A 43-year-old man jumped off a CCL-Carnival Cruise Line ship into the Atlantic off the coast of Florida Saturday morning, April 16, officials said.
The US CG (Coast Guard) deployed a pair of patrol boats and an airplane in order to search for the unidentified passenger, whose jump had shaken vacationers screaming on the deck.
The man plunged from the cruise ship just after midnight, ~55 miles east of Port Canaveral (Orlando, Florida), according to the military/Carnival officials.
A passenger on the liner reported that people were scrambling on the deck early Saturday morning as officials on Carnival Mardi Gras and nearby ship Carnival Elation began to search for the overboard man.
Carnival Mardi Gras had departed from Grand Turk Island (Cockburn Town, Turks and Caicos) and was scheduled to finish her route to the port as the search resumed.
The accident was the 3rd of its kind to befall Carnival in the past 3 months.
In March, the body of a man who jumped off the Carnival Horizon ship was recovered in the Caribbean Sea.
In February a woman jumped to death off Carnival Valor into the Gulf of Mexico to elude security after an altercation in a hot tub.
For more Carnival Mardi Gras incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.