A passenger went overboard yesterday

A passenger went overboard yesterday from the Pacific Adventure cruise ship as it approached Sydney, Australia. Nearby vessels and a police helicopter searched the waters near Sydney. The man overboard alarm was sounded around 4:00 a.m. Around 10:00 a.m. a body was located waters off what are called the “Eastern Suburbs.”

According to cruise expert Dr. Ross Klein, who maintains the definitive list of people going overboard and has testified before the U.S. Congress several times regarding this issue, this was the 409th person to go overboard from a cruise ship (or ferry) in the last 24 years.

By all accounts, the Pacific Adventure was not equipped with an automatic man overboard (MOB) system. State-of-the-art MOB systems automatically send a signal to the bridge that a person has gone over the rails via a motion detection alarm which can capture an image of the person and then can track the person in the water via radar (using infrared technology at night). Such systems are relatively inexpensive to install (U.S. $300,000 – $400,00) and are readily available on the maritime market.

The Pacific Adventure is owed by cruise giant Carnival Corporation. None of the cruise ships in its nearly 100 cruise ship fleet have life saving state-of-the-art MOB systems installed.
The result is what you see here.

“Police are leading the search of waters off Sydney following reports a person was in the water,” a spokesperson told news.com.au.

The report was received just after 4am that “a person had gone overboard” 10 nautical miles outside Sydney Heads.

The Pacific Adventure was sailing on a three day roundtrip cruise from Sydney called the “Tribute To The King” (Elvis). The itinerary started on May 3, 2024 and ends on May 6, 2024.

There is no information currently disclosed how, why or when the person went overboard.