Woman, 36, dies after falling overboard MSC Meraviglia cruise ship near Florida

This is the shocking moment a massive fight broke out on a cruise ship after the US Coast Guard found the body of a woman who fell overboard.

Video obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com shows passengers fighting when they were prevented from disembarking the ship as it arrived in port.

The 36-year-old woman fell into the water from the port side of the MSC Meraviglia around 5 a.m. Thursday, 18 miles off the Florida coast.

The ship was due to arrive at Port Canaveral in Florida after its return from Ocean Cay in the Bahamas.

The coast guard launched a search and rescue operation involving a 45-foot boat and a helicopter. A pilot boat located the woman’s body around 7:30 a.m. and alerted members of the Coast Guard, they confirmed.

It’s unclear how the woman came to fall overboard, authorities said.

Witnesses who were on the cruise recalled how in the midst of the chaos the woman’s body was discovered next to the ship in the back of a truck.

Several passengers were arrested by the US Customs and Border Protection for their role in the fight. Crew members were forced to break up the fighting.

MSC Meraviglia, which can carry more than 4,500 passengers and 1,600 crew members, is operated by the Italian cruise line MSC Cruises.

The passengers were awakened early in the morning by the sound of a warning alerting all passengers that someone had fallen overboard.

Marisa Aebi told DailyMail.com: ‘The first alert was a female voice ‘attention! Man overboard, port side”.

‘And that was around 5 am, I think he repeated it twice. Then a few minutes later they blew the emergency horn – all three blasts.

“I had a balcony, so I went outside and it was obviously super dark, they already had the lights out and they were spinning the ship really fast.

The Coast Guard and other barges showed up to help. We were all told to go and stay in our rooms while they did a count.

She was found about 2 hours later. Several fights broke out during the landing over how long it would take her to disembark. They didn’t let us out until 12-12.30.

‘Yeah, it was crazy, definitely not something I thought I would experience for sure. People were arrested during the disembarkation for the fights.

“The crew conducted an immediate search and rescue operation, along with the US Coast Guard, which supported search efforts with boats and a helicopter,” it said in a statement.

‘Unfortunately, despite the swift rescue operation, the passenger suffered fatal injuries. We are offering our full support to the authorities as they investigate this matter.”

They have said the woman’s identity will not be released until her relatives are notified.

The US Coast Guard transported the body back to port and met with the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, who will take over the investigation.

In a tweet, the Coast Guard confirmed the recovery of the woman’s body:

The body of a 36-year-old woman was recovered from the water approximately 18 miles off the coast of #PortCanaveral Thursday morning after she fell overboard from the cruise ship Meraviglia. The cause of the incident is under investigation.

The cruise line alerted passengers to the accident as soon as it happened and quickly announced that arrival in Florida would be delayed.

The operator said the woman’s fall from the boat was detected by ‘advanced detection systems’.

“We are deeply saddened by this incident and offer our sincere condolences to the family and those affected,” he said.

The woman’s death comes after a 28-year-old man stayed afloat for 20 hours last month after he fell from a ship into the Gulf of Mexico.

James Michael Grimes was on the first day of a five-day Thanksgiving cruise when he disappeared from the ship’s bar.

Grimes said she had to eat floating bamboo and had a run-in with a ‘sea creature’ during her 20-hour ordeal in the shark-infested waters.