Sigmund Ropich Death – The passenger who tragically fell overboard from the world’s largest cruise ship has been identified as a college student from Washington state who was partying on vacation with his friends. Sigmund Ropich, 19, was aboard Royal Caribbean’s Wonder of the Seas off the coast of Cuba when he toppled into the sea on Tuesday evening, according to his heartbroken family.
‘I just want my brother home,’ wrote his sister Savannah in a Facebook post. ‘He is a son, a big and a little brother, a cousin, an uncle, a nephew, a friend, a homie, a classmate, a co-worker, a neighbor.’ She added that there is ‘an army rooting for him to come home’, but conceded that expansive searches for the teenager are being wound down after they failed to find him in the days since he vanished.
Sigmund Ropich, 19, has been identified as the man who fell overboard the world’s biggest cruise ship on Tuesday The huge 230,000-ton cruise ship, which can carry 7,000 passengers and 2,3000 crew, was two days into its seven-day itinerary after it left Port Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday
His sister Savannah shared a heartbreaking update about her brother’s disappearance where she pleaded for people to help the search, saying: ‘I just want my brother home’ The 230,000-ton cruise ship was two days into its seven-day itinerary around the western Caribbean after it left Port Canaveral, Florida, on Sunday, when the tragedy struck.
Videos shared on TikTok captured the moment those onboard had been informed of the passenger overboard, as the captain made a chilling announcement to those onboard as rescue teams ‘searched for three and a half hours’.
Ropich, known affectionately as ‘boiboi’ to his loved ones, is a ‘cool, calm and collected’ person, Savannah said, adding in separate Facebook posts that she is ‘not giving up’ on finding him. However, despite repeatedly pleading with officials to continue the search, she said crews are preparing to bring the hunt to a close after three days of scouring the ocean failed to turn up results.
‘We were told by the Cuban officials that they are done searching in the ocean,’ she told Insider. ‘They are continuing only on the coast and land. I have a strong feeling they’re going to end this search.’ Savannah said she and her family have been left in the dark about the search, adding that she is ‘very hopeful if they open [the] search back in the ocean’ that Sigmung could be found.
‘We need them to open it again,’ she added.
Crews reportedly enlisted the help of small vessels, spotlights and teams of watchers when the 19-year-old fell overboard, and the huge cruise ship returned along its path in hopes of finding him.
Distraught passenges shared the alarming moment Ropich fell overboard, with a member of staff heard in one video saying: ‘We have reports of a man overboard. We have slowed the ship down, we have turned around and we are heading back to the position we had at that time.
‘We will start the search and rescue operations with our rescue boats, we will have our crew out and about to look for anything.’ One passenger on board shared TikToks concerning the incident. In one video she says: ‘Tonight we have a missing person, somebody is in the water as we speak.
‘We have seen rescue teams searching for the person, as soon as we find out something I will let you know.’ The woman then pans her camera around to show a rescue team in the water, she says: ‘This is the searching boat, however I am not sure anybody will survive this current.’
In the video, the small rescue boat can be seen bobbing around in the dark waters looking for the person. In an update, she said: ‘He had jumped off the ship, they searched for three and a half hours and they did not find his body.
‘They had to stop the search because there was a sick person on board, by now for sure his body is never going to be found. It is so sad.
‘I pray for his soul and his family, god bless you all.’