The U.S. Coast Guard issued a press statement that it is searching for a crew member from the cruise ship Pacific Venus, which was sailing from Hawaii back to Yokohama, Japan.

The 24 year-old crew member was noticed missing at approximately 2 p.m., on Saturday, February 20th, after he failed to show up for his post aboard the cruise ship. The Master of the Pacific Venus’ called the Coast Guard in Honolulu at 5 p.m. Saturday to report the missing crew member and to say the ship had turned around to look for him.

The Pacific Venus spent several hours Saturday afternoon searching for the crewmember before sunset in an area where he was last seen been aboard the cruise ship.

The Coast Guard deployed two C-130 long-range search aircraft to search for the overboard crewmember.

The Coast Guard also reports that a "Good Samaritan" vessel, a Japanese vessel Nippon Maru, answered a call to help through the Automated Mutual-Assistance Vessel Rescue (AMVER) program, and searched for the crewmember.

A newspaper in Hawaii reports on the story in an article entitled "Coast Guard Continues to Search for Overboard Cruise Ship Crew Member" and indicated that the Coast Guard will continue searching for the overboard crewmember.

Credit

Pacific Venus cruise ship                      ykanazawa Flickr photostream