A Princess Cruises ship bound for southeastern Spain made a grim discovery at sea, recovering five dead bodies from the water after a crew member spotted a lone orange life jacket floating on the surface.
The Sapphire Princess was sailing toward Cartagena, Spain, on April 21 when crew members noticed the inflatable lifejacket drifting in the water, a spokesperson for Princess Cruises told NTD News. The ship immediately changed course to investigate. Once there, the ship deployed its fast rescue boat—and what began as an uncertain search quickly turned into a recovery operation.
All five of the floating bodies were ultimately recovered by Sapphire Princess crew members working with the Maritime Rescue Coordination Center, or MRCC, Princess Cruises confirmed in their statement. The cruise line said none of the five were guests or crew members of the ship.
"We extend our sincere condolences for this loss and are grateful to our crew for their swift response and efforts to render assistance," the company said.
The identities of the deceased have not been released, and Princess Cruises has not shared any further details about who they were.
Spanish authorities have since taken up the investigation. According to local news outlet
Murcia Today, Spain's National Police are now looking into the incident and examining a possible link to a small boat found adrift roughly 25 miles off Cartagena earlier in the week.
Authorities did not respond to a request for comment from NTD News prior to publication.
The Sapphire Princess had departed Cagliari, Italy, on April 20, according to
CruiseMapper, as part of a 14-day, one-way sailing from Civitavecchia, Italy, to Copenhagen, Denmark. After leaving Italian waters, the ship was scheduled to make stops at Gibraltar, A Coruña, Spain, Dover, England, and Oslo, Norway, before arriving in Denmark on May 3.
In
February, Princess Cruises' Regal Princess turned around to rescue four people from a small ship in distress while sailing from Galveston, Texas, to Cozumel, Mexico, according to a company spokesperson. All four were brought aboard and evaluated by the ship's medical team.
Meanwhile, separately,
two passengers died during a Carnival Splendor voyage off the coast of Queensland, Australia, in mid-April. A 67-year-old Tasmanian woman was found unresponsive near Moreton Island on April 17 and was later pronounced dead, Queensland Police confirmed to NTD News. Later that same evening, a male passenger jumped overboard, prompting a large-scale search and rescue effort by Australia's Maritime Safety Authority.
