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There were five passengers and one pilot aboard the aircraft, identified by officials as a floatplane, operated by the sightseeing company Southeast Aviation. There was mist and light rain in the area at the time of the crash, according to the Coast Guard, with moderate winds and two-mile visibility. The distress beacon had put the aircraft near Ketchikan in the vicinity of Misty Fjords National Monument, a popular tourist attraction often viewed from planes that can take off and land on water. The five passengers were guests aboard a Holland America Line cruise ship, the company confirmed. The Nieuw Amsterdam...

A Holland America cruise ship with sick passengers and its sister ship will be allowed to dock in Florida, sources tell NBC News. It was expected that the Broward County Commission in Fort Lauderdale would vote on whether to allow the Zaandam and Rotterdam ships to dock, but sources say a deal has been reached and that officials are finalizing details.

A passenger on board a cruise ship who was beaten, raped and almost thrown overboard by one of the crew members, is suing the cruise company. Now the victim is suing Holland America after it was determined that her attacker, Ketut Pujayasa, used a master key to enter the woman’s cabin and hide on her balcony until she returned. During the attack, which lasted over an hour, Pujayasa beat the woman with blunt objects including a laptop, strangled her, raped her, and even attempted to throw her over the side of the vessel. The 31-year-old woman’s screams for help were...

A female guest who was raped, brutally beaten and strangled unconscious on a Holland America ship by a crew member is suing the cruise company. A civil lawsuit was filed on Friday in a Seattle district court on behalf of Jane Doe who was almost thrown overboard by her rapist during the fight for her life on Valentine's Day last year on MS Nieuw Amsterdam. Room service attendant Ketut Pujayasa used his company-issued, master key to enter the cabin of Jane Doe, then 31, where he was able to lurk on her balcony for several hours until she returned.

An ex-cruise ship worker admitted to a federal judge Monday that he brutally beat, raped and tried to throw a passenger overboard because he believed she insulted his mother. With no plea bargain offered, Ketut Pujayasa, 29, in a Miami federal courtroom changed his plea to guilty on charges of attempted murder and aggravated sexual assault.

Ketut Pujayasa admitted to investigators that he ambushed and savagely beat a 31-year-old American woman after she slighted him, reported the Sun Sentinel. The devilish Indonesian citizen told the FBI he attacked the 31-year-old American after he knocked on her door several times during a breakfast delivery and she dissed him, saying, “Wait a minute, son of a bitch!”

The Holland America liner, the Oosterdam, which makes regular cruises to the Mexican Riviera, will no longer sail out of San Diego after April 2012.Regular voyages to the Mexican Riviera, long a mainstay of San Diego’s cruise ship business, are likely to end by the fall of 2012 with the decision by Holland America to move one of its key liners to Australia. The cruise line’s 1,926-passenger Oosterdam and the 2,500-passenger Carnival Spirit are the only two vessels that currently head to the Mexican Riviera on a regular basis, and both are now scheduled to leave San Diego after April...

SEATTLE (Reuters) - A California woman and her son have sued cruise operator Holland America Line for unspecified damages after getting sick on a cruise where they said toilets overflowed and crew members were seen with prostitutes at ports of call. Bernice Oltman, 81, and her son, Jack Oltman, whose age was not given, said they took a trip on Holland America Line's cruise ship Amsterdam from Valparaiso, Chile to San Diego, California, in March 2004, where they said they encountered unprofessional staff and unsanitary conditions. "Not long into the cruise, the toilets on lower decks overflowed several times," the...