[UPDATE - I’m now told that the cruise ship’s captain credited the U.S. Air Force with the rescue.]
Details are few at as of this writing, but the U.S. Navy has successfully rescued a passenger who fell ill aboard Royal Caribbean’s Ovation of the Seas cruise ship.
In what’s being described as a “dire emergency” by the cruise ship personnel, the ship immediately transitioned into ‘full steam ahead’ crossing the Pacific Ocean from Hawaii to Vancouver, British Columbia, so that the ship could be in better range for a helicopter rescue. Passengers were to experience a full five days at sea, but that number has dropped as the ship is now at full speed.
Still the ship is too far out in the Pacific for a rescue helicopter to reach the ship and return on the chopper’s available fuel. As such, the Navy has also dispatched a KC-130 refueling plane to enable the refueling of the Seahawk helicopter (the Navy’s version of the Blackhawk helicopter).
In video seen from a passenger aboard the ship, the helicopter is seen refueling midair at low altitude within sight of the ship.
As there is no helicopter landing pad on a cruise ship, the rescue involves a sailer being lowered down to the ship via a drop line, rendering aid to the ill passenger and hoisting the passenger up into the helicopter.
Crew aboard the ship reports that high winds were inhibiting the rescue.
Location of the Ovation of the Seas at the time of the rescue operation:
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