Thomson Majesty photographed in 2007, while being operated by NCL. Image: Wikipedia

Update: Reports indicate that the lifeboat fell approximately 65 feet to the water, landing upside down. The five killed and three others injured were aboard the lifeboat when it was being launched and fell. The cruise ship is the Thomson Majesty,

Those killed are believed to be three Indonesians, a Filipino and a Ghanaian, Reuters has reported. None of the 1,498 passengers on board at the time were involved in the accident.

The Maltese-flagged MS Thomson Majesty is now owned by Louis Cruises.  “We are working closely with the ship owners and managers, Louis Cruises, to determine exactly what has happened and provide assistance to those affected,” a representative for Thomson Cruises said in an emailed statement.

Earlier: 

By Patricia Laya

(Bloomberg) — Five people died and three were injured when a lifeboat dropped from a docked cruise ship operated by TUI AG’s Thomson during an emergency drill in the port of Santa Cruz de La Palma, in the Canary Islands.

All of the people involved were crew members, a spokeswoman for the ministry of public works said by phone, asking not to be identified in line with government policy.

The three injured are males in their early 30s, two of whom suffered mild concussions, said a police official on the island, who corroborated the details of the accident. The injured were taken to a hospital on the island of La Palma.

The cruise ship was operated by Thomson Cruises, the police official said. Thomson Cruises is a division of TUI Travel Plc, a majority-owned unit of Germany’s TUI. A message left at TUI Travel outside office hours wasn’t immediately returned.

Members of the national police and civil guard were called to the scene of the accident, according to the ministry spokeswoman.

File Photo. Image (c) Nightman1965/Shutterstock

In September 2012, the Cruise Lines International Association – of which Louis Cruises is a member – voluntarily adopted a policy in response to the Costa Concordia disaster requiring that crews conduct test launching and full loading of lifeboats at least once every six months for cruise ships with a crew sizes of three hundred or greater

Under the new policy, CLIA states that the full loading of lifeboats for training purposes is to be performed only while the boat is waterborne and, for safety considerations, the boat should be lowered and raised with only the lifeboat crew onboard.

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