Cruise ship lists off Florida, passengers injured

By Irene Klotz

PORT CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) – A new luxury cruise
ship that made its debut sailing last month listed heavily
after leaving Port Canaveral in Florida on Tuesday, injuring
dozens, two of them critically, when people were flung across
decks and down stairways.

The U.S. Coast Guard said it was not yet clear how far the
950-foot (290-meter) Crown Princess had listed. But some
passengers aboard the vessel, which was carrying 3,100 guests
and 1,200 crew, said it rolled dramatically.

One woman was hit by a marble table. Others suffered broken
arms and bones, the witnesses said.

“The ship actually tilted all the way down, all the way
down, water came out of the pool … people were all flying and
hitting the glass,” passenger Al Selmani told Miami’s WSVN TV.

“The ship was actually going to flip over all the way …
everybody was panicking, everybody was crying, chairs were
falling everywhere. I mean, it looked like the ship was going
down.”

Princess Cruises, a Santa Clarita, California-based unit of
Carnival Corp, said on its Web site the ship was “safe and
seaworthy” after an unexpected list to its starboard, or right,
side.

Two people in critical condition, one of them a child, were
flown by helicopter to hospital in Orlando, said Cpt. Jim
Watson of the Cape Canaveral Fire Department.

Fifteen people considered to be in serious condition were
taken by ambulance to hospitals, 18 “walking wounded” were
taken away in buses and another 30 people remained on board in
need of attention, Watson said.

The Crown Princess, which sailed out of Port Canaveral on
Tuesday en route to New York at the end of a 9-day Caribbean
cruise, was escorted by Coast Guard vessels and tug boats back
to a wharf lined with ambulances.

The statement on the company’s Web site said: “Initial
reports are that a number of passengers did sustain serious
injuries. There are also numerous reports of injuries such as
cuts, bruises and fractures.”

A Coast Guard spokesman said the list was caused by a
problem with the ship’s steering mechanism. But another Coast
Guard official later said it was uncertain if the unexpected
list and the steering problem were related.

The Crown Princess was christened in mid-June in New York
by lifestyle maven Martha Stewart.

At nearly 114,000 tonnes, the Crown Princess was not as big
as the megaships Queen Mary 2, at 1,132 feet and 150,000
tonnes, and Freedom of the Seas, at 1,112 feet (339 metres) and
160,000 tonnes.

(Additional reporting by Tom Brown and Michael Christie in
Miami and Joe Skipper at Port Canaveral)