Adrian Vasquez, 18, is welcomed by his relatives as he arrives at the Tocumen International Airport in Panama City March 27, 2012. According to local media, Vasquez was rescued on Friday by the Ecuador's navy after his fishing boat capsized 27 days ago on the sea off the Galapagos islands. Two other companions were found dead.
Adrian Vasquez is just happy to be alive. But not joyful enough to stop from suing Princess Cruises for negligence after one of the U.S.-based company’s liners sailed right on by the 18-year-old fisherman and his two stranded companions in the open seas.
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Vasquez survived, but his two friends died of thirst during their 28-day ordeal near Panama in the Pacific Ocean.
The three men became stranded on board the tiny fishing vessel Fifty Cents after its engine failed while returning to port; 16 days later, the ship was drifting some 600 miles off Panama when the Princess Cruise ship the Star Princess passed within sight of them. In a lawsuit filed in Florida by lawyer Edna Ramos, two passengers testify that not only did they see the red sweater-waving Vasquez through a telescope, but alerted ship staff. The liner’s owners say that staff never told anyone or else the captain would have stopped the ship to help.
As is a well-known law in the ocean, a ship’s master is required to render assistance to any person found at sea in danger of being lost. Princess Cruises says there was a “breakdown in communication,” according to the BBC, and neither the captain or the officer of the watch ever knew about the stricken fishing boat. The company says it deeply regrets that the ship kept chugging along.
The other two men on board the Fifty Cents, which had set off from the port of Rio Hato in February, died of thirst soon after seeing the cruise ship. Vasquez was able to last until a rainstorm provided him water and was eventually rescued by the Ecuadorian navy.