Cruise Ship Overboard: Missing Couple Fell -- Or Jumped -- Overboard On Carnival Cruise Ship; Search Underway

Cruise Ship Overboard: Authorities are conducting an extensive search for passengers who fell overboard on an Australian cruise ship last night. The couple who fell overboard may have fallen into shark-infested waters.

The couple who fell overboard on the Carnival cruise ship were from New South Wales. They were discovered missing after the Carnival Spirit docked in Sydney at the end of the ship's ten-day journey. It's not known yet if the couple jumped intentionally or fell by accident.

New South Wales Police Superintendent Mark Hutchings told press that the ship's surveillance camera footage revealed that the couple fell from the ship's middle deck Wednesday night, when the ship was about 60 nautical miles from the coast of Forster, a city about 180 miles north of Sydney.

The couple reveled plunging overboard on the footage were a man, 30, and a woman, 26. Their names haven't been released.

"This is a tragic event at the moment, but we're holding out hope we might be able to find these people alive," Hutchings said told reporters.

Investigators are combing through video from some 600 survellance cameras and having the known footage enhanced in order to try to determine whether the incident was an accidental fall or an intentional jump. No one reported seeing the fall and no life preservers were missing. Hutchings told reporters that had a life preserver been missing, it might've meant one of the two missing passengers had attempted to rescue the other.

An airplane, a helicopter and police boats are searching a 300-square-nautical mile area of the sea, according to Jo Meehan, a spokeswoman for the Australian Maritime Safety Authority, which is performing the search.

The couple and seven of their family and friends were among 2,680 passengers the cruise, which toured the South Pacific cruise. The ship's penultimate stop was Mare Island, New Caledonia; it departed Monday for Sydney.

The Miami-based Carnival Corp., owner of Carnival Cruise Lines, has had problems in recent years - last year, one of their ships, the Costa Concordia ran aground in Italy and 32 passengers died; another ship caught fire and lost power in the Indian Ocean, leaving passengers stranded for days without running water, working toilets, or air conditioning. In February of this year, another fire meant that passengers aboard the Carnival Triumph spent five days in horrible conditions, without electricity or running water, and short on food.

The guests who fell overboard on the Carnival cruise ship were last seen onboard the vessel last night. Authorities and their families are holding out hope they're alive.