Video: To Passengers' Cheers, Cruise Ship Rescues Two People From Plane Crash at Sea

Sometime after noon today, a plane went down 23 miles southeast of Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos. The Federal Aviation Administration immediately received a notification and quickly orchestrated a rescue mission. Luckily, the Regal Princess cruise ship was in the area on its way to St. Thomas.

By Jessica Lipscomb

March 5, 2019

Regal Princess Photo by joenevill / Flickr

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Sometime after noon today, a plane went down 23 miles southeast of Grand Turk Island in the Turks and Caicos. The Federal Aviation Administration immediately received notification and quickly orchestrated a rescue mission.

Luckily, the cruise ship the Regal Princess was in the area on its way to St. Thomas. The U.S. Coast Guard's Seventh District in Miami sent an aircraft to the crash site and contacted the ship's captains for help. Regal Princess crew members were able to rescue two people from the downed plane.

"They recovered them with no injuries reported," Coast Guard spokesman Seaman Erik Villa Rodriguez tells New Times. (Cruise Law News, a blog by Miami attorney Jim Walker, was the first to report on the rescue.)

The stunning rescue was captured by several tourists on the cruise ship, who cheered from the deck as a rescue boat brought back the two survivors from the plane crash.

Amazing while onboard the Regal Princess we just witnessed our crew and the US Coast Guard rescue 2 people from the Caribbean that were victims of a plane crash @PrincessCruises @uscoastguard thank you for being so incredible!!!
— Al Brickman (@albrickman1) March 5, 2019

2 people rescued by our Princess cruise staff after small aircraft went down in the Atlantic. All appear okay. #ThankGod @AP pic.twitter.com/DysBoSUzAC
— Taylor Ensign (@TEEnsign) March 5, 2019

Princess Cruises spokeswoman Alivia Owyoung says the crash involved a private plane. The Regal Princess, which is based out of Port Everglades in Fort Lauderdale, is on day two of a seven-day Caribbean cruise.

No further information was immediately available about the plane crash or rescue. This post will be updated as more details emerge.

Jessica Lipscomb joined Miami New Times as a staff writer in 2016 and served as news editor from 2019 until 2022, when she moved on to the Washington Post. In 2024 she joined the Miami Herald as city editor.

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