Carnival cruise passenger goes overboard in Gulf of Mexico after alleged hot tub altercation

The US Coast Guard is searching for a passenger who jumped overboard en route to New Orleans, while travelling on a Carnival cruise ship from Mexico.

The Carnival Valor vessel was 150 miles off the coast of Louisiana on Wednesday when the 32-year-old woman allegedly jumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

Other passengers were on deck to capture the rescue effort and aftermath on camera. “Just a follow up when someone goes over and drowns in the depths of the ocean while on a cruise ship the party/activities don’t stop,” said one Twitter user who posted pictures and a video of a life ring as a dot in the ocean, with a plume of red smoke coming from a flare.

“How often do they find people who jump off cruise ships, never?” a woman is heard saying in the video.

“Carnival’s Care team is providing support to the guest’s husband who was travelling with her,” said the cruise company in a statement following the incident.

The woman who went overboard was reportedly involved in an altercation in a hot tub, according to WAFB.

“Security got her out of the hot tub. Whenever they got to take her into custody, apparently she was upset and went over the rail. And, that was at about 2.30,” Baton Rouge, Louisiana resident Kim Barnette, a passenger on the ship, told the local news station.

This is the second Carnival passenger to go overboard in three months. A woman in her 20s fell from the fifth-floor balcony of a Carnival vessel in December. The US Coast Guard searched for this passenger for 31 hours before halting the search and her being presumed dead.

The cruise line offered a very similar statement for the incident in December. “Our thoughts are with the guest and her family, and our Care team is providing support.”

There is no central authority to track man overboard statistics relating to cruise liners. Associate Professor of Social Work at Memorial University, Ross A. Klein, conducted his own research and found that more than 300 people have gone overboard on cruise ships and ferries in the past 18 years up to 2021.

The Independent has contacted Carnival for further updates.