‘I'm sick to my stomach’: Coast Guard suspends search for vanished cruise passenger
The search for a missing Carnival cruise passenger was suspended Thursday after he mysteriously disappeared over Labor Day weekend.
Kevin McGrath, 26, was on the Carnival Conquest heading back to PortMiami with a big group to celebrate his father’s 60th birthday, his sister Danielle McGrath told Paste BN. The group was on a three-day cruise to the Bahamas.
McGrath, who lives in Florida, was last seen by his brother Andre at about 2 a.m. Cellphone footage last shows him dancing to live music on Sunday night. Kevin McGrath's keycard was used to enter his room around 3:30 a.m.
At about 7:30 a.m. Monday, the family met for breakfast, but Kevin McGrath didn’t show up. They looked for him and reported him missing when everyone disembarked the ship, but he was nowhere to be found.
Ship staff and security searched the ship but were unsuccessful, a spokesperson for the Miami-Dade Police Department told Paste BN.
The overboard detection system on the ship never went off, and there is no other evidence that Kevin McGrath went overboard, according to Miami-Dade police.
More: What are cruise ship overboard detection systems and why doesn't every ship have them?
His disappearance "is so random, out of nowhere," Danielle McGrath, Kevin McGrath's sister, told Paste BN. "Everyone has different relationships with the person but me, how I know my brother, how I last spoke to him, his energy, his spirit. This is definitely not like him."
The U.S. Coast Guard searched 3,300 square nautical miles with helicopters, but nothing showed up.
U.S. Customs and Border Control told Carnival Kevin McGrath was not detected during the debarkation process, NBC Miami reported.
"There’s so many scenarios that run through my head," Danielle McGrath said. "Did he fall somewhere and he’s screaming for help and no one hears him? Did he fall down an elevator shaft? I just don't know. It's just anything."
On Thursday, Carnival Cruise Line told Paste BN it was continuing the investigation, “including multiple reviews of closed circuit video footage and we are also cooperating with law enforcement and the U.S. Coast Guard.”
The cruise line said the police have cleared Carnival Conquest to sail, and the Carnival Care Team is supporting the family.
Danielle McGrath said that Miami-Dade police and the U.S. Coast Guard have been checking in with the family to offer their support but that Carnival had stopped. "(To) me, personally speaking, you should be reaching out every minute. There’s so many cases where stuff gets shoved under the rug, and it's 40 years later and families still suffer."
"I haven’t eaten all day. I haven’t had a sip of anything all day. My eyes hurt from crying up and down. I’m sick to my stomach."
She said the Port St. Lucie community where she and her brother are from has been offering "a lot of love" to the family.
Between 2009 and 2019, there were 212 overboard incidents around the world involving passengers and crew, according to statistics compiled for Cruise Lines International Association by consulting firm G.P. Wild (International) Limited. Only 48 people were rescued.
Cruise ships have safeguards to prevent passengers from going overboard and are required by the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010 to have rails that are "located not less than 42 inches above the cabin deck."
Cmdr. Jason Kling, Detachment Chief at the U.S. Coast Guard's Cruise Ship National Center of Expertise, which conducts compliance inspections of cruise ships embarking passengers in U.S. ports or embarking U.S. passengers, told Paste BN in March that many cruise ships complied with that even before the law was enacted.
Contributing: Nathan Diller