Missing Teen on Costa Magica Jan. 1 sailing

[cruiselover1123]

I just read this in the Kansas City Star website:

 

 

Irish teen reported missing from cruise ship

BY TOM STIEGHORST

South Florida Sun-SentinelFORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. - A 15-year-old cruise passenger from Ireland was reported missing early Thursday morning in waters off Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, the latest in a string of disappearances from cruise ships.

The passenger, who was traveling with her family, was aboard the cruise ship Costa Magica, which left Fort Lauderdale New Year's Day on a week-long Western Caribbean itinerary. It is due back on Jan. 8.

At about 2 a.m. EST Thursday, as the ship was making its way towards Cozumel, Mexico, the teenager was reported to have disappeared. "We have a full investigation going on," said Lynn Torrent, president of Costa Cruise Lines.

The cruise ship then circled the area until Mexican Navy vessels arrived to aid in the search. The cruise line said the ship's staff is trying to console the parents. "They're devastated," Torrent said.

The misfortune was the latest in a run that is drawing unwelcome attention to the cruise industry. More than a dozen people have vanished off cruise ships in the past two years, prompting a congressional hearing into cruise ship safety last month. An especially high profile case is that of George A. Smith IV, who vanished in the Mediterranean last July and has since been a staple of cable television news and gossip shows. Criticism of Royal Caribbean International in the case prompted the Miami company to issue a lengthy rebuttal on Thursday.

Cruise officials say the problem, while real, remains rare. Congress members at the hearing said they might in the future require cruise lines to report crime statistics to the FBI. Currently it is optional. At the hearing, FBI agent Christopher Swecker said that the agency has investigated 305 serious criminal cases on cruise ships in the past five years. Of those, 10 percent were missing persons and 8 percent of the investigations involved a death on a cruise line.

Michael Crye, head of the International Council of Cruise Lines, testified that said about 2,000 people are reported missing in the U.S. daily, according to FBI figures, and that people disappear from cruise ships at a far lower rate than on shore.

The hearing was called by Rep. Christopher Shays, R.-Conn., in part to probe the mysterious, possibly violent, disappearance of Smith from his cabin on Royal Caribbean International's Brilliance of the Seas last July. Bloodstains were found running from the balcony of his cabin to lifeboats, and a hand print was discovered on the side of the ship.

Smith was on his honeymoon. His family said he was a victim of foul play covered up by the cruise line to avoid bad publicity. At the hearing, his wife, Jennifer Hagel Smith, testified that Royal Caribbean staff failed to adequately investigate loud noises in the cabin before her husband disappeared.

"There was no compassion, sympathy or sensitivity shown by the cruise line," she said, adding that she was forced to leave the ship and abandoned in Turkey.

On Thursday, after an account of Hagel Smith's ordeal appeared in the New York Times, Royal Caribbean took the unusual step of rebutting her story in a seven-page chronology of the incident and its investigation.

"Recently the media speculation and some of the comments have just been so inaccurate and misleading with respect to what the crew did that we really felt we had to set the record straight," Royal Caribbean Chairman Richard Fain said in an interview.

The cruise line asserts:

_It investigated passenger reports of loud noise in the Smith cabin, but when crew arrived there was no noise.

_On the night Smith vanished, Hagel Smith was found about 4:30 a.m. sleeping on a corridor floor on the other side of the ship from her cabin.

_Far from being abandoned, after Smith disappeared Hagel Smith was accompanied constantly by a Royal Caribbean supervisor.

_Blood was cleaned from the ship only after several authorizations were obtained. The cabin was cleaned only after an FBI agent had inspected it.

_Because her cabin was sealed, Smith was given a change of clothes from the gift shop with Royal Caribbean's logo. She was not forced to wear them, and was given a sweater at one point that covered the logo.

_Royal Caribbean's port agent in Turkey made flight, hotel and taxi arrangements to get Hagel Smith back to the U.S.

Fain said he couldn't speculate on what caused Hagel Smith to give an account so at odds with Royal Caribbean's narrative.

Efforts to reach Miami maritime attorney James M. Walker, who represents Hagel Smith, were not successful.

 

This is the link: http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/13558981.htm