Princess Cruises said that human error was
responsible for the strong listing the Crown Princess experienced
on July 18 following its departure from Port Canaveral, Fla. In a
statement, Princess Cruises President Alan Buckelew said that it
would be inappropriate to further comment on the cause of the
incident while an investigation is underway.
We can appreciate
there may be concern as to the cause of this incident, and
questions about whether it could happen again, Buckelew said.
However, we can confirm that the incident was due to human error
and the appropriate personnel changes have been made. We want to
unequivocally emphasize that we would never operate an unsafe ship,
nor would the U.S. Coast Guard allow a ship to sail that had any
safety issues.
Human error also was
determined to have caused last Februarys listing of another
Grand-class ship, the Grand Princess, outside Galveston, Texas. In
that incident, 27 people were injured when the ship tried to turn
around and return to port after a passenger experienced cardiac
arrest.
In last weeks incident
240 people were injured and 94 were hospitalized. Princess said
that all but one has been released and that none of the injuries
was life-threatening.
The U.S. Coast Guard
and the Bermuda authorities cleared the Crown Princess to depart
New York July 22 on a revised, seven-day Caribbean sailing.
Princess said it sailed with about 3,000 passengers.
To contact the
reporter who wrote this article, send e-mail to Johanna Jainchill
at [email protected].