A FULL-scale air and sea search for a local couple who disappeared overboard from a luxury cruise liner has been abandoned, as hopes fade they’ll be found alive.
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It’s believed 30-year-old Barraba Ambulance paramedic Paul Rossington was trying to save his partner, 27-year-old Kristen Schroder, when they plunged from the Carnival cruise ship on Wednesday night.
Security footage showed the two falling overboard about8.50pm as the cruise liner made its way down the mid north coast.
However the alarm was only raised when they failed to disembark the ship and collect luggage when it arrived in Sydney on Thursday morning, about 14 hours after the incident.
It’s understood Mr Rossington and Ms Schroder were on board the cruise, which had sailed around a number of islands in the Pacific, with several family members including Ms Schroder’s parents, Bingara’s Reg and Roxene Dennis; her sister, brother-in-law and nephew and two family friends.
A photo posted on social networking site Facebook on May 3 showed Ms Schroder’s parents and the two friends enjoying the sunshine at Beach Bar, Vanuatu only days before their holiday turned to tragedy.
A full-scale search was launched on Thursday morning with Australian Search and Rescue, navy and police personnel scaling an area about 60 nautical miles off the coast of Forster.
The search was called off at about 5pm yesterday when police failed to find any sign of the pair.
A police spokesperson said last night unless they received concrete signs that the pair had been sighted, the search won’t resume.
Before the search was called off NSW Police Marine area commander Mark Hutchings said police were pulling out all stops to try and find the pair.
“At the moment I’ve said to my staff it’s game on,” Superintendent Hutchings told media yesterday.
“It’s very unclear, but it depicts one person going over and then a short time [later] another person going over.
“We can’t tell from the footage which is which.”
He said the search was being conducted in grid patterns using coordinates given by the cruise ship company.
Search efforts for the pair were “narrowed” when daylight broke yesterday to focus on an area of about 500 square nautical miles 60 kilometres off the coast of Forster.
The decision to narrow the search field was made with the assistance of specialists and is understood to have taken into account tidal movements and other conditions at the time, and since the pair fell.
“It’s a very difficult time but we have had nothing but absolute cooperation from the families of the two,” Superintendent Hutchings said.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to the family, friends and relatives of the two.”
Carnival Australia chief executive Ann Sherry defended the ship’s safety standards.
She said the issue of the gap in the time between the fall and the missing person report was partly due to the ship’s man overboard protocol.
“Where normally somebody would call man overboard, we would investigate straight away,” she said.
“We didn’t realise the couple were missing until the disembarkation.”
Ms Sherry said the ship had hundreds of CCTV cameras monitoring public areas, and infrared cameras monitoring the side of the ship.
However, she said not all cameras were monitored 24/7.
Ms Sherry said barricades on the ship were “about two inches, or five centimetres” above the international standard height for cruise liners.
The tragedy has sent shockwaves through the ambulance community.
NSW Ambulance chief executive Ray Creen issued a statement on the tragedy yesterday.
“We remain hopeful that a search and rescue operation will find Paul and Kirsten Schroder alive and well,” he said.
“Our thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues.”
