Passenger Dies After Four-Deck Fall Aboard Carnival Horizon

Carnival Cruise Line has confirmed the death of a passenger who fell from a 9th-deck balcony onto a 5th-deck promenade during a cruise aboard the Carnival Horizon last week.

“We can confirm the death of a guest on Carnival Horizon as the ship was returning to Miami on Friday evening,” Carnival said in a statement to media. “Our CareTeam continues to provide support to the guest’s family and we cooperated with the standard law enforcement investigation when the ship arrived to PortMiami on Saturday morning. Our thoughts and prayers are with the guest’s family.”

The Miami-Dade Police Department confirmed that the man died from injuries sustained in the fall and said that the Carnival Horizon's medical staff responded to the scene before his passing. Two passengers who had been aboard the Horizon told local WINK News that the ship had called for a medevac airlift but that the victim died before the helicopter could arrive. 

The Carnival Horizon is a newly-built 4,000 passenger vessel delivered in 2018, and she is one of the line's biggest vessels. She was returning from a six-day cruise of the Western Caribbean at the time of the casualty; she has since returned to sea for her next commercial voyage, and as of Monday night she was under way off the Dominican Republic. 

Carnival Horizon was last in the news for an allision with a parking structure while berthing at New York City's Pier 88 in August 2018. The National Transportation Safety Board determined that the probable cause of that incident was ineffective interaction and communication between the master and the docking pilot.