A lifeboat used for a safety drill on a cruise ship in Spain's Canary Islands fell roughly 65 feet into a port on Feb. 10 when a cable snapped, trapping crew members underneath it and leading to the deaths of five of them, officials stated.

None of the hundreds of passengers on the British-operated vessel were involved in the ordeal, which also resulted in the injuries of three crew members, the Canary Islands port authority told Yahoo!.

Divers rushed to the capsized lifeboat to recover four bodies and failed in their attempts to revive a fifth crewman who was under cardiac arrest. Thomson Cruises verified the accident and deaths aboard its Thomson Majesty ship on the island of La Palma, stating that the three injured crewmen are in stable condition.

The ship docked at the port of Santa Cruz on the morning of Feb. 10, after traveling there from the nearby island of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It was due to leave at 3 p.m. for Funchal on the mid-Atlantic island of Madeira with 1,498 passengers and 594 crew members.

At approximately 10:30 a.m., a drill that involved lowering the lifeboat with crew members on it began. However, when the boat was being raised back up to the deck by a cable, it abruptly broke and a hook holding the lifeboat on a second cable gave way, sending the lifeboat plummeting into the port upside down, the authority said.

An alarm was then sounded and port authorities were notified. The captain of the cruise ship called for the divers who arrived at the scene.

The dead crew members included a Filipino, a Ghanian and three Indonesians, authorities said. The three injured crewmen were transported to a hospital in La Palma.

Local authorities of La Palma cancelled Carnival festivities that were due to be conducted on the island Sunday, but stated that they would go ahead with their scheduled plans on Monday.

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