Construction crane crashes into Royal Caribbean's Oasis of the Seas

[Jason]

A crane toppled over onto a Royal Caribbean cruise ship Monday with no passengers on board in the Bahamas, according to news reports.

The Oasis of the Seas vessel was in dry dock and out of service at the time of the accident, the cruise line said in a statement.

Royal Caribbean said eight people were injured in the accident.

“Earlier today, we responded to a site incident at the Grand Bahama Shipyard, where Oasis of the Seas is currently in drydock. Shipyard management has informed us of eight injuries, none of them considered life-threatening,” according to the statement, posted by Miami TV station WSVN.

A video tweeted by Bahamas Press showed the construction equipment lying against the vessel at the Great Bahamas Shipyard near Freeport.

"Big, big, big, big disaster," a man's voice can be heard saying on the video.

“We are aware of damage to the dock structure and to construction cranes,” Melissa Charbonneau, Royal Caribbean’s director of corporate reputation, emailed in a statement Monday afternoon. “We are assessing damage to the ship.”

The Oasis of the Seas was the world’s largest cruise ship when it debuted in 2009. Each ship in the series has been slightly larger than the last. A fifth Oasis-class ship has already been ordered for delivery in 2021. Although still without a name, cruise line CEO Michael Bayley said last year that it would continue to follow suit, being a little bit larger than its sisters, including Allure of the Seas in 2010, Harmony of the Seas in 2016 and Symphony of the Seas in 2018.

Oasis of the Seas was placed in dry dock this year to receive some of the features found on the newer ships.

The Oasis-class ships have a limited number of home ports, but the line sails two ships out of its new terminal at PortMiami and keeps one in Port Everglades and one in Port Canaveral. In 2020, the line plans to send Oasis of the Seas to sail out of Cape Liberty in Bayonne, New Jersey.

In January, 592 passengers and crew aboard the Oasis of the Seas fell sick with a gastrointestinal illness that forced the vessel back to Port Canaveral and cut the seven-day Caribbean voyage a day short.

Rick Tribou and Chabeli Herrera of the Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

By Tiffini Theisen, Orlando Sentinel
Re-posted on CruiseCrazies.com - Cruise News, Articles, Forums, Packing List, Ship Tracker, and more
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