Passengers and crew aboard the Princess Cruises' Regal Princess ship recently got an unexpected addition to their cruise itinerary: an at-sea rescue.
While en route to St. Thomas during its seven-night itinerary through the Caribbean, the ship's crew suddenly found themselves intervening in the water crash of a small private plane that went down about 23 miles southeast of Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos.
The Coast Guard passed the case onto the Regal Princess, as it was the nearest ship to the crash. The Coast Guard told Miami's New Times that the Regal Princess crew were able to rescue two people from the plane crash, "with no injuries reported."
At first, passengers reportedly thought someone had gone overboard. One of the passenger, Brandon Cobos, told a local news affiliate:
"I was like, 'Oh, my gosh. Someone jumped off.' It's the kind of thing you see on social media or hear about, and then a few minutes later at the end of it, the announcement was that it was an aircraft we were going to rescue."
Passengers aboard the cruise ship were able to capture the harrowing rescue for social media. One of them, John Becker, posted a video to Facebook in which passengers can be heard cheering and clapping when the crash victims are rescued:
On social media, people were definitely impressed by this change of course for the Regal Princess and the heroism of its crew!
After the rescue, the cruise was quickly back on course to St. Thomas with all involved safe and sound. All in a day's work at sea!
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AMC