Police have found a man’s body in the waters outside of Sydney Harbour as they search for a cruise ship passenger who went overboard in the early hours of Monday morning and is now missing.

P&O Cruises’ ship Pacific Adventure was scheduled to arrive in Sydney Harbour before 6am (8am NZT), but as of 6.30am, it remains in the coastal waters off Sydney’s east.

Flight tracking data reveals a rescue helicopter has also been searching the area.

At about 10:30am, officers from the Police Marine Area Command located and recovered the body of a man in the waters off Sydney Heads.

Police will now prepare a report for the Coroner and investigate how the incident unfolded.

P&O confirmed to news.com.au that a person had gone missing overboard and a search was under way. It noted employees were attending to the family of the missing passenger in the meantime.

“P&O’s Pacific Adventure is currently undertaking a search and rescue operation off Sydney after a person-overboard alarm was raised at 4am,” a spokesperson for P&O Cruises Australia told the publication.

“Since this time, the ship carrying more than 2600 guests has been on site searching along with other nearby vessels deployed to the area by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority’s Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre.”

“The family of this guest is being cared for by our on-board team while every effort is being made to find them.”

The Pacific Adventure was scheduled to arrive at Sydney’s White Bay Terminal this morning, but its arrival has since been delayed.

A man who planned to pick up Pacific Adventure passengers was told to not “rush” as “the ship’s stopped outside the head and somebody’s gone overboard”, he told 2GB.

Another passenger told the station’s breakfast show host Ben Fordham that a “man-overboard call” woke them up.

“We got woken up with the man-overboard call and from there it’s been all on for a couple of hours now,” he said.

New South Wales police earlier confirmed they were searching for a missing person near Sydney Harbour.

The passenger went overboard near the waters of Sydney Harbour. Photo / Getty Images

“Police are leading the search of waters off Sydney following reports a person was in the water,” NSW police told news.com.au.

They received a report soon after 4am that “a person had gone overboard” near the waters of Sydney Heads, about 18km from the shore.

“NSW Police Marine Area Command have deployed a number of resources to search for the person and are leading the co-ordination of the water search.”

The Pacific Adventure was making its way back to Sydney from a three-day round-trip cruise to Queensland’s Morton Island.

The ship’s three-day voyage is understood to have been Elvis themed, with the title Tribute to The King.

 

This story was originally published on the Herald, here