Elderly passenger falls overboard on cruise liner off the coast of Sydney

What started out as a relaxing cruise vacation, turned into a nightmare for a family. An elderly man is missing, feared to have gone overboard from a cruise ship that was due to dock in Sydney on Tuesday morning.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority dispatched a plane 175 nautical miles off the coast of Sydney last night to search for an 84-year-old, who was reported missing from the cruise liner 'The Sun Princess', shortly after 9pm. An air search is currently underway to see if they can rescue the man from the ocean.

"We hold grave concerns for his welfare due to his age, the length of time he would have been in the water and the prevailing conditions," said AMSA spokesman Mel Larsson, according to ABC Australia News.

"It's quite heavy swells, two to three metres ... [with] 25 to 30 knot winds.

"It's very difficult to imagine survivability for too long in those circumstances."

Princess Cruises released the following statement.

"Princess Cruises confirms that an 84-year-old male passenger was reported missing early today on-board Sun Princess, which was on the way to Sydney completing a 13-day New Zealand cruise.

"A thorough search of Sun Princess was conducted but the passenger could not be located. The Rescue Coordination Centre (RCC) in Canberra was contacted and Sun Princess turned around and retraced its path off the coast of New South Wales. Sun Princess was scheduled to arrive in Sydney this morning. She will continue its search efforts until released by the RCC.

"Sun Princess' arrival in Sydney will be delayed and the next cruise will be impacted. We are contacting guests to advise them of this change."

A passenger, named only as Barry, told Australian radio station 2UE an announcement was made on the ship this morning.

"We got an announcement from the captain ... and we've headed back out to sea," he told 2UE. "It seems that we have lost a passenger overboard."