British woman vanishes from Mediterranean cruise ship, prompting fevered search
The Costa Fascinosa, the new flagship of the Italian passenger fleet and Costa Cruises built at Fincantieri’s Marghera shipyard, leaves Venice on May 6,2012, crossing the sea in front of St. Mark square. A huge public relations exercise marked the entry into service of the 114,500 tonne Costa Fascinosa, sister-ship of the ill-fated Costa Concordia which ran aground and capsized off northwest Italy on January 13 with the loss of 32 lives.
A British woman has vanished from a Mediterranean cruise ship, the BBC reported today, and a fevered search for any trace of her has been called off.
Aurora, which is operated by P&O Cruises, was chugging from the Portuguese city of Oporto to Barcelona on Friday, when it was realized that the British national had gone missing.
She is currently believed to have fallen off the ship, according to the Telegraph. The two-week cruise left on September 26th. Officials are comforting the family of the missing Briton, who has yet to be named to the media.
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The Telegraph reports the missing passenger is believed to be 72 years old, and was apparently on vacation with her daughter.
Mysterious cruise ship disappearances are, sadly, not an uncommon occurrence, with another incident seeming to take place just about yearly.
In March, a Canadian woman in a troubled relationship vanished from a cruise ship returning to Florida—no trace of her was found by authorities.
The remarkably specific—and handy—CruiseShipDeaths.com collects fatal incidents during cruise ship voyages. A quick perusal of this website may convince you to scrap the Carnival cruise and take a seemingly-safer vacation. Maybe in Somalia.