Coast Guard calls off search for American, 20, who ‘jumped off Royal Caribbean Liberty Of The Seas cruise ship during drunken argument with his dad’ as it sailed off the coast of the Bahamas

All hope has been abandoned in the search for a 20-year-old passenger who threw himself from a Royal Caribbean cruise ship in front of his horrified family after an argument on Thursday.

The US Coast Guard was scrambled after the young man jumped from the 11th deck of the Liberty of the Seas just before 4am on April 4, but its search for the unnamed man has now been called off. 

The ship was hours away from docking at Fort Lauderdale in Florida after a four-day Caribbean cruise when the man was confronted by his father as he emerged from a hot tub packed with revelers.

‘As we were walking from the hot tub back to the elevators, his dad and brother were walking towards us,’ fellow passenger Bryan Sims said. ‘His dad was fussing at him for being drunk, I guess.

‘When we got to them, he said to his dad, ‘I’ll fix this right now.’ And he jumped out the window in front of us all.’

The 11th deck boasts an array of whirlpools, swimming pools and a ‘Splashaway Bar’

The 154,000 ton Royal Caribbean ship was sailing with more than 4,000 passengers on a four-day cruise from Fort Lauderdale to the Dominican Republic and back

The boat had docked in the Dominican Republic the previous day and was 57 miles off the coast of the Bahamas Grand Inagua when the alarm was raised.

Passenger Deborah Morrison said the crew were ‘alerted immediately’ by the ‘yelling’ which erupted, and the man’s family appeared ‘beside themselves’.

‘I had hung out with him and his brother in the hot tub until 3.30am,’ Sims told the NY Post.

‘It was standing room only. He sat right beside me the whole time.’

The 154,000 ton ship was slammed into brought to a halt and crew members immediately began looking for the missing passenger.

But most of the 4,000 passengers on board only became aware of the tragedy when the captain broke the news the following morning.

‘They announced it over the PA system while we were at breakfast at the entire room went silent,’ wrote one passenger on Reddit. ‘Then the rest of the cruise felt oddly casual.’

Some passengers scanned the horizon for any sign of the young man before the ship resumed its journey just before 9am when the US Coast Guard cutter Seneca arrived at the spot.

‘The early morning was definitely somber as so many people came out of their cabins to stare at the sea, hoping to be able to aid in finding the person,’ said passenger Amy Phelps Fouse.

‘It was a sad morning looking out just to see if we come find a clue,’ wrote another.

‘I was on the ship and when the coast guard arrived and we got underway I couldn’t help think how they must be feeling they were leaving their son behind,’ added Linda Meissner Nuffe.

The young man is thought to have been staying with his family on deck 10, a flight below the whirlpools and hot tubs of deck 11.

Nuffe, who was staying in the cabin next door, woke to find a lock on the door of the family’s cabin and a crew member standing guard outside.

‘I saw a person go in that cabin on day one,’ she said.

‘I thought it was a teen or he could have been 20. My daughter and I were telling him how I sometimes put my deco on other doors the last night to confuse people. He laughed.

‘He was quiet and polite, not someone who seemed like a raging alcoholic like the press seems to be saying.

‘We never heard a noise out of that cabin, no partying, no arguing, no slamming doors. I looked over our balcony at theirs after I saw the lock, there was nothing but chairs there.’

More than 400 passengers are known to have fallen overboard from cruise liners in the past 30 years according to watchdog cruisejunkie.com.

A study by Cruise Lines International Association found that only 28 percent of those who fell overboard between 2009 and 2019 came out alive.

Travel lawyer and blogger Jim Walker said that Royal Caribbean along with the vast majority of US cruise companies have yet to install automatic man overboard systems as required by the Cruise Vessel Security and Safety Act of 2010.

‘Such automatic MOB systems utilize state-of-the-art motion detection, video and infrared technology and radar to instantly detect when someone goes over the rails of a cruise ship,’ he said.

‘The system can then track the person’s movements in the water even at nighttime.

‘Without such a system, the chances of locating an overboard person in the water at night it like finding a needle in a haystack.’

More than 400 people have gone overboard on cruise ships in the last three decades including Cameron Robbins , 18, (pictured) who fell into shark-infested waters in the Bahamas

Last year, the search for Cameron Robbins, 18, was called off two days after he jumped into shark-infested waters in the Bahamas and vanished.

Robbins had recently returned from a weekend fishing trip on the Louisiana Gulf Coast with his father and brother before he left for his graduation celebration trip in the Bahamas.

The boat was near the uninhabited Athol Island when Robbins was reportedly dared to jump off into the ocean.

Social media users pointed out how Robbins’ friends were heard laughing and bidding him farewell instead of trying to stop him or help him back onboard.

One user posted a video demanding to know who was heard saying ‘bye bye’ on the video.

DailyMail.com has asked Royal Caribbean to comment.