Two Passengers Overboard On Australia-Bound Carnival Cruise Ship

Paul Rossington and Kristen Schroder, who were vacationing on an Australia-bound Carnival cruise ship, are thought to have fallen overboard Wednesday night. On Thursday, authorities were searching off of Australia’s east coast, according to ABC.

The missing passengers are a couple and are citizens of Australia from New South Wales state. At the end of the 10-day voyage when the Carnival Spirit docked at Circular Quay in Sydney, it was discovered that neither were on the ship, according to New South Wales Police Superintendent Mark Hutchings.

When authorities went over the cruise ship’s surveillance footage, they saw Rossington, 30, and Schroder, 26, fall from the middeck of the Carnival Spirit on Wednesday night. At the time, the ship was roughly 250 nautical miles away from Sydney, and 65 miles off the coast of Forster.

It is currently unclear to investigators whether the couple had fallen into the water, or if they had jumped. No life preservers were missing from the ship. If one had been missing, investigators could have presumed that one may have donned one in an attempt to save the other, according to Hutchings.

Seven family members of the overboard couple were also traveling on the Carnival Cruise Lines South Pacific cruise.

“This is a tragic event at the moment,” Hutchings said. “But we’re holding out hope we might be able to find these people alive.”

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