Coast Guard: Deepest Sympathies To Vilborg Family

Florida Alabama  Coast Guard believes if a Bay Minette woman missing at sea was alive they would have found her.
by Jessica Taloney
Published: Thu, June 18, 2009 - 3:38 pm CST Last Updated: Thu, June 18, 2009 - 3:59 pm CST
Michelle Vilborg family hoped for better news.

"You kinda want to believe that she's in the ship somewhere," said Erik Vilborg, hours after his mom was reported missing from the Holiday cruise ship.

Vilborg, a 50 year old grandmother is believed to have gone overboard late Monday night while cruising with her husband. The cruise ship was sailing 70 miles south, southwest of Pensacola, when a passenger reported hearing a splash. A head count of guests and crew members revealed Vilborg was no where to be found.

Investigators still don't know how Vilborg went overboard, but after nearly 45 hours of searching for the missing passenger, the Coast Guard called off its effort at sundown Wednesday.

"We had a number of patrol boats on scene, aircraft and helicopters. We had great search conditions, and we feel confident that if Ms. Vilborg was alive and in the search area we would have recovered her," said Poulin.

Poulin, commander of the Mobile Sector of the US Coast Guard, delivered news of the suspended search to Michelle Vilborg husband, Sven. "He was very distraught as you can imagine."

Poulin extended "deepest sympathies to the Vilborg family" on behalf of the US Coast Guard, saying "as professional mariners and people who make our living on the sea we always want to find someone whose lost."

Sven Vilborg, along with his son and daughter, who travelled to Cozumel, Mexico Wednesday to be with their father, flew home Thursday afternoon.

Michelle Vilborg is the twelfth person to fall of a cruise ship in 2009. Five of the twelve passengers were rescued, but seven, including Vilborg, are still missing.
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This whole thing just is not right. Either someone is with holding information or they are hiding something. You think we would hear from the husband a little bit more than we have.

Another website indicated that the splash happened while the missing woman was still accounted for.

That whole splash thing bothers me too.  One of my thoughts was if she was in the casino and won a few bucks, or even looked like she might have some cash, someone could have followed her.

This will probably end up like most of these things and we will never know for sure what happened.

I still do not believe that a passenger could have heard a splash with all of the equipment running.  Actually you don’t hear the noise of the equipment it’s just that is a little ways to the water and would be near impossible to hear such a thing.  I’m still leaning on the insurance point of view.  She may still be alive or maybe someone pushed her. 

Suppose she ran into someone on the ship who tried to attack her in an area not well lit and pushed her overboard.

There are so many scenarios - just let the imagination go…

I agree. Never let your ex-spouse say, “Hey lets just try and be friends! You want to go on a cruise out in the middle of the ocean where no one will ever find your body or even attempt to figure out what really happened?”

With that newlywed they even found evidence that looked like a struggle and a big dent on the awning of a balcony beneath theirs.  Still, nothing ever came of it and I guess the young guy was just written off.

I don’t know about this cruise ship stuff.  I definitely wouldn’t go alone, with my ex-wife, or with a couple of people that frequent this web site.

I am shocked that the husband did not know where she went or that she was even gone! I mean they were on the cruise alone together not with a group of friends. I thought it was just common knowledge that you do not go wondering the ship alone at night with a bunch of people you do not know. I would think that she would at least wake her husband up and let her know she was going for a walk or whatever. We also do not know if alcohol was involved. I would also think that the husband would know if they had drunk any that afternoon or night. He just seems to know nothing. This just kind of seems like a replay of what happened to that newly wed. The wife passed out and had no clue what happened and the husband was missing. At least the wife let them know that yes they were drinking and let them know who they were socializing with that night.

Yeah, yesterday I was exchanging email with a friend that goes on cruises frequently.  She said at night the wind is blowing so hard on the upper decks that you can hardly hear anything.  On top of that you have the sound of music and people chattering all over the place.  She doesn’t think there is any way that she would hear a small splash next to that ship, while it is in motion.

I agree if she was alive when she fell overboard you can be almost certain that you would hear a scream or a yell. Also with the boat moving at those speeds it is kind of hard to just hear a splash. They either had to of saw something or did something. I think they should really look into to investigating and further questioning the person who claimed to hear the splash. If I was the family or the investigators I know that would be the first person I would want to talk to.

Extremely hard to make any sense of this one without knowing a lot more details.  On the surface it sure sounds strange.  One person on a ship full of people thinks they hear a splash and the ship starts counting heads, turns the ship around, etc.  That person must have heard a little more than a splash.

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