An Australian paramedic who, along with his girlfriend, fell over a cruise ship landing may have jumped into the ocean to save his partner.
Paul Rossington and 26-year-old Kim Schroder were reported missing Thursday morning, after the Carnival Spirit docked in Sydney.
Surveillance footage captured the couple falling overboard, plunging 20 metres into the water, Wednesday evening – the last night of a 10-day cruise.
Authorities called off the search for the couple on Friday, after 48 hours. The pair is from the town of Barraba – six hours northwest of Sydney.
The ship was about 300 kilometres north Sydney when the pair fell overboard. They had been travelling with family and friends.
Investigators are still examining CCTV footage to determine exactly what happened, but the Sydney Morning Herald reports Rossington fell seconds after Schroeder.
Authorities are not confirming that.
“What it did was tell us two people went into the water and that’s about as far as we can take it,” Det. Superintendent Mark Hutchings, Head of Marine Area Command, told the Herald.
Ann Sherry, chief executive of Carnival Australia, said it was “unlikely” the couple could have simply fallen over the rail, Melbourne’s The Age reports.
Sherry told reporters security cameras are monitored regularly, although Rossington’s and Schroder’s disappearance went unnoticed until after the ship docked the next day.
“We tend to monitor the space where most passengers are,” she told Ten News. There are approximately 600 surveillance cameras on the Spirit.
There were 2,860 passengers and crew on board the ship. No one is known to have witnessed the fall.
The tragedy is the latest in a string of bad news for the cruise company. Carnival owned the Costa Concordia, which ran aground a Isola del Giglio, Italy in Jan. 2012, leaving 32 people dead.
On Thursday, a judge in Tuscany approved a $1.3-million fine for the company.
The accident has been blamed on Capt. Francesco Schettino, who is now facing charges of manslaughter, causing a shipwreck and abandoning ship.
In February, approximately 4,200 passengers aboard the Carnival Triumph were stranded at sea for five days with no air conditioning, a disabled waste disposal system and a lack of food, before the ocean liner was towed to port in Mobile, Alabama.
Lawyers for the passengers are seeking a class-action lawsuit against Carnival.
*With files from The Associated Press
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