Woman found dead aboard Princess Cruises ship
Authorities are investigating the death of a 52-year-old woman who was traveling on a Princess Cruises ship that left Fort Lauderdale.
The incident happened Tuesday aboard the Royal Princess ship, which left Port Everglades Nov. 9 for a seven-day cruise through the southern Caribbean. The ship is scheduled to return to Fort Lauderdale on Saturday.
The woman who died had been seen struggling with a man and fell from a deck and onto a lifeboat, according to the Aruba news website Diario.aw.
Authorities have not released her name, and an official cause of death has not been announced. In a statement to the Sun Sentinel, the cruise line said that an American woman had died on the ship on its way to Aruba.
“The incident was reported to the FBI and local authorities and the local authorities met and boarded the ship upon arrival in Aruba,” the statement read. “We are cooperating fully with the investigating authorities, including the FBI.”
A spokesman for the FBI in Miramar said they are “aware of the death of a woman of U.S. Citizenship on board a cruise ship.”
On Facebook, police in Aruba said they were conducting an investigation. They referred media inquiries to Aruba’s prosecutor’s office. A spokeswoman said that the body remains there and that an autopsy has already taken place.
No arrests have been made, said Ann Angela, a spokeswoman for the prosecutor’s office.
“The investigation is geared toward finding out what happened. Was it a crime or an accident? The prosecutor’s office will reach conclusions based on the evidence gathered within the investigation,” she said.
A passenger on the cruise ship industry website CruiseCritic.com said police officials in Aruba boarded the ship early Tuesday morning and that the ship’s captain had made an announcement and said that “there was a serious incident.”
The Royal Princess can carry up to 3,560 guests and a crew of 1,346, according to the cruise line.
“We are deeply saddened by this incident and offer our sincere condolences to the family and those affected,” a statement from Princess Cruises said.