The US Coast Guard (USCG) suspended the search for a 40-year-old female passenger who fell overboard off a Celebrity Cruises ship in Alaska’s Inside Passage.
The USCG ended the search on Tuesday, May 17, after searching for the woman for ~9 hours, according to CG Petty Office Ali Blackburn. The search was conducted by a helicopter and a boat in the waters close to Eldred Rock in Lynn Canal, ~20 miles west of Juneau AK.
The Captain of the Celebrity Solstice ship reported the missing woman at ~3 am on Tuesday, the USCG said. The name of the victim has not been released.
Blackburn said that because of the searching that they had done, it had yielded negative results. That, coupled with an estimated survival time of 6.19 hours in the water, had led the CG to suspend the search.
The survival time was based on factors like air and water temperatures and the age of the woman. The air temperature in Juneau AK was 51 Fahrenheit (11 Celsius) Tuesday afternoon. The National Weather Service announced the water temperature was 41 Fahrenheit (5 Celsius).
The Inside Passage is a historic north & south route that Alaska state ferries and cruise ships follow through the waters of Southeast Alaska/British Columbia.
Celebrity Solstice's current cruise is 7 days, round-trip Alaska Dawes Glacier from Seattle, Washington with ports of call including Ketchikan, Revillagigedo Island (May 15), Tracy Arm Fjord (May 16), Juneau (May 16), Skagway (May 17), and Victoria BC, Vancouver Island, BC Canada (May 19).
For more Celebrity Solstice incidents and accidents see the ship's CruiseMinus page.