Cruise passenger went overboard on B.C. coast; Coast Guard suspends search

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for a passenger missing during an Alaska cruise after receiving new information Thursday afternoon about when and where she went overboard.

Princess Cruise Lines now says that 67-year-old Edelgard Carney went overboard more than 200 miles south of Ketchikan, Alaska, along the British Columbia coast as its 2,670-passenger Sapphire Princess sailed south from Alaska toward Vancouver, B.C.

Carney, a Sutter Creek, Calif., resident is reported to have gone overboard at 6:08 a.m. Tuesday. Earlier, the cruise line had said she went overboard Monday evening around 6 p.m. near Ketchikan, in southeast Alaska, and the Coast Guard had been searching in that area for two days.

Major cruise ships have video-camera surveillance in public areas, including ship decks. U.S. Coast Guard spokesman David Mosley said Princess has footage of Edelgard going overboard, but that the cruise line had an "initial misreading of the information."

The U.S. Coast Guard search began Wednesday after Carney failed to disembark when the ship docked that day in Vancouver, B.C.

"Recent Princess Cruise Line information revealed that Carney reportedly went overboard 57 miles east off Graham Island in Canadian waters," said a statement Thursday afternoon from the Coast Guard District 17, based in Anchorage. The Coast Guard is working with B.C.'s Victoria Joint Rescue Coordination Center and will provide assistance to the Canadians if requested.

Princess Cruise Lines earlier issued a short statement saying it is working with authorities and cannot speculate on the cause of Carney going overboard.

This summer, another passenger on an Alaska cruise, Amber Malkuch of Arlington, Snohomish County, went overboard from the Holland America cruise ship Zaandam in August. Her body was found off Douglas Island in Southeast Alaska.

Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Megan Peters said Wednesday the cause of Malkuch's death was drowning. However, she told the Associated Press that the agency may never come to a determination if the death was accidental or a suicide, as the cruise ship company described it at the time