Greenwich Family Calls for 'Man Overboard' Technology, Sea Marshals Aboard Cruise Ships

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on July 8. Here it is again, in case you missed it.

By Joan Lownds

A decade after George Smith of Greenwich went missing on his honeymoon cruise, his family is urging safety reforms on cruise ships to prevent future tragedies.

At a press conference Tuesday at Greenwich Town Hall, George’s mother, Maureen, his sister, Bree, and his father, George, joined with U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) in calling for federal action to improve safety and security on cruise ships, such as the use of “Man Overboard” technology.

If this technology had been in place when George Smith disappeared from his Royal Caribbean cruise ship into the Aegean Sea off the coast of Turkey on July 5, 2005, “it would have potentially saved his life,” said Bree Smith, in an interview after the press conference. The technology would have caused “an alarm to sound immediately, and for Royal Caribbean to put out life savers and rescue boats,” Smith said. “Without this, there are hours and hours of delays to search for a missing passenger.”

Smith said that she and her family have learned that “after fighting ensued in my brother’s cabin, he was thrown from the balcony onto an overhang, and we believe he was then thrown over a second time because photographs show he was alive and hanging on when he went in water. If ‘Man Overboard’ technology had been on the ship and the alarm sounded, he would be with us today.”

In 2010, the Cruise Vessel Safety and Security Act was passed by Congress, tightening safety and transparency on cruise ships. However, Blumenthal and Sen. Edward Markey (D-MA) are now sponsoring a beefed-up version of this bill, requiring not only the “Man Overboard” but also the presence of sea marshals aboard cruise ships.

“They are similar to air marshals and operate under the jurisdiction of the Coast Guard,” Smith explained. “If sea marshals had aboard my brother’s cruise ship, the crime scene would not have been contaminated, witnesses would not have gotten off the boat when it docked in Turkey, and we might have answers and justice today.”

“Although 10 years have passed since George Smith IV’s disappearance, the cruise lines have done virtually nothing to implement lifesaving technology to prevent such tragic deaths,” Blumenthal said, at the press conference.

“For the more than 23 million Americans who take cruises each year, this simple technology—as well as long overdue measures to protect cruise passengers who become victims of crime or require medical attention in international waters— cannot be further delayed. With serious health and safety incidents continuing to occur, passengers aboard these floating cities need and deserve need basic protections. Federal action is needed now.”

According to the website of Ross Klein, a professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. John’s, Newfoundland, 193 people have gone missing from cruise ships from 2005-2014, or an average of more than 19 per year. Since 2000 more than 200 passengers and crew members have gone overboard.

“We are very thankful to Senators Blumenthal and Markey… and we are also grateful that Senator Blumenthal provided us with a platform to give a voice to my brother George and the other cruise crime victims that have been silenced,” Smith said.

Smith said her brother’s disappearance came after he reportedly “won big in the Casino Royale, perhaps up to $15,000.” There have no arrests and no indictments “of George’s murderers, or Royal Caribbean, who covered up the crime onboard its cruise ship,” according to Smith.

In January, the New Haven Division of the FBI informed the Smith family that they were closing their investigation into George’s disappearance, despite a “copious amount of evidence of foul play,” Smith said. “The Connecticut FBI shut down the investigation even after we received numerous new informative tips resulting from the $100,000 reward that our family began offering only six months before.”

Despite the closure of the investigation, Smith said her family continues to offer the $100,000 reward, and their own investigation. “The FBI said it would reopen the investigation it if received new information. We are hopeful that the $100,000 reward will elicit this new information,” she said.

The Smith family also is maintaining a Facebook page in George’s name that provides “never before seen details of George’s murder and the cover-up of that murder by Royal Caribbean cruises and others,” Smith said.

For more information, visit www.facebook.com/JusticeforGeorgeSmith.

Contributed photos:

#1: George and Jennifer Hagel (now Agne) beside their Royal Caribbean cruise ship, The Brilliance of the Seas, in July 2005.

#2: George and Jennifer at their wedding in Newport, a few days earlier.

#3: The Smith family at George and Jennifer’s Newport wedding on June 25, 2005. From left are Bree Smith, George, Jennifer, Maureen and George.

#4: George and Jennifer waving goodbye to the Smiths as they left for their honeymoon on June 26, 2005, the last time his family saw him alive.

Joan Lownds is a Connecticut-based writer and journalist who has followed the Smith case since 2005. She is the author of “Man Overboard: Inside The Honeymoon Cruise Murder.”