A seventy-seven year old passenger reportedly went overboard from Holland America Line’s Nieuw Statendam in the early morning hours of January 1, 2026 as the cruise ship was returning to South Florida. Online posts on social media show the HAL ship was sailing northeast of Cuba when the incident occurred.

The Nieuw Statendam was on a seven-day Eastern Caribbean cruise that departed from Fort Lauderdale on December 27, 2025, and was scheduled to return to Port Everglades on January 3, 2026. After the passenger went overboard, the Nieuw Statendam initiated search-and-rescue operations and the U.S. Coast Guard deployed a cutter (William Trump) and a helicopter to search for the overboard woman.

HAL did not disclose any details regarding the woman going overboard other than confirming general information about the incident and expressing that the cruise line was “deeply saddened” and that their thoughts were with the guest’s loved ones.

Subsequently, several cruise publications reported that while early reports did not specify a cause, an alleged review of closed-circuit cameras later indicated the guest was alone on a deck and appeared to go overboard intentionally.

This is the 431st person to go overboard from a cruise ship since year 2000, according to cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein. Dr. Klein reported that there were 12 overboard last year (2025),

The search was called off at sundown on New Year’s Day after a search covering more than 690 square miles over 15 hours.

The Carnival Corporation-owned cruise ship is not equipped with an automatic man overboard system which has the ability to instantly signal when a person goes over the railing of the ship by using motion detection, infrared, or radar technology. This state-of-the art technology can track a person in the water, even at night, leading to a much greater likelihood of a successful search and rescue. Searching for a person in the water at night without a man overboard system is akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.

Carnival Corporation has ignored the requirements of the 2010 Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act (“CVSSA”} and, to our knowledge, refuses to installed a single automatic man-overboard system on any of the over 90 cruise ships operating under the Carnival Corporation umbrella. Over 275 passengers and crew members have gone overboard since the CVSSA first went into effect.

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Photo Credit: Nieuw Statendam by kees torn – NIEUW STATENDAM, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90349248; search pattern on Nieuw Statendam via Michael Beckham @GCCBeckham.