A crew member reportedly went overboard from the Celebrity Reflection last night, according to a passenger on the cruise ship.
The Celebrity cruise ship was sailing from Mykonos, Greece to Rhodes, Greece.
The passenger posted comments about the incident on her Twitter page and also on Instagram:
The Celebrity Reflection cruise ship has returned to look for a crew member who went overboard last night. Waiting for coast guard. All ships in area searching sea. Sad. #manoverboard #celebrity
— Janis Cooley Leonard (she/her) (@leonardjan) October 17, 2018
Sad day on the ship. Crew member overboard last night. Raced full speed back this morning to engage in rescue efforts and released by coast guard after seven… https://t.co/o6vPq7HKF6
— Janis Cooley Leonard (she/her) (@leonardjan) October 17, 2018
The majority of crew members who go overboard often do so intentionally. The incidents usually occur late at night or early in the morning. The persons going overboard are typically not observed by other crew members or by passengers. We are not aware of any Celebrity cruise ships which are equipped with automatic man overboard systems which immediately notify the bridge when a person goes over the rails and tracks the person in the water, even at night, via infrared, heat sensor / motion detection / radar technology.
The usual scenario involves a crew member who is overworked during a long (6-7 month) contract and becomes demoralized and decides to end his life. Another crew member may notice that the crew member has not reported to work. The ship will eventually conduct a search of the ship and will look through the ship’s CCTV. Unlike other cruise lines (like NCL), Celebrity / Royal Caribbean do not actively monitor the CCTV cameras on their cruise ships. I have written about the problem of crew members going missing from Royal Caribbean cruise ships without explanation.
During a three year period between 2009 and 2012, at least thirteen crew members went over the rails of Royal Caribbean (and Celebrity) ships, including the Majesty of the Seas, Monarch of the Seas (twice), Radiance of the Seas, Explorer of the Seas. Oasis of the Seas, Grandeur of the Seas, Celebrity Constellation, Celebrity Eclipse, Celebrity Summit, and Monarch of the Seas, Serenade of the Seas (two). Most of these cases were never investigated by the flag state, which, it seems, could not care less.
Any investigations conducted after the fact by the cruise company or the flag state are usually done to exonerate the cruise line.
The masters on these cruise ship must notify the cruise line’s security and marine operations departments in Miami by telephone regarding any “suspected overboard situation.” Unless there is an actual and reliable sighting of the person going overboard, the company’s procedures prohibit the master from turning the ship around to conduct searches in the water. The ship turns around only after the master first notifies the cruise line’s marine operations department in Miami.
According to cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein’s website, at least 322 crew members and passengers have gone overboard since 2000.
If you have any information about this latest overboard, please leave a comment on our Facebook page.
Update: A Greek news source identifies the crew member as a 36 year-old from the Ukraine. The news source says that the man went overboard around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday night but the search efforts did not begin until “early on Wednesday” (at around 5:00 a.m).
Read: Misery Machine and Crew Member Suicides
October 20, 2018 Update: The popular Crew-Center website identified the crew member as Alex Heleta, a well liked young man who was “working as a bar server for several contracts on different Celebrity ships, and had just embarked on Reflection. Some sources say that Hellenic Coast Guard found Alex body near the Island of Santorini, and they will send it back home for his family and friends to commemorate.”
Image credit: AIS image of Celebrity Reflection – MarineTraffic