated that “at present the cause of the crew member’s death has not been confirmed. The autopsy has yet to be carried out in order to determine and confirm the cause of death.”

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A number of people have asked us what happened during the Jam Cruise two weeks ago where a passenger went overboard.  

Although we try to keep up with all of the incidents involving cruise ship overboards, somehow we missed this incident. 

We have been informed that an intoxicated passenger sailing aboard the MSC Poesia during the January 9 - 14, 2012 Jam Cruise climbed up to a restricted area on the ship’s pool deck and then jumped off.  He was rescued and airlifted from the next port to a hospital.  No other details have been released.

Other than this limited information, we don't have much else to share.

Jam Cruises always seem to involve some type of controversy.     

Last year, there was a highly publicized Drug Bust on MSC Poesia Cruise Ship during the Jam Cruise.   Federal and local agents with K-9 dogs raided the MSC Poesia looking to arrest passengers with drugs.  Officers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S.Marshals Service, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Broward Sheriff's Office participated in the raid.  The raid targeted the cruise ship right at Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale before it sailed with music fans on its Jam Fest cruise around the Caribbean. The raid resulted in the arrest of some passengers and the seizure of small quantities of pot, mushrooms, hash oil, LSD, Ecstasy, and prescription drugs as well as unspecified drug paraphernalia.

Right before this year's Jam Fest, the host cruise ship for the music fest, the Poesia ran aground in the Grand Bahamas Island and destroyed a reef.  This occurred during another music fest, the first annual three-night Holy Ship! music cruise.

Does anyone on the Jam Fest cruise have any information about the latest overboard from the Poesia or any other exciting times during a Jam Cruise??

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The MSC Poesia cruise ship ran aground into a reef in the Bahamas this weekend while sailing to  Port Lucaya near Freeport, Bahamas.

The 93,000-ton cruise ship needs twenty-five feet of draft but sailed into only fifteen (15) feet of water.  The video below show that the vessel ground into and destroyed a substantial length of the fragile reef.

Several tugs were called to prevent the cruise ship from further grinding into the reef as the wind tried to push the vessel into more shallow water. 

MSC was not able to get off the reef until high tide.  According to Cruise Radio where I first learned of the grounding, the incident did not stop the cruise ship from tendering cruise passengers to Port Lucaya.  Ed Owen who writes for the Examiner also was one of the first to report on this incident.

Were you on the Poesia when it ran aground?  Do you have photos, video or comments to share? 

Video credit:   YouTube (Fredgbscuba) 

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Last week I was away from my computer traveling in Jamaica to visit crewmembers while the story broke about the U.K.'s Maritime and Coastguard Agency detaining the MSC Cruises' Opera cruise ship for safety violations.   

The incident was the type of event which I would normally and quickly write about.  But by the time I returned to Miami the cruise ship had already been detained, released and back to sea.    

A story today in the USA Today entitled "UK Coast Guard: Issue with Detained MSC Cruises Ship was Major" renewed my interest in the story.  The article was written by Gene Sloan who hosts an  excellent and very popular cruise blog called "CruiseLog," which caters to the cruise community.   He reported today on the fact that the detention of the MSC Opera was no small matter.  In fact, the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency informed USA Today that there were multiple issues that together "led to the conclusion of a major non-conformity."

In the UK, cruise ships may be detained under UK Merchant Shipping Act 1995 only when it “appears to a relevant inspector to be a dangerously unsafe ship."

USA Today reported that the MSC Opera arrived in Southampton "overladen" with concerns by safety inspectors about the cruise ship's stability and safety emergency preparedness which were in violation of the International Safety Maritime Code (an international standard for the safe management and operation of ships).

USA Today further reported that the Opera was detained after it arrived in Southampton on May 25th coming from a shipyard where it had undergone repairs after losing power in the Baltic Sea, which left it adrift for several days until it was towed back to port.  "Passengers described uncomfortable conditions during the incident that included blackouts, a lack of hot food and running water, and backed-up toilets."

What is remarkable about the USA Today article is that it reported that when news of the detention first broke last week, MSC Cruises falsely told news outlets (including USA Today) that it was just "a rumor."  Later in the day, after the ship had been cleared to sail, MSC "issued a short statement that appeared carefully crafted to leave the impression that there had been no issues with the vessel. The statement made no mention of the detention."

Of the over 500 blogs I have written about the cruise industry in the last year and a half, a major focus of my articles is not about the bad things that happen on cruise ships - but the extraordinary steps that the cruise industry takes to cover them up.

The fact that CruiseLog, a friend to the cruise industry by all accounts, would publish an article about this cruise ship's safety deficiencies as well as the cruise line's lack of candor is encouraging.  It reflects objectivity and a clear concern for the public's safety and welfare which are often lacking in most pro-cruise publications. 

It will only be when cruise fans and CLIA travel agents demand greater transparency and accountability from the cruise lines will there be improvements in the safe operation of cruise ships.    

It also cannot be overlooked that the CEO and president of MSC Cruises, Richard Sasso, has been the chairman of the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA) Marketing Committee.  CLIA is the trade organization for the cruise industry which promotes the U.S. cruise lines and has the motto that it "promotes all measures that foster a safe and secure cruise environment."

Needless to say, it's disappointing that a cruise ship deemed by UK safety inspectors to be "dangerously unsafe," and whose leader is the head of marketing CLIA cruise ships, would exhibit such a lack of candor to international news outlets and to the American public. 

This type of conduct perpetuates the image of the cruise industry as slick and dishonest marketers.  
     

Additional info:  What is a Cruise Ship Detention? 

The MSC Opera is flagged in Panama which is suppose to make certain that the ships carrying its flag meet safety standards.  But like many "flag of convenience" countries, Panama does not have a reputation of vigorously overseeing the safe operation of cruise ships and other vessels flying the flag of Panama.   

Responsibility for overseeing the safety and security of cruise ships often falls, by default, to the "port states" where the cruise ship are based or countries where they call on port.  Caribbean countries are largely either incompetent or indifferent to safety issues or hesitant to incur the wrath of a major cruise line. 

But countries like the U.K. or the U.S., from time to time, will intervene.  Agencies in port states can intervene for safety or health reasons, like was threatened in this norovirus case aboard the Balmoral cruise ship once it reached the U.K. 

The U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. public health agencies like the Centers for Disease Control ("CDC") can shut cruise ships down, like when the CDC issued a "no sail' order for the noro-virus plagued Celebrity Mercury cruise ship which infected passengers for four sailings until it was finally shut down for health reasons.

Photo credits: 

Top:  Solent Shipping News 

Bottom:  Travel Agent Central

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In January last year, we reported on the death of Camilla Peixoto Bandeira, age 28, aboard the MSC Musica cruise ship.  Her boyfriend, Bruno Souza Bicalho, allegedly found Ms. Bandeira deceased in their cabin, claiming that she committed suicide by hanging herself with a sheet from an overhead pipe.

Today, a newspaper in Brazil reports that the police concluded that Ms. Bandeira was murdered by her boyfriend, with the cause of death being strangulation with the hands.  The conclusions were based on medical and forensic analysis and investigations conducted by the Brazilian police officers aboard the ship.

Camilla's cause has been championed by her brother, José Godolphim Bandeira Netto, who publishes a blog about the family's ordeal. 

This case is now heading toward a prosecution of Mr. Bicalho for the murder of Ms. Bandeira.

We applaud Jose and Ms. Bandeira's family for their efforts in finding justice for Camilla.

Photo credit:  atribuna.com.br

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A newspaper in Brazil is reporting that a young man, age 19, died after "falling" from the MSC Orchestra  cruise ship, anchored in Ilhabela, in the northern coast of São Paulo in the early morning hours today.  The Federal Police of San Sebastian is investigating the incident.

Although MSC Cruises released a statement that it will wait for an official report, the cruise line is already blaming the passenger. 

In a statement to the press, MSC Cruises said that it regretted the incident with the guest, but added that "Initial reports state that the victim acted recklessly, putting themselves in a situation of high risk and dangerousness."   There is a reference in the cruise line statement to the passenger being in a "banned" location on the cruise ship.

The fall apparently was from the 14th deck  of the ship. "He was rescued from the sea, but succumbed to his injuries and died, " the statement said.

The company said it took "all necessary action and is providing full support and solidarity to the family."

Where you on the cruise and have information to share?  Please leave a comment.

Photo credit:   Flickr phototouring

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The Calgary Herald reoprorts thst a Spanish woman fell to her death Saturday off the gangway of a cruise ship moored in Genoa, Italy.

Maria Mercedes Bonastre, 62, of Barcelona was boarding the ship with her husband and friends when the top step of the plank gave way. 

The newspaper reports that the passenger was killed immediately when her head struck the dock and she fell into the sea. 

The incident occurred on the Splendida, operated by MSC Crociere.

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A crew member aboard the MSC cruise ship Musica was found dead in her cabin, according to numerous news sources today.

Camila Peixoto Bandeira, 28, was reportedly found in her cabin by another crew member, a bartender, who also worked aboard MSC's Musica (photo left).  He is identified as either her husband or boyfriend.

One article in Portuguese entitled "Polícia Federal Investiga Morte de Tripulante em Navio" (Federal Police Investigates Death of Crew Member in Ship) reports that Ms. Bandeira's "husband" allegedly found his wife in their cabin, claiming that she may have committed suicide by hanging herself with a sheet from an overhead pipe. The story in the article is that he went to work in the morning around 7:00 a.m. and returned shortly before 10:00 a.m. to find Ms. Bandeira dead. 

However, the article also reports that the Master, staff captain, and ship doctor suggest that the case may have involved a murder by strangulation. 

Another article entitled "Bartender é Encontrada Morta em Navio" suggests that Ms. Bandeira's body was found by her boyfriend, identified as Polish crew member Souza Bicalho. This article also reports that he claims that she hung herself with a sheet, although the cruise ship officers apparently did not locate a sheet in the cabin.

The incident occurred on Sunday, January 10, 2010 while the cruise ship was in Port of Santos in Brazil. The newspapers also suggest that the couple allegedly had a history of quarrels.

The police in Brazil are investigating the incident.  They are waiting for toxicology tests and a medical examiner's report.   

Credits:        Lucas Latreche

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