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A 72-year-old American man is believed to have gone overboard from a Princess Cruises ship off the coast of California.
The man vanished from the Ruby Princess before it arrived in San Francisco at 6:50 a.m. on Monday December 2, Princess Cruises said in a statement.
"CCTV footage has also been extensively reviewed and the ship was searched thoroughly several times without success. Having ruled out other possibilities, this is being treated as a man overboard incident," the company said.
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The U.S. Coast Guard was asked to conduct an air search on the day but the man has not yet been found.
When Newsweek contacted the U.S. Coast Guard for an update, it said: "At approx. 5:30 p.m. (on Monday night), the search was suspended pending any new developments."
Newsweek has also contacted Princess Cruises for comment.
"The matter is under investigation by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and we are fully cooperating with the authorities," Princess Cruises said in a comment to news blog Cruise Hive.
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Princess Cruises sent its "condolences to the family and friends of the guest, who was traveling alone."
The Ruby Princess departed on November 27 on a five-day round trip from San Francisco to Ensenada, Mexico, and back.
It was set to depart from San Francisco again on December 2 on a 16-day voyage to the Hawaiian Islands, and managed to do so despite being delayed by the suspected man overboard incident.
The ship, which joined the Princess Cruises fleet in 2008, can host up to 3,080 passengers as well as 1,100 crew members, Cruise Hive reports.
The Ruby Princess also hit headlines in September, when cruise ship passengers were injured when their tour bus overturned near Skagway, Alaska. It was not reported which ship the passengers came from, but the Ruby Princess was one of four in port at the time, according to Cruise Hive.
It comes after a group of Russian passengers on a different cruise ship, on a voyage to Antarctica, staged a hunger strike because a mechanical failure meant their trip was cut short.
While operator Swan Hellenic offered the ship's 170 passengers a choice of compensation options, some were disgruntled by the decision not to provide a full refund and began refusing food in an effort to pressure the cruise line's executives.
Three Russian guests took part in the strike, displaying signs demanding that they be reimbursed entirely for the cost of the trip, which stands at between £7,000-£10,000, according to The Times.
The SH Diana set off from Cape Town, South Africa, on November 13, and was heading to Antarctica via the remote island of South Georgia when it suffered an "unexpected malfunction" during day 14 of the three-week cruise, the company said.
"The 3.5 planned days in the Antarctic Peninsula had to be curtailed for safety reasons," Swan Hellenic CEO Andrea Zito previously told Newsweek in a statement.
Update 12/04/24, 12:41 p.m. ET: This article was updated to include comment from the U.S. Coast Guard.
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