Carnival Cruise catches fire off coast of Grand Turk
PORT CANAVERAL, Fla. - A Carnival Cruise ship that departed from Florida earlier in the week caught fire Thursday morning while in the Turks and Caicos Islands.
Images shared by Ricky Ruble showed part of the iconic "whale tail" funnel consumed in flames.
According to a Carnival Cruise Line statement, the fire was quickly extinguished and all guests and crews are safe.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Provided by Ricky Ruble
Carnival Cruise released the following statement to FOX 35:
"Carnival Freedom’s emergency response team quickly activated and extinguished a fire inside the ship’s funnel while the ship was in Grand Turk. All guests and crew are safe, and the ship’s guests were cleared by local authorities to go ashore. We continue to assess the situation. Carnival Freedom left Port Canaveral on Monday on a five-day cruise."
Late Thursday afternoon, Carnival released a second statement saying it was sending another of its other cruise ships, the Carnival Conquest, to Grand Turk to pick up the 2,504 passengers and 972 crew members who were on Carnival's Freedom.
The change means Conquest's scheduled May 27 cruise out of Miami has been canceled, as well as Freedom's scheduled cruise out of Port Canaveral on May 28.
The Carnival Conquest is set to arrive in Grand Turk on Saturday and is scheduled to return to Port Canaveral with passengers from the Freedom on Monday.
Once all passengers leave the damaged ship, the cruise line said Freedom will make its way to Freeport in the Bahamas to undergo repairs.
FOX 35 Orlando contributed to this report.