CALIFORNIA BRIEFING / LONG BEACH
Federal authorities are investigating the disappearance of an elderly couple aboard a Carnival cruise ship that returned to port in Long Beach on Friday.
A Carnival spokeswoman said the couple, described as a 90-year-old man and a 79-year-old woman from Southern California, were “presumed to have gone overboard.” The names of the missing passengers were not released by authorities.
“Their cabin door was double-locked from the inside with a ‘do not disturb’ sign on the handle and the door leading from the cabin to the balcony was unlocked. The couple’s personal belongings remained inside the cabin,” the company said in a statement.
The Coast Guard and FBI were notified of the missing couple about noon Friday, shortly after the ship returned from a four-day cruise to Mexico. They were unaccounted for when the cruise ship docked in Long Beach, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller. “They didn’t disembark from the ship as scheduled,” she said.
The 2,052-passenger ship Paradise left Long Beach on Monday and stopped at Santa Catalina Island and Ensenada before returning.
-- Andrew Blankstein
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