When the Crown Princess, a luxury cruise operated by Miami based Carnival Corp. began to list just a few hours after it left Port Canaveral on July 18, 2006 passengers might have been forgiven for believing they were living out the Titanic nightmare. The 113,000-ton ship reportedly tilted 16 to 18 feet for no apparent reason, causing severe injuries as objects began tumbling off shelves and people began to be thrown about. In the terrifying bedlam that followed, at least two passengers on board suffered critical injuries. When the tilt was finally corrected and the liner reached dry land, more than 90 passengers had to be taken to hospital.

At the time of the incident, the ship was nearing the end of its nine-day luxury Caribbean cruise. There was no evidence to suggest that choppy waves or bad weather had caused the tilt.

Now, new interviews with two of the ship’s crew members suggest that the tilt might have occurred due to human error. Interviews that the National Transportation Safety Board conducted with Dr. Andrew Proctor and Second Officer Adam Stratford indicate that it was Stratford who took the ship off autopilot, which caused the liner to tilt at an alarming angle.

The interviews are part of a collection of 200 documents and transcripts collected by the National Transportation Safety Board in its attempts to investigate the case. At the time of the incident, Princess Cruise officials did not name persons responsible for the accident, saying only that human error was responsible.

This isn’t the first time that Princess cruises has had such accidents. The last time was in 2006 on another ship operated by the company. That ship had to turn around because one of the passengers felt seriously sick. The resulting emergency turnaround that followed led to at least 37 people being injured, including crew members.

As dangerous as injuries sustained at sea are they pale in comparison to the kind of terror and trauma that passengers must have undoubtedly felt as the ship began to tilt. Cruise lines have become popular for stuffing just about every entertainment and dining avenue available on dry land into their liners. One wishes they would pay as much attention to the kind of personnel they put in charge of the controls as they do they in their choice of showman bar tenders and salsa dancers.

If you have been injured or a loved one has been killed as the result of pilot error in a boating accident, contact the California boating accident attorneys at The Reeves Law Group for a free consultation.