Cruise ship Briton almost drowned – because rescue plane couldn’t see her frantic waving
Spotters missed her, so she trod water for 2 more hours She was too weak to grab life ring from coastguard But some passengers blame her for ruining their trip
THE British woman who spent ten hours in the sea after going overboard from a cruise ship was forced to watch a rescue plane circle above for up to two hours before being saved, it was revealed yesterday.
The captain of the boat that rescued Kay Longstaff said she was probably not seen from the air because she was not in a life jacket and was only just above the water.
Lovro Oreskovic, commander of the coastguard patrol boat Cavtat, also said it took his crew ‘just five minutes’ to find her after they arrived in the area where she was reported to have gone overboard from the Norwegian Star.
He claimed her miraculous survival was a rebirth, adding: ‘We wish her all the best in her “new” life.
‘I say “new” because it’s like she died and has been reborn.’
But he declined to reveal what the 46year-old told him or his crew about how she ended up in the water as that was ‘a matter under investigation’.
Miss Longstaff’s father yesterday described her as a ‘heroine’ and said he was ‘very proud’ of her.
Ron Longstaff, 76, a retired police superintendent and father of two, said his eldest child’s skill as an air hostess, as well as a high level of fitness from yoga helped save her.
The widower, from Kenilworth, Warwickshire, said: ‘She’s a heroine for surviving ten hours in the sea – it’s an amazing feat.
‘I’m sure she was expecting to die, but she kept alive by floating. She’s a good swimmer, but she knew she had a better chance of surviving by floating.’
The father- of-two added that Miss Longstaff, an air hostess who left Virgin Atlantic to work for an independent company, had ‘dealt with quite a lot of emergencies’ during her career.
He also denied accusations that she had deliberately gone overboard, saying he ‘cannot imagine her jumping’.
Mr Longstaff was upset that some passengers had complained that their holidays had been ruined because the ship was delayed during the search and rescue operation, adding: ‘She must have been terrified. She would have been thinking she’d die after ten hours in the ocean. The fact she survived – and not many people would – is a miracle.’
Describing the rescue yesterday, Lieutenant Oreskovic said: ‘ We received the call at sunrise and it took us three hours to get to the search area, but then there she was. We spotted her about 200m from our starboard side.
‘We tried to throw her a buoy on a rope from 5m away so we could pull her in, but she was too exhausted to catch it. She just didn’t have the strength.’
Instead, rescuer Marin Delic swam across to Miss Longstaff and helped her back to the Cavtat.
Lieutenant Oreskovic said: ‘She saw the Pilatus PC-9 spotter plane and waved at it. But they didn’t see her. It’s very hard to see people in the water without a life jacket.
She was only wearing some kind of bra. She was about 20cm above the water because she didn’t have a life jacket on.
‘ She thought the plane had noticed her, but then she saw it circling round over and over and she realised it hadn’t – one to two hours before we found her.
‘She was very happy, very relieved and very grateful when we found her. The first thing she said to us when she came on board was, “You saved my life! You saved my life!”.
‘She was in shock and dehydrated. She was very red and her skin was wrinkled from being so long in the water. We gave her water and she was checked by our medical team. She was also hungry so we gave her some vegetable soup and a chocolate mousse. She also had an isotonic energy drink and some fresh orange juice.’
He said a crew member lent her a T- shirt and a pair of trousers so she had dry clothes to wear.
She slept for about an hour on a sofa as the ship returned to shore.
By then, her shorts had dried and she changed back in to them.
Last night, questions continued to be asked about exactly what had happened when Miss Longstaff, who lives on the Costa del Sol in Spain, tumbled from the cruise liner shortly before midnight on Saturday, off northern Croatia, around 60 miles south of Pula.
She has been accused of causing huge disruption to passengers, and costing Norwegian Cruise Line hundreds of thousands of pounds for delays caused by the incident.
Lawyer Jim Fisher, an expert in cruise ship accidents, said 80 per cent of incidents of people going overboard from cruise liners were linked to alcohol, while 5 per cent were trying to take their lives.
Andy Harmer, director of the Cruise Lines International Association industry body, said: ‘Cruise ships today are the safest that ever sailed thanks to the rules and technological innovations that govern their design. There are no known cases of someone acting responsibly who has accidentally fallen over the railing of a cruise ship.’ He said safety regulations included uniform minimum railing and balcony heights of 1m, plus other structural barriers to prevent passengers falling off a ship.
‘She would have been thinking she’d die’