Search ends for woman who fell from cruise ship in Alaska

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended the search for a 40-year-old woman who fell overboard off a cruise ship in Alaska’s Inside Passage.

The Coast Guard ended the effort on Tuesday after searching for the woman for about nine hours, Coast Guard Petty Office Ali Blackburn said.

The search was conducted by boat and a helicopter in the waters near Eldred Rock in Lynn Canal, which is about 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of the state capital of Juneau.

The captain of the cruise ship Celebrity Solstice reported the missing woman at 3 a.m., Tuesday, the Coast Guard said.

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Her name has not been released.

“Because of the searching that we’ve done, it has yielded negative results,” Blackburn said.

That, coupled with an estimated survival time of 6.19 hours in the water, led the Coasts Guard to suspend the search, she said.

2:08 B.C.’s cruise industry is back in business after a three-syear shutdown due to the pandemic.

The survival time was based on factors like water and air temperatures and the person’s age.

The air temperature in Juneau was 10.5 degrees Celsius (51 Fahrenheit) on Tuesday afternoon, and the National Weather Service said the water temperature was 5 C (41 F).

The Inside Passage is the historic north and south route that cruise ships and Alaska state ferries follow through the waters of southeast Alaska and British Columbia.

1:57 Cruise industry returns to Vancouver