cruise accidents

Cruise passenger dies after falling over balcony onto lower deck, spokesperson says

A passenger aboard a Virgin Voyages cruise ship died after falling over their balcony shortly after departure, a spokesperson said.

The ship, Valiant Lady, had left Miami on Sunday for Roatan, Honduras, when the incident occurred.

"On Sunday, shortly after departure there was a medical emergency involving one of our passengers," the cruise line company said in an emailed statement. "This passenger went over their balcony onto a lower deck, and despite receiving immediate medical attention, has passed away."

The passenger, who has not been identified, fell onto another person, Insider reported . The spokesperson for Virgin Voyages said in their statement that the second person was not seriously injured.

The spokesperson declined to release further details, saying it wants to protect the privacy of those involved.

The ship returned to Miami early Monday morning but has since resumed its voyage with slight changes to the itinerary.

Virgin Voyages said it was "deeply saddened" by what happened. "Our hearts and thoughts are with this person's loved ones," the statement said.

Minyvonne Burke is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News.

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Coast Guard Suspends Search for Passenger Who Fell From Cruise Ship

The U.S. Coast Guard said on Sunday that it halted its search for a woman who went overboard from a Carnival cruise ship near Ensenada, Mexico.

By Johnny Diaz

The U.S. Coast Guard suspended a 31-hour search for a passenger who fell off a cruise ship near Mexico, the authorities said on Sunday.

The woman, who was not immediately identified, was aboard a Carnival cruise ship when she fell on Saturday morning “from the balcony of her stateroom,” Carnival Cruise Line said in a statement. The company said the ship had been on a three-day cruise to Ensenada, Mexico, and the Coast Guard said the woman fell near there.

Carnival did not provide further details of how the woman fell overboard.

On Saturday, the Coast Guard said that it had deployed a cutter called the Forrest Rednour as well as a helicopter, and that it was working with Mexico’s Navy to find the woman.

Crews started searching early in the morning on Saturday and into Sunday, the Coast Guard said. It led a search of about 520 square nautical miles, it said.

One passenger told a California news station, KABC-TV , that he heard someone say, “Man overboard, man overboard port side” on the ship’s speakers. He said that when he looked over the balcony of his room, he saw crew members tossing life preservers into the water.

Daniel Miranda, another passenger, told the station that cruise officials said that they had “verified through the cameras” that a woman had fallen into the water. A photo he took, broadcast by the station, also showed that the area of the ship where the woman fell had been cordoned off with blue tape.

After more than 31 hours scouring the area, the Coast Guard said on Sunday that it had suspended its search “pending additional information.”

The cruise company said in its statement that after assisting the Coast Guard, its ship had returned to Long Beach, Calif., as scheduled on Dec. 12. “Our thoughts are with the guest and her family, and our Care Team is providing support,” the company said.

In California, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents went to the ship “with an evidence response team” to assist in the case, a spokeswoman for the bureau said on Monday.

It is increasingly uncommon for passengers to fall from cruise ships, according to Carolyn Spencer Brown, who has covered the cruise industry for about 25 years, currently as chief content officer of Cruise Media LLC.

“It’s becoming much more uncommon than it was 20 years ago,” she said, citing the “increasingly sophisticated design specifications” that have prioritized safety on ships.

“They are designed to keep you safe,” she continued. “You really don’t hear about it very often, and when it happens, typically there are other factors involved.”

In 2010, Congress passed the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act , which required ships be equipped with rails no shorter than 42 inches above the deck, and with alarms and other technology to help signal and find passengers who go overboard.

In 2018 and 2019, 26 and 29 people fell overboard from cruise and ferry ships, according to Cruisejunkie.com , which lists cases reported by the news media, including those involving people who jumped. In 2020 and 2021, when far fewer passengers took cruises because of the pandemic, the site recorded three incidents.

Ross A. Klein, who tracks the cases of people who fall overboard on his website, Cruisejunkie.com, wrote in a June 2019 report that information on people who fall overboard is limited “as cases may not be publicly reported.”

Falls overboard could involve intoxication, accidents or deliberate jumps, Mr. Klein’s report said, but he warned there was reason to be cautious with labels because of the lack of information.

“Alcohol intoxication is known in only a small percentage of cases, largely because there is no systematic reporting of persons overboard, and no accounting of behavior prior to a disappearance (such as alcohol consumption),” the report said.

Asked about how many people have fallen overboard from Carnival ships in recent years, a spokeswoman for the company said she did not have any further information other than the statement about this weekend’s search.

The ship traveling to Ensenada this weekend, the Carnival Miracle, debuted in 2004 and can accommodate more than 2,100 guests and 934 crew members, according to the company.

Johnny Diaz is a general assignment reporter covering breaking news. He previously worked for the South Florida Sun Sentinel and The Boston Globe. More about Johnny Diaz

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100 cruise passengers injured, some "flung to the floor" and "holding on for dear life" as ship hits fierce storm on way to U.K.

By Emily Mae Czachor

November 9, 2023 / 10:55 AM EST / CBS News

About 100 cruise ship passengers were injured last week when a fierce storm — which had cut short their scheduled trip around the Canary Islands — ended up hitting the ship in the Bay of Biscay as it routed back to the United Kingdom. Five passengers needed treatment in onboard medical facilities for more serious injuries, while the rest were described as minor. 

Nigel Banks, the CEO of British company Saga Cruises, said Spirit of Discovery had safely returned to the U.K. and all passengers had disembarked in a statement to CBS News on Thursday.

"We have apologised to all our guests who experienced such difficult weather conditions; we know that this was a very distressing experience for them," Banks said in the statement. 

Spirit of Discovery was carrying roughly 1,000 passengers on a two-week journey from Portsmouth, in southern England, through the Canary Islands off the western coast of Spain. The 14-night  "Canary Island Quintet" cruise , operated by Saga Cruises, left from Portsmouth on Oct. 24 and completed the first nine days of its prepared itinerary before beginning to confront a bout of bad weather. 

Conditions prompted the ship's captain to cancel their next planned stop in Las Palmas, where they were due to travel from the capital of Fuerteventura, another place in the Canary Islands, on Nov. 2. Instead, Spirit of Discovery changed directions to route toward the northwestern tip of mainland Spain, where the captain intended to dock the ship at La Coruña.

But while en route to the Spanish seaside town on the edge of the Bay of Biscay, the captain received word that the port at La Coruña would be closed because of bad weather. Hoping to stay ahead of the storm, the captain decided to start routing Spirit of Discovery back to the U.K. earlier than originally planned.

Spirit of Discovery encountered massive, tumultuous waves while crossing the Bay of Biscay, a body of water bordering Span and France that is known at times for especially turbulent currents. While crossing the bay, the ship's propulsion safety system activated and caused it to jerk suddenly to one direction, which essentially brought the vessel to a halt. 

A social media user on X said their parents were passengers on Spirit of Discovery during the cruise. 

"My elderly parents on board the Saga Spirit of Discovery and have also had a horrendous time in the storm, including getting flung to the floor in the dining room with tables and crockery falling on them," the post read , adding, "Why did the captain rush from the Canaries into the storm?"

One passenger, Alan Grisedale, filmed the enormous waves that rocked Spirit of Discovery in the Bay of Biscay and shared the footage with BBC News . Grisedale said the force against the ship was so great that his wife was knocked over, and furniture was pushed around inside their cabin, the BBC reported . Another passenger on the ship recalled in comments to the BBC that "tables were flying" and waves were "throwing people around all up and down the place."

Jan Bendall, a 75-year-old passenger who had taken the cruise with her husband, told the BBC that Spirit of Discovery remained stationary in the Bay of Biscay for about 15 hours while "caught in the middle of the storm." Bendall said that she and her husband were "holding on for dear life."

Banks, the cruise line's CEO, said the crew did "everything we could" to keep passengers safe.   

"We operate to the highest health and safety protocols and every decision was made based on advice from the ship's Master and forecasts from our dedicated marine meteorologists," Banks said in his statement. "We did everything we could at all times to keep our guests as safe as possible and to support them through the storm, including expert medical attention for those injured. I want to thank our guests for their patience and understanding and all our crew, who went over and above to care for everyone onboard."

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Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.

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Passenger dies on Royal Caribbean ship that left Miami for 9-month world cruise

Serenade of the seas left miami on dec. 10, 2023, on the ultimate world cruise, a 274-night, seven-continent voyage that stops at 60 countries and 11 world wonders, by nbc6 • published february 13, 2024 • updated on february 13, 2024 at 3:22 pm.

A passenger has died while on board a Royal Caribbean ship that left Miami for a nine-month "Ultimate World Cruise," the company said Tuesday.

"A guest sailing on board Serenade of the Seas has sadly passed away," a Royal Caribbean spokesperson said in a statement to NBC News . "We are actively providing support and assistance to the guest's loved ones at this time. Out of the privacy of the guest and their family, we have nothing further to share at this time."

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The passenger's identity and details surrounding their death weren't released.

Serenade of the Seas left Miami on Dec. 10, 2023, on the Ultimate World Cruise, a 274-night, seven-continent voyage that stops at 60 countries and 11 world wonders.

The Hurricane season is on. Our meteorologists are ready. Sign up for the NBC 6 Weather newsletter to get the latest forecast in your inbox.

The ship has already made its way through Mexico, the Caribbean, Brazil, Peru and Ecuador on its South America leg last month. On Sunday, the Asia Pacific leg of the voyage began that will see the ship pass through Hawaii, Polynesia and Australia.

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10 years later, Costa Concordia survivors share their stories from doomed cruise ship

Ten years after the deadly Costa Concordia cruise line disaster in Italy, survivors still vividly remember scenes of chaos they say were like something straight out of the movie "Titanic."

NBC News correspondent Kelly Cobiella caught up with a group of survivors on TODAY Wednesday, a decade after they escaped a maritime disaster that claimed the lives of 32 people. The Italian cruise ship ran aground off the tiny Italian island of Giglio after striking an underground rock and capsizing.

"I think it’s the panic, the feeling of panic, is what’s carried through over 10 years," Ian Donoff, who was on the cruise with his wife Janice for their honeymoon, told Cobiella. "And it’s just as strong now."

More than 4,000 passengers and crew were on board when the ship crashed into rocks in the dark in the Mediterranean Sea, sending seawater rushing into the vessel as people scrambled for their lives.

The ship's captain, Francesco Schettino, had been performing a sail-past salute of Giglio when he steered the ship too close to the island and hit the jagged reef, opening a 230-foot gash in the side of the cruise liner.

Passengers struggled to escape in the darkness, clambering to get to the life boats. Alaska resident Nate Lukes was with his wife, Cary, and their four daughters aboard the ship and remembers the chaos that ensued as the ship started to sink.

"There was really a melee there is the best way to describe it," he told Cobiella. "It's very similar to the movie 'Titanic.' People were jumping onto the top of the lifeboats and pushing down women and children to try to get to them."

The lifeboats wouldn't drop down because the ship was tilted on its side, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded on the side of the ship for hours in the cold. People were left to clamber down a rope ladder over a distance equivalent to 11 stories.

"Everybody was rushing for the lifeboats," Nate Lukes said. "I felt like (my daughters) were going to get trampled, and putting my arms around them and just holding them together and letting the sea of people go by us."

Schettino was convicted of multiple manslaughter as well as abandoning ship after leaving before all the passengers had reached safety. He is now serving a 16-year prison sentence .

It took nearly two years for the damaged ship to be raised from its side before it was towed away to be scrapped.

The calamity caused changes in the cruise industry like carrying more lifejackets and holding emergency drills before leaving port.

A decade after that harrowing night, the survivors are grateful to have made it out alive. None of the survivors who spoke with Cobiella have been on a cruise since that day.

"I said that if we survive this, then our marriage will have to survive forever," Ian Donoff said.

Scott Stump is a trending reporter and the writer of the daily newsletter This is TODAY (which you should subscribe to here! ) that brings the day's news, health tips, parenting stories, recipes and a daily delight right to your inbox. He has been a regular contributor for TODAY.com since 2011, producing features and news for pop culture, parents, politics, health, style, food and pretty much everything else. 

12-year-old dies in fall from balcony on Royal Caribbean cruise ship

The FBI is investigating the death of a 12-year-old boy who plummeted from a balcony to a lower deck on a Royal Caribbean ship returning to Galveston, Tex., the agency said.

The incident occurred Saturday night aboard the Harmony of the Seas on the last night of a seven-day western-Caribbean cruise that had stopped in Honduras and Mexico, the cruise company said. Cruise tracking site CruiseMapper showed that the ship returned to port Sunday and left for its current western-Caribbean voyage the same day.

Circumstances surrounding the boy’s death were still not clear Wednesday. Multiple news outlets have reported that the boy fell from a balcony that overlooks the inner part of the vessel and landed in the Central Park area of the ship, which is lined with trees, plants, restaurants and shops.

Railings on cruise ships must be at least 42 inches tall, under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act that passed in 2010.

The FBI confirmed that it was investigating the incident but declined to release additional details. The agency, which said it is “the primary federal agency authorized to investigate potential crimes on the high seas,” was coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection.

Royal Caribbean released little information.

“We are deeply saddened to confirm the death of one of our guests,” the cruise company said in a statement. “Our Care Team is providing support and assistance to the guest’s family during this difficult time. For the privacy of the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share.”

Harmony of the Seas is one of the largest cruise ships in the world, according to the Royal Caribbean website. It has 18 decks and can hold a maximum of 6,687 guests in 2,747 staterooms. It is divided into seven “neighborhoods,” including a boardwalk, promenade, pool and sports zone, youth area and the Central Park section where the boy fell.

The ship was the scene of another young passenger’s death in 2019, when a 16-year-old slipped and fell while trying to access his room from an adjacent balcony, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reported at the time. Royal Caribbean called that incident a “tragic accident.”

Falls from cruise ships are uncommon, though multiple people go overboard every year, according to data compiled by cruise industry researcher Ross Klein. He has tracked reports of at least 386 people who reportedly went overboard between 2000 and 2020, The Washington Post reported last year.

Attorney Spencer Aronfeld, who sues cruise lines, said in a TikTok video that he received multiple messages from passengers on the ship with theories about what happened in Saturday’s fall.

In a message to The Washington Post, he said that in his 35 years of experience, he has found that it would be “extremely unlikely” to simply fall over a balcony railing.

“The majority of railing cases I’ve investigated deal with intoxicated passengers sitting in the railings or leaning over the railings or intentionally going over,” he wrote.

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Enormous MSC Cruise Ship Crashes Into Crowded Venice Port, Injuring at Least Five

By Caleb Jacobs

Posted on Jun 3, 2019 11:35 AM EDT

A commercial cruise ship suffered a catastrophic engine failure off the coast of Venice, Italy on Sunday, leaving it uncontrollable as it headed toward a nearby dock. With no effective way of steering the vessel, it resultantly crashed into the harbor—a hotspot for tourists—injuring five people, according to the Associated Press.

The news has made headlines worldwide with videos of the incident also being posted online, showing the situation from a firsthand perspective:

Operated by MSC, the Opera cruise ship was built to hold more than 2,675 passengers and, in this instance, it was carrying travelers back to Venice after visiting Kotor, Montenegro as well as the Greek cities of Mykonos, Santorini, and Corfu. Two nearby tugboats worked to guide the ship away from the dock after the captain immediately reported the engine failure but failed.

As can be heard in the videos, those aboard the ship and on shore were left wondering aloud what might come of the shipwreck. 

While there are obvious and immediate effects that come with a crash of this magnitude, Italian activists are using the episode to make a political point. Recently, there’s been a swing of protest regarding Venice’s acceptance of cruise ships that, due to their size , block narrow waterways and obstruct tourist views. This was not lost on Twitter after Sunday’s happenings as Italy’s environment minister Sergio Costa posted:

“What happened in the port of Venice is confirmation of what we have been saying for some time. Cruise ships must not sail down the Giudecca. We have been working on moving them for months now … and are nearing a solution.”

Quello che è successo nel porto di #Venezia è la conferma di quello che diciamo da tempo: le #GrandiNavi non devono passare dalla Giudecca. Per questo da mesi insieme ai ministri @DaniloToninelli e @BonisoliAlberto stiamo lavorando per spostarle e siamo vicini alla soluzione — Sergio Costa (@SergioCosta_Gen) June 2, 2019

A politician with the Italian Left party, Nicola Fratoianni, even went as far as to call cruise ships “steel monsters” which “risk carnage” in the seaside town.

Curioso quel Paese che blocca navi che salvano vite e permette a grandi navi di attraversare #Venezia … Situazione intollerabile. Interrogazione in Parlamento, e subito blocco passaggio navi da crociera dal canale della Giudecca #NoGrandiNaviVenezia https://t.co/eff5oAC3hj — nicola fratoianni (@NFratoianni) June 2, 2019

An MSC spokesperson explained to NPR   that the cruise ship is now being moored at the Marittima terminal and has begun passenger operations.

Cruise captain detained after ship collides with motor boat on Danube River, kills 2

BUDAPEST - Hungary has detained the captain of a Swiss-based cruise ship, Heidelberg, involved in a collision with a small motor boat on the Danube River  late on Saturday that killed two people, with five others still missing, police said on Monday.

The accident was reported on Saturday night after a 35-year-old man was found with a bleeding head wound near a main road by the river near Veroce, 55 km (34 miles) north of the capital Budapest.

The body of a man was recovered downstream south of Veroce, while a woman's body was found further downstream near a bridge on the northern outskirts of Budapest, where police also recovered the damaged motor boat.

Hungarian police said the cruise ship captain was a Czech national and that they had interviewed and detained him on suspicion of multiple offences, including failing to stop and provide help after an accident.

"Based on the suspicion of police, the captain did not alert his crew after the accident, did not follow provisions of the rescue protocol and took no action whatsoever to save the persons afflicted," police said in a statement.

Police have questioned 25 people as witnesses, including the cruise ship's crew, tourists on board and others.

A search continued on Monday for the five missing people, all of whom were in the motor boat, including an 18-year-old woman and a 39-year-old man.

On Sunday, a Reuters news team saw the ship moored in the northern Danube river town of Komarom, upstream from the site of the collision, with large scratches visible on the bow.

A group of Chinese tourists disembarked on Sunday afternoon. One of them told Reuters he had not been aware of any accident at the time.

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Driverless car startup Cruise's no good, terrible year

Cruise rolled out hundreds of its robotaxis in San Francisco this year. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

Cruise rolled out hundreds of its robotaxis in San Francisco this year.

A year ago, the future seemed bright for the driverless car startup Cruise. As 2022 wrapped up, CEO Kyle Vogt took to Twitter to post about the company's autonomous vehicles rolling onto the streets of San Francisco, Austin and Phoenix.

"Folks," he wrote , "we are entering the golden years of AV expansion."

Robotaxis, which give rides to any paying customer with no driver at the wheel, were one of the latest tech products to be fully unleashed to the public this year. Dozens of companies, including Alphabet's Waymo and Amazon's Zoox, have been competing to be king. Cruise, which is owned by General Motors, was one of the fastest growing of those startups.

GM had poured billions into Cruise as the company emphasized scaling up at an unprecedented pace.

"We're on a trajectory that most businesses dream of, which is exponential growth," Vogt said during a July call with investors. He boasted about the size of Cruise's driverless car fleet, adding that "you will see several times this scale within the next six months."

By August, California had given Cruise permission to run around 300 robotaxis throughout San Francisco. (Waymo deploys around 100). And the company had started testing in several more cities across the country, including Dallas, Miami, Nashville and Charlotte.

But then, in October, things took a disastrous turn.

California orders Cruise driverless cars off the roads because of safety concerns

On the night of October 2, one of Cruise's driverless cars struck a pedestrian in San Francisco leaving her critically injured and fighting for her life. Her identity has not been released.

A cascade of events followed that ended with Vogt resigning and GM announcing it was pulling hundreds of millions in funding. Cruise is now facing government investigations , fines that could total millions and an uncertain future.

"They were the bull in a china shop. They just kept charging ahead," says Missy Cummings, a George Mason University professor who runs the Mason Autonomy and Robotics Center. "When we sat around and discussed who was going to have the worst accident in that crowd, everyone knew it was going to be Cruise."

Tension was building

Even before the October incident, tension over self-driving cars was simmering in San Francisco.

Both Cruise and Waymo say their driverless cars are safer than human drivers – they don't get drunk, text or fall asleep at the wheel. The companies say they've driven millions of driverless miles without any human fatalities and the roads are safer with their autonomous systems in charge.

But, as robotaxis became increasingly ubiquitous throughout San Francisco, residents complained about near collisions and blunders. Local reports showed footage of confused vehicles clogging a residential cul-de-sac , driving into wet cement at a construction site and regularly running red lights .

Armed with traffic cones, protesters are immobilizing driverless cars

An activist group called Safe Street Rebel has been cataloging the incidents , which now clock in at more than 500. The group figured out that if they put orange traffic cones on the hoods of driverless cars , they would render the vehicles immobile. So, they started going out at night to "cone" as many cars as possible as a form of protest.

"When you start having passive aggressive protests like people putting orange cones on your cars, this isn't going to come out your way," says Cummings.

Protesters demonstrate against driverless cars in front of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in San Francisco in August. Justin Sullivan/Getty Images hide caption

Protesters demonstrate against driverless cars in front of the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in San Francisco in August.

Cruise and Waymo also ran into problems with San Francisco's police and fire departments . At government hearings, the agencies testified that the driverless cars were a nuisance. They tallied nearly 75 incidents where self-driving cars got in the way of rescue operations , including driving through yellow emergency tape, blocking firehouse driveways, running over fire hoses and refusing to move for first responders.

"Our folks cannot be paying attention to an autonomous vehicle when we've got ladders to throw," San Francisco Fire Chief Jeanine Nicholson said in an August hearing.

California allows robo-taxis to expand and emergency responders aren't happy

Despite public angst over autonomous vehicles, California state regulators voted to allow the companies to expand their robotaxi services in August. That prompted the city of San Francisco to file motions with the state demanding a halt to the expansion.

Seven days after the vote, a Cruise car collided with a fire truck, injuring a passenger.

A pedestrian incident and an alleged cover-up

After the fire truck collision, the California Department of Motor Vehicles told Cruise to reduce its fleet in half, to 150 cars, while it investigated the incident.

Then, just weeks later, the Cruise car hit the pedestrian. Based on police reports and initial video footage from Cruise, the woman was first struck by a hit-and-run human driver whose vehicle threw her into the path of the driverless car.

Cruise said its car "braked aggressively to minimize the impact." It provided some news outlets with video of the incident, which ended right after the driverless car hit the woman . Cruise also gave footage to the DMV.

Over the next few weeks, Cruise continued to expand – launching driverless robotaxi rides in Houston . Then, in a surprise announcement at the end of October, the DMV ordered Cruise to immediately stop all operations in California.

The DMV says Cruise withheld footage from the night of the incident.

The facts stated in the DMV's order of suspension for Cruise. California Department of Motor Vehicles hide caption

The new video footage showed the Cruise car striking the pedestrian, running her over, and then dragging her an additional 20 feet at 7 miles per hour as it pulls to the curb and stops on top of her.

Philip Koopman, a Carnegie Mellon associate professor and autonomous vehicle safety expert, says most human drivers wouldn't respond this way. "Before you move your car, you're going to find out where the pedestrian is," Koopman says. "The last thing you want to do is be driving over them, but that's exactly what the Cruise vehicle did."

Cruise says it gave regulators the entire video immediately after the incident. But the DMV says it was only after requesting the footage that Cruise handed it over – 10 days later.

It quickly snowballed for Cruise after that. The company recalled and grounded all of its cars nationwide – nearly 1,000 vehicles. It initiated a third-party safety review of its robotaxis and hired an outside law firm to examine its response to the pedestrian incident. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration also opened an investigation into Cruise .

Meanwhile, The Intercept reported that Cruise cars had difficulty detecting children , according to internal documents. And The New York Times reported that remote human workers had to intervene to control Cruise's driverless vehicles every 2.5 to five miles.

By mid-November, Vogt was gone. Nearly a dozen other executives stepped down and Cruise announced it was laying off nearly a quarter of its staff.

Ripple effect across the industry

Cruise will continue its work on driverless cars as a commercial product, says spokesperson Navideh Forghani. She added that the company's approach is "with safety as our north star." GM's spokesperson says it remains committed to Cruise "as they refocus on trust, accountability and transparency."

Waymo has avoided much of the public ire that built up over the summer. Its spokesperson told NPR that "safety is our mission and top priority" and that "we treat every event seriously by investigating it to understand what happened."

But Cruise's controversy still affects the self-driving industry overall, says Carnegie Mellon's Koopman.

"The whole industry, with one voice, has been promoting the same talking points as Cruise," Koopman says. "So, if one of them is discredited, it discredits the entire industry because they're all using the same playbook."

A lot of that is the claim of driverless cars being superhuman when it comes to safety, he says.

Both Cruise and Waymo have released studies saying their vehicles are involved in fewer crashes than human drivers. One Waymo study says it has an 85% reduction in injury-causing collisions and a Cruise study says it has a 74% reduction . Neither company has released the raw data of these reports.

Koopman says the safety narrative can unravel when people see the driverless cars on city streets making the same mistakes as human drivers. He says he'd like to see the companies focus on making sure the technology is actually safe.

"To be clear, human drivers will text, they'll be distracted. There's the saying, 'the lights are on, but nobody's home,'" Koopman says. "But it turns out, that happens to robotaxis too."

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• driverless cars
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FBI investigating death of 12-year-old boy who fell from balcony of cruise ship

This was the second boy who died on the royal caribbean cruise ship in recent years..

A 12-year-old boy has died after falling from the balcony of a Royal Caribbean   cruise ship .

Royal Caribbean’s Harmony of the Seas was on a seven-day cruise in the western Caribbean with stops in Honduras and Mexico.

'We are deeply saddened to confirm the death of one of our guests.'

On Saturday, the ship was en route to Galveston, Texas .

On the last night of the cruise, a 12-year-old boy plummeted to his death after falling from a balcony.

According to People magazine , the boy fell from the ship's "Central Park" neighborhood — an open area in the ship's interior on the 8th deck — which includes bars, restaurants, shops, and more than 10,000 plants and flowers.

The FBI confirmed that it was investigating the incident, according to the Washington Post , noting that it's “the primary federal agency authorized to investigate potential crimes on the high seas,” and was coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection.

Royal Caribbean released a statement on the boy's death: “We are deeply saddened to confirm the death of one of our guests. Our Care Team is providing support and assistance to the guest’s family during this difficult time. For the privacy of the guest and their family, we have no additional details to share.”

The FBI and Royal Caribbean did not reveal the circumstances of how the boy fell from the balcony.

The Harmony of the Seas cruise ship docked in Galveston at 7 a.m. Sunday, according to cruise tracking site CruiseMapper .

In 2019, a 16-year-old boy fell to his death while attempting to climb into his room from the balcony of the Harmony of the Seas ship. The teen was on the eighth floor, according to the Broward Medical Examiner’s Office. The teen reportedly fell and landed on a pier after attempting to climb into his room from a nearby balcony because he forgot his room key.

Under the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act that was passed in 2010, railings on cruise ships must be at least 42 inches tall.

Harmony of the Seas was first launched in 2016 and has 18 decks and a maximum capacity of 6,687.

Between 1995 and 2024, there were 416 people who went overboard while on cruise ships, according to data compiled by cruise industry researcher Ross Klein.

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Cruise offers to pay $112K in fines over allegations it misled regulators about driverless car

At a regulatory hearing on tuesday, cruise president craig glidden explained how the embattled autonomous vehicle company plans to make amends following accusations cruise tried hiding details about an incident last year involving one of its driverless cars that left a pedestrian serious injured, by bigad shaban • published february 7, 2024 • updated on february 12, 2024 at 3:32 pm, what to know.

• California regulators summoned Cruise executives to appear before a judge amid allegations it misled the public and government investigators
• Cruise increased its initial settlement offer by $37,500, so company vows to pay $112,500 in fines, pending approval from a judge
• Cruise driverless cars remain off the road nationwide with no timeline for their return

Top executives at Cruise, the driverless car subsidiary of General Motors, appeared before an administrative law judge on Tuesday to explain how it hopes to make amends amid allegations it misled the public and the state's two regulatory agencies responsible for overseeing the safety of driverless vehicles across California.

Watch NBC Bay Area News 📺 Streaming free 24/7

Cruise is accused of attempting to hide crucial details from the California Public Utilities Commission and the DMV regarding an Oct. 2 incident in which one of Cruise’s driverless cars dragged a woman 20 feet after failing to recognize she was trapped underneath the vehicle.

Cruise admits fault but denies "purposely" misleading regulators

During the CPUC hearing, Cruise repeatedly denied "purposely" attempting to mislead anyone, but Cruise President Craig Glidden and his team acknowledged the company committed a series of "regrettable" missteps.

“It was a mistake,” said Glidden, referencing the company’s failure to clearly and quickly inform regulators about the precise details surrounding the incident. “Cruise is attempting to make right by that mistake.”

In filings Cruise submitted to the CPUC last month , Cruise offered to settle the Commission's ongoing probe into the company by voluntarily expanding the amount of information its willing to disclose to regulators relating to collisions. Currently, California rules only require driverless car companies to provide detailed summaries of crashes, known as "collision reports," for accidents involving vehicles still in the testing phase. Cruise’s offer, however, would expand its reporting to also include collisions involving its vehicles operating under a "deployment permit," which means they’re being used to shuttle paying passengers. 

As part of its original settlement proposal, Cruise also offered to pay $75,000 in fines relating to its actions following the Oct. 2 incident. During Tuesday’s hearing, however, Administrative Law Judge Robert Mason insinuated that didn’t go far enough.

“Take the hint,” the judge told Cruise officials.

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Glidden, seated on a panel made up of other Cruise executives and lawyers, then grabbed the microphone to announce Cruise would increase its offer by $37,500 to match the financial figure suggested by the judge, bringing the total amount of fines the company is now willing to pay to $112,500.

This is by no means representative of the total responsibility Cruise will have.  There will be a mosaic of responsibility and accountability from Cruise that comes out of that incident. Craig Glidden, Cruise President and Chief Administrative Officer

“I don’t think Cruise is here to ask for a discount,” Glidden said. “This is by no means representative of the total responsibility Cruise will have. There will be a mosaic of responsibility and accountability from Cruise that comes out of that incident.”

During the hearing, Cruise representatives highlighted the protracted fallout the company has already endured since the Oct. 2 incident, which includes the departure of nine top executives, 900 employee layoffs, and the indefinite grounding of Cruise's entire fleet of driverless cars. The company, which was utilizing roughly 400 driverless vehicles across San Francisco, Houston, Phoenix and Austin, "paused" its self-driving service after the California DMV suspended the company's driverless car permits amid safety concerns stemming from the Oct. 2 accident. That same incident also thrust Cruise into the center of at least five separate and ongoing government investigations involving the California DMV, CPUC, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, U.S. Department of Justice, and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Driverless Cruise car accused of almost hitting kids in two separate close calls one day apart

Cruise probe blames poor internet, bad leadership, ‘flawed' decisions for driverless car woes

What led up to a driverless cruise car dragging a pedestrian 20 feet.

Cruise’s involvement in that now infamous incident follows a series of tragic and bizarre events. While attempting to cross a normally busy street in San Francisco, a woman was struck by a hit-and-driver, tossing her into the path of a driverless Cruise car, which ran her over and then immediately came to a stop. Regulators with the DMV and CPUC accuse Cruise of misleading them into thinking that is where the incident ended. Both agencies would later learn that shortly after stopping, the Cruise vehicle then attempted to pull over to the curb, dragging the pedestrian about 20 feet after failing to recognize she was trapped underneath the vehicle.

On Oct. 3, just one day after the incident, a Cruise employee phoned an analyst with the CPUC to notify her a Cruise driverless car had run over a pedestrian in the wake of a hit-and-run accident involving a human driver. Cruise, however, admits it did not mention to the CPUC that its vehicle then proceeded to start up again and drag the woman.

Cruise’s omission of the circumstances in which its Cruise [autonomous vehicle] attempted a pullover maneuver and dragged the pedestrian 20 feet … misled the [CPUC] regarding the extent and severity of the October 2, 2023 incident, as well as the ability of Cruise’s [autonomous vehicles] to operate safely after experiencing a collision. Judge Robert Mason, administrative law judge with the CPUC

“Cruise’s omission of the circumstances in which its Cruise [autonomous vehicle] attempted a pullover maneuver and dragged the pedestrian 20 feet … misled the [CPUC] regarding the extent and severity of the October 2, 2023 incident, as well as the ability of Cruise’s [autonomous vehicles] to operate safely after experiencing a collision,” Judge Mason noted in documents previously filed by the CPUC.

The CPUC says it was only after speaking with its counterparts at the DMV that it realized Cruise had a longer video clip of the incident, recorded by cameras mounted on its driverless car, that revealed additional details about what exactly happened. The DMV made that discovery after speaking with federal investigators at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The CPUC says it requested the full video from Cruise and ultimately received it on Oct. 19, which revealed the car attempting to pull over while dragging the pedestrian.

In previous filings, Judge Mason noted Cruise “withheld” the full facts of the incident from the CPUC for 15 days, “thus misleading the Commission.”

Judge must decide whether to accept, revise, or reject Cruise's offer

Since no official decision was made during Tuesday's hearing, the judge must now decide whether to reject, revise, or accept Cruise’s settlement offer in its current form. He is expected to issue his written recommendation within 60 days, which will then be passed along to the CPUC's five-member board of commissioners for a vote.

While Judge Mason appeared pleased to hear Cruise increase the amount it is willing to pay in fines, he took the company to task for ultimately failing to immediately disclose details of the Oct. 2 incident to regulators at the CPUC.

“You just never came out and said it,” he told Cruise officials during the hearing. “I’m just sort of bothered when I look at the totality of the facts.”

Watch our entire investigative series

• Part 1: Driverless cars seek San Francisco expansion despite worries tech is unsafe
• Part 2: CPUC votes to expand driverless car operations in San Francisco
• Part 3: San Francisco city attorney files motion to pump the brakes on driverless cars
• Part 4: Google's Waymo says insurance data shows its driverless cars are safer than humans
• Part 5: Hit-and-run driver strikes pedestrian, tossing her into path of Cruise car in San Francisco
• Part 6: Driverless trucks and robot deliveries promise fewer traffic jams than robotaxis
• Part 7: Cruise says its robotaxis can now better detect emergency vehicles
• Part 8: California DMV orders Cruise's driverless cars off the road
• Part 9: Driverless cars immune from traffic tickets in California under current laws
• Part 10: GM's Cruise lays off nearly 25% of its workforce
• Part 11: Waymo's driverless cars surpass 7 million miles, but are they safer than human drivers?
• Part 12: Cruise probe blames poor internet, bad leadership, and "flawed" decisions for company's woes
• Part 13: Driverless Cruise car accused of almost hitting 7 yr old after similar close call involving kids
• Part 14: Cruise offers to pay $112,500 in fines to settle claims driverless car company misled regulators
• Part 15: Uber Eats now uses Waymo Self-Driving cars to offer driverless deliveries
• Part 16: Bills aimed at closing traffic ticket loophole for driverless cars get initial green light
• Part 17: School crossing guards say they've had to dodge driverless cars to avoid being hit
• Part 18: Cruise ordered to pay $112,500 in penalties for withholding info from regulators
• Part 19: Waymo waitlist over in SF, all can hail driverless cars
• Part 20: SF Mayor vows to hold driverless car companies accountable after NBC Bay Area report
• Part 21: San Francisco govt. officials meet with Waymo to discuss safety concerns near schools
• Part 22: California DMV gears up to allow driverless trucking despite calls to restrict high-tech big rigs

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GM’s Cruise Loses Its Self-Driving License in San Francisco After a Robotaxi Dragged a Person

California has suspended driverless vehicles operated by the General Motors subsidiary Cruise in the city of San Francisco—just two months after the state began allowing the robotaxis to pick up paying passengers around the clock. The suspension stems from a gruesome incident on October 2 in which a human-driven vehicle hit a female pedestrian and threw her into the path of a Cruise car. The driverless Cruise car hit her, stopped, and then tried to pull over, dragging her approximately 20 feet.

California’s Department of Motor Vehicles says in a statement that it has determined that Cruise’s vehicles are not safe for public operation, and that the company ”misrepresented” safety information about its autonomous vehicle technology. In a filing on the suspension, the agency says that Cruise initially provided footage showing only the collision between its vehicle and the woman. It says Cruise did not disclose information about its car's subsequent “pull-over maneuver” that dragged the woman after the initial impact, and that the DMV only obtained full footage nine days after the crash.

Cruise spokesperson Navideh Forghani says Cruise has stayed in close contact with regulators but disputed the DMV’s timeline. She says the agency was shown video of the entire incident, including the pull-over, the day after the crash. The DMV says Cruise will either have to appeal its decision or provide information about how it has addressed its technology’s “deficiencies” in order to win back its permit.

Also today, the California Public Utilities Commission, which initially granted Cruise permission to carry passengers, suspended the company’s permits as it carries out its own investigation of the company, CPUC spokesperson Terrie Prosper wrote in an email. Passengers will not be able to ride in San Francisco until the permits are reinstated.

The suspensions mark a serious setback for the driverless vehicle industry, which has faced charges of under-regulation even as Cruise and others plan to expand to new cities across the US. Cruise is still permitted to operate robotaxis in San Francisco with a human safety driver behind the wheel—which is how the company initially began to test self-driving cars in the city. The DMV suspension has no specified end date.

Cruise provided additional details of the October 2 collision in a blog post published today. According to the company, which has 40 cameras and sensors mounted on each of its vehicles, its self-driving vehicle quickly swerved and braked in an attempt to avoid a collision with the woman, but still made impact. The vehicle then stopped but, according to Cruise, “attempted to pull over,” dragging the woman an additional 20 feet. Cruise says this sort of evasive maneuver was built into the vehicle’s software to promote safety, and is required by both California and federal regulators.

Cruise says the vehicle then stopped again. Emergency responders arrived soon after, according to TV station NBC Bay Area, and the San Francisco Fire Department said the victim was “extricated from beneath the vehicle using rescue tools.” The department said she was transported to the hospital with multiple traumatic injuries. The human driver of the vehicle that initially struck the woman has not been caught.

Last week, the top US road safety regulator, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, opened an investigation into Cruise’s autonomous driving system, based on at least four reported incidents in which Cruise vehicles collided with or got close to pedestrians and pedestrian crosswalks, including the October 2 crash

Forghani, the Cruise spokesperson, says the company has shared video and other information related to the incident with the California DMV and NHTSA officials. “Our teams are currently doing an analysis to identify potential enhancements to the [autonomous vehicle]’s response to this kind of extremely rare event,” she wrote in a statement.

In August, California’s DMV asked Cruise to cut in half the number of self-driving vehicles operating in the city after its robotaxis were involved in a series of crashes, including one in which a Cruise vehicle collided with a fire truck that ran a red light on the way to an emergency.

Even before Cruise and its leading competitor, Alphabet’s Waymo , received permission from the state taxi regulator to operate all-day paid rides in San Francisco, both companies received criticism from city residents, emergency responders, and labor advocates for incidents in which the technology froze in or impeded city traffic .

In August, the San Francisco Fire Department told state officials that its employees experienced at least 55 incidents with self-driving cars since the beginning of 2023, including a handful in which fire officials report the cars delayed emergency responders. In one incident, worried fire personnel broke the windows of a Cruise vehicle in an attempt to prevent it from driving onto an active fire scene. Robotaxis have also delayed city transit buses and streetcars. Cruise said earlier this month that it has improved the way its technology responds to emergency vehicles and situations.

Updated 10-24-2023, 8:45 pm EDT: This story was updated with information about the CPUC suspending Cruise's permit to carry passengers.

Updated 10-24-2023, 6:05 pm EDT: This story was updated with additional details of the DMV's suspension and appeal's process, and additional comment from Cruise.

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NTSB, FAA launch investigation into runway collision after Nashville incident

Another close call between two commercial airplanes on a runway in Nashville has prompted a new investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration.

An Alaska Airlines pilot had to slam on the brakes during takeoff at about 120 miles per hour, halting to a stop on the runway to avoid a possible collision on Thursday morning with a Southwest Airlines plane. NTSB announced the investigation in a post on X Thursday.

According to the FAA, the pilot of Alaska Airlines flight 369 aborted takeoff when the Southwest plane got cleared to cross the end of the same runway.

"The Alaska aircraft, on its way to Seattle, had received clearance for takeoff from Air Traffic Control," Alaska Airlines said in a statement . "We're grateful for the expertise of our pilots who immediately applied the brakes to prevent the incident from escalating."

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MORE: Delta flight clips another plane on taxiway at Atlanta airport, knocks off smaller plane's tail

Although there were no injuries reported from the 176 passengers or six crew members, they said it felt like getting hit in a car accident.

The Boeing 737 Max "reported blown tires during the braking," per the FAA, which the Seattle-based airline added was from the extreme heat build up during the abrupt stop.

Southwest has said it was in contact with the FAA and the NTSB and will participate in the agencies investigation.

This comes on the heels of another incident in Atlanta earlier this week when a Delta plane with more than 200 passengers crashed into the back of a smaller regional jet on the taxi way and knocked its tail off.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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