A cruise ship to the rescue.
“We saw a small orange raft,” one passenger on the Regal Princess said.
On Tuesday, a small, private plane went down off of Turks and Caicos in the Caribbean.
Nearby, was the “Regal Princess” cruise ship on its’ way to Saint Thomas.
Once they were signaled for help, they made a detour.
“We heard an announcement from the Captain and he said we’re going to go off course because we were the closest ship to where a plane went down,” passenger Jan Bergman said.
Bergman was on the Princess Cruise ship with her daughter for a birthday trip.
Little did they know the excitement that was about to take place.
“You could see the orange raft and then the little bitty ones went out and they rescued the people and as they brought them back in and the person waved and it was like a successful rescue.”
“Passengers said it was an emotional experience as pretty much everyone on the ship gathered to one side to witness what was happening as those two were brought on board as new passengers on the Regal Princess.”
Passenger Massimo Iafrate got to talk to them once on board.
“I asked them how they were able to crash the plane without getting hurt. They said the plane had a parachute which was awesome. They were prepared for the landing. They had already been in contact with the Coast Guard so they knew where they were. When they finally landed in the water they were able to deploy their life raft and they were able to get in it and get on their way. So they were very lucky they had a parachute in the plane.”
And lucky to have the Regal Princess, nearby.
“I saw the captain this morning at breakfast and this is funny. He said we gave them a room and we told them they could go anywhere besides the casino because they had too much luck already today,” passenger Debbie Cohen from Michigan said.
