The US Coast Guard says it's searching for a man who fell from a cruise ship off the coast of Florida.
The 35-year-old passenger, identified in news reports as Ronnie Peale Jr., fell from the Carnival Magic ship about 300 kilometres east of Jacksonville on Monday, the service said in a statement. The Coast Guard is searching from the air and water.
The Coast Guard said it had spent nearly 20 hours searching more than 10,000 square kilometres by Tuesday afternoon. The search by air was scheduled to pause at sunset, while ships would continue looking for the man through Tuesday night.
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Peale's companion reported him missing late Monday afternoon, the statement said.
Security footage on the ship shows that a man “leaned over the railing of his stateroom balcony and dropped into the water” around 4am, according to the statement.
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Carnival said the Coast Guard released the ship from search efforts and told the captain to head back to port in Norfolk, Virginia.
The ship can hold nearly 4000 guests and is about 300 metres long.
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