Cruise ship crew member goes overboard in Mediterranean, urgent search underway
A search is underway in the Mediterranean Sea after a crew member on the Viking Star went overboard during a cruise on Monday morning.
A spokesperson for Viking Cruises confirmed to Fox News Digital that a member of the crew was seen going overboard at 11:31 a.m. local time. The ship immediately activated its emergency response and began a search in coordination with the Italian Coast Guard.
The spokesperson said no further details were available at this time.
The eight-day, seven-night Viking ocean cruise began in Athens, Greece, before sailing to Turkey and the Greek island of Crete. During the journey on Monday from Crete to the city of Palermo in Sicily, Italy, an announcement was made over the ship’s PA system that a crew member had gone overboard.
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A Fox News producer aboard the cruise said that the announcement visibly shocked a waiter serving lunch as others rushed to the railings to scan the ocean. One person was heard saying, “I see someone.”
A crew member was seen tossing an orange life ring into the ocean before lowering a smaller ring with an attached flare into the water minutes later. The ship was slowly circling the area where the crew member went overboard as the Italian Coast Guard conducted a maritime search.
The cruise director later announced to those onboard the ship that the search area had been expanded.
Details about the missing crew member and the circumstances in which they went overboard are unclear.
Fox News was told that it appeared the missing crew member was on the second deck when the incident happened.
The Viking Star can carry up to 930 passengers and about 500 crew members.
After the cruise stops in Sicily, it is scheduled to continue to Naples and finally Civitavecchia, a coastal city about an hour outside of Rome.
Fox News’ Andrew Fone contributed to this report.
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