Passenger Vanishes As Cruise Ship Returns

[VolcanoJen]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=519&e=1&u=/ap/20041126/ap_on_re_us/cruise_passenger_missing

This would be scary... :-(

Excerpt:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - A 54-year-old passenger vanished as a ship returned home from a five-day cruise to the Bahamas, and the Coast Guard launched a search.

A search boat and helicopter scoured 340 square miles off Florida and in the St. Johns River for Glen Sherridan of Richmond, Va. His wife, Gloria, reported him missing Thursday when she could not find him after the Carnival Cruise Lines ship Celebration docked.

The ship's crew conducted a full search to make sure Sherridan wasn't still on board. The vessel's electronic exit and entry program showed the man did not leave the ship after it docked in Jacksonville, Carnival said.

Sherridan's wife last saw her husband at 1:30 a.m. Thursday. She said he was an early riser and might have fallen overboard as early as 4 a.m., said Coast Guard Petty Officer Bobby Nash.

Nash said the ship then would have been about 13 miles off the northeast Florida coast, heading for the St. Johns River and Jacksonville.

[genieroze]

1. Someone has to say it

Maybe the Rapture got him.

[almostfamous74]

2. HEHE

Well, the one's who were "Left Behind" got to enjoy a most likely very nice cruise. Sucks to be raptured...By the way, was it the "Man from Mars who stopped eating bars and now he only eats guitars" that raptured him?

: D

[donheld]

3. Welcome to DU

:hi:

Maybe he just couldn't face coming back to the UFSA

[almostfamous74]

5. TY

Thanks for the warm welcome. I have become addicted to reading this site and had to finally become a mamber. There are a lot of great people here...

And damn you all Freepers!

[lapfog_1]

18. Nah...

He went back up into space... where he don't have to hassle with
the human race..

[crispini]

4. dude, that's nuts

how do you fall off one of those things? I was on a carnival ship one time -- might have even been celebration... seems to me you'd have to really WORK at it to fall off.

unless he was pushed.... brrrrrr....

[VolcanoJen]

8. You would literally have to climb off the ship, wouldn't you?

I've been on a few cruises, including my last cruise on Carnival over a year ago.

The railings are high, and I would think you'd have to crawl over one to end up in the ocean. I was in a balcony cabin, and even if you "fell" over the balcony, you'd end up on a promenade a few decks below.

Very, very strange. :scared:

[BikeWriter]

6. Chees! I hope he took a flotation device! n/t

[acmavm]

7. Did the guy have any big insurance policies? Who's the beneficiary?

Unless the guy had suicidal tendencies, I'd be looking at the obvious. How long before anyone noticed he was missing? She waited until the ship docked before getting a clue?

Not saying she did anything, but I am saying she was either totally unconcerned or pretty slow on the up-take.

Oh well, just another day. We need to start writing a soap opera. We can call it 'The Dumb and the Rest of Us'.

[Divine Discontent]

10. nope...

not the rapture. I'm still here. :)

wait, UNLESSSSS!! The King of Merikkka told Jesus I wasn't allowed!

OH MY!!!!!!!


the guy that fell off? ummmm... he either committed suicide, or he was killed, very hard to fall off those things, unless he was doing a Leonardo, I tried on the RC ship I was on, but I got too skeered...

[Unstuck In Time]

9. What is the "electronic exit and entry program"...

... and how long before all our homes, cars, offices, malls, etc. are outfitted with something similar?

[Divine Discontent]

12. CUTE!! no, wait.......... SCARY!!!!!!!!!!!! n/t

[VolcanoJen]

13. Well, it's like your Cruise Ship "ID/Credit Card."

When you first board a cruise ship, they take a rather primitive photo of you, and hand you a driver's license-sized ID card with your photo, cabin number, dining room location, etc.

There's a magnetic strip on the back, and since most cruise ships these days are cashless, you use the card every time you buy a cocktail, or something in the gift shop, and receive your final bill at the end of the cruise.

Whenever you leave the ship to go to a port, they scan your card. When you come back on, they scan your card again. This way, before a cruise ship leaves port, they can printout a list of all passengers who exited the ship, but haven't yet re-entered the ship. They will hold up the ship if there are several passengers missing, I imagine.

It's not a devious system, honestly. It makes sense.

[Cornus]

14. Picture ID

When you board you get a pic ID and it must be scanned whenever getting on or off the ship.

[AuntiBush]

11. Florida, Virginia, huh...

Hmmm... might it have been too much repub-partying?

[Ian David]

16. Cruise ship security

I've been on a Carnival cruise, and trust me, they make airport security look like geniuses.

Sneaking onto a ship would be relatively difficult. Sneaking off... not hard. Especially when it's busy. It's really just a matter of waiting until the card-reading guy is busy with a cluster of other people and then sort of squeezing past them.

I think there was an article in 2600 a year or two ago about flaws in cruise ship security, and how easy it would be to get a copy of someone else's card and among other mischief run up their bar tab.

[Cornus]

15. Not that uncommon

I've taken many cruises and have heard lots of stories of *missing passengers*. I think it's generally assumed that they chose to jump over board.

My b-i-l was on a cruise on the QM2 recently and it was delayed because someone was reported missing.

[Boomer]

20. Jumped... or pushed

I've read articles about the security and legal nightmares posed by crime on these cruise ships. There's no real police presence, ambiguous jurisdiction, and the ship's crew is under pressure to dismiss these "incidents" because of the bad press that results. At the same time, the ships are getting larger and larger, carrying thousands of passengers, which makes oversight of activities increasingly difficult.

So the system is rigged to declare all missing passengers as people who voluntarily left the ship. In some cases that is probably true, but if someone is pushed overboard, how do you prove otherwise?

[marzipanni]

17. Sounds like the opening to Cal Hiaasen's book - Skinny Dip

Chaz Perrone might be the only marine
scientist in the world who doesn't know which
way the Gulf Stream runs. He might also be
the only one who went into biology just to
make a killing, and now he's found a way of
doctoring water samples so that a ruthless
agribusiness tycoon can continue illegally
dumping fertilizer into the endangered
Everglades. When Chaz suspects that his
wife, Joey, has figured out his scam, he
pushes her overboard from a cruise liner in
the night-dark Atlantic. Unfortunately for Chaz,
his wife doesn't die in the fall.

Clinging blindly to a bale of Jamaican pot,
Joey Perrone is plucked from the ocean by
former cop, current loner, Mick Stranahan.
Instead of rushing to the police and reporting
her husband's crime, Joey decides to stay
dead and (with Mick's help) screw with Chaz
until he screws himself.

As Joey haunts and taunts her homicidal
husband, as Chaz's cold-blooded cohorts in
pollution grow uneasy about his ineptitude
and increasingly erratic behavior, as Mick
Stranahan discovers that six failed marriages
and years of island solitude haven't killed the
skewed romantic in him, we're taken on a
hilarious, full-throttle, pure Hiaasen ride
through the warped politics and mayhem of
the human environment, and the human
heart.

[SmokingJacket]

19. Sounds like an awesome suicide, actually.

Have a nice cruise with yr wife, then go out with splash. Beats a lot of other methods I can think of.

He probably should have left a note, though!