A leading US based cruise lawyer says that bridge of the Carnival Spirit’ being unaware of a couple going overboard should not have happened, with their disappearance and going overboard not being noticed until after the cruise ship returned to port in Australia, when images were found on the cruise ship's closed circuit television system, meaning that their surviving was nigh on impossible.

In this day and age, no one should go overboard from a cruise ship without being immediately detected, according to Jim Walker of Walker and O’Neill.

Mr Walker says that the technology exists to put systems in place which can detect overboard passengers and crew members, which then signal the bridge, capturing the images of the overboard person and dropping a buoy into the water.  

Walker goes on to say that according to the Cruise Vessel Safety & Security Act, which is US law, which went into effect last year, cruise ships are required to "integrate technology that can be used for capturing images of passengers or detecting passengers who have fallen overboard..."

He says that Congress passed this new cruise safety act into law after listening to the testimony of families who travelled to Washington DC to testify about the horror of their loved ones disappearing from cruises, but he also says that the cruise industry is ignoring the law.

Walker says that Safety at Sea magazine reported some time ago that the cruise industry is unwilling to pay for dedicated man overboard (MOB) systems that detect an individual falling overboard, with equipment sellers rebuffed by the cruise industry, which seems more interested in investing its money into all types of new water-slides, rock climbing walls and other amusements, with the cruise lines remaining unwillingness to invest in life-saving overboard detection systems.

Cruise expert Ross Klein was quoted in Safety at Sea as saying that the cruise industry is “looking for loopholes” to avoid the new safety law.“

To see how man overboard systems work and could have saved this couple Check out a video by : -

Walker goes on to say that In the latest overboard case, Carnival was quick to point out that the height of its balcony railings comply with the existing safety law (42 inches) but it did not mention that the law requires a system to detect overboard persons which the Spirit obviously lacks. 

He says there are lots of reasons why passengers go overboard: being over-served alcohol, foolish or reckless behaviour, accidents, and murder, as well as reasons not known, but most cases remain mysteries, adding that the cruise lines don't monitor their CCTV cameras (except in their casinos because they don't want their money to disappear), and they have not even implemented the most rudimentary overboard detection systems.

The result is no rescue or delayed rescue attempts which are unsuccessful, with even when there are witnesses to a person going overboard, often the captain of the cruise ship will ignore the witness accounts and continue sailing until the entire ship has been searched, leading to unnecessary delay in tragic cases.

The result is also increased governmental expenses incurred due to the necessity of searching a much larger grid (many hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent in deploying Coast Guard cutters and aircraft), unnecessary deaths, and unnecessary heartbreak of the surviving family members.