Jim McArthur, 49, from Airdrie, near Edinburgh, is on the seven-night cruise with his wife. He told The Daily Telegraph: "There is a very subdued mood on board and the updates are not as forthcoming as we would like but we just have to wait and see what happens in the morning." He said that although many people had heard the crash of the lifeboat into the water because one of the organised excursions had returned to the ship shortly before the accident, no-one he had spoken to had seen it happen. It fell very close to the ship itself so we couldn't see what was happening down there but could see the rescue boats and helicopters trying to save them. Earlier, Mr Arthur had described hearing the "thud" of the lifeboat falling to BBC News. Many passengers had left the ship for a shore excursion to view the traditional Canary Island Carnival celebrations in the island's capital Santa Cruz. Local authorities suspended celebrations for the remainder of Sunday afternoon following the tragedy. The ship was due to sail at 3pm Sunday to continue the seven-day cruise with a stop at Funchal on Madeira but its departure was delayed while police investigated the accident. Leandro Melgar, chief of the Ports Authority in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, said the "lifeboat was tipped vertically into the water after the foreword rope securing it snapped, causing the rear hook to fracture." "It fell upside down into the water trapping crew members beneath it," he told a press conference. The three surviving members were in the rear of the vessel and were able to free themselves. German Perez, head of La Palma Fire Services confirmed that those that died had become trapped beneath the capsized lifeboat and had to be retrieved by an emergency diving team. Local media reports said emergency workers worked for 45 minutes to revive one of the crew but they had died. Thomson Cruises released a statement confirming the tragedy. There was an incident involving the ship's crew during a safety drill on board Thomson Majesty, in La Palma, Canary Islands today at 11:50am local time. We can also confirm that there have sadly been five crew fatalities and three crew injuries. One person has been discharged from hospital and we expect the other two people to be released from hospital imminently. Our thoughts are with the families of those involved. We are working closely with the ship owners and managers, Louis Cruises, to determine exactly what has happened and provide assistance to those affected by the incident. We are also working closely with all relevant authorities and will be cooperating fully with their investigations. Two passengers died in the same cruise ship in March 2010 when it was hit by a giant wave off the coast of Spain as it sailed between Barcelona and Marseille. Then called the Louis Majesty, before it came part of the Thomson Cruise fleet, a German and Italian man were killed when a 26 foot wave smashed into the ship, breaking windows. Sunday's incident came13 months after the Costa Concordia tragedy in which 32 people died when the ship ran aground of the Italian island of Giglio. The latest incident occurred when the crew were practising the emergency deployment of lifeboats in order to ensure a safe evacuation were the order given to abandon ship. A spokesman for Nautilus International, a seafarers trade union, said lifeboat drills had a prior record of being notoriously dangerous. "We've had this happen so often and the industry has moved lamentably slowly to deal with the problem," said Andrew Linington of Nautilius. There's been research which suggests that more people are dying in lifeboat drills than are being saved by lifeboats. It's that serious. The death toll has been such that we advise our members: if you're doing a drill the drill is about raising and lowering the lifeboats. It shouldn't be about people actually getting into them. We advise them to do it without people in the lifeboats. The Thomson Majesty is the latest addition to the Thomson Cruises fleet according to the British company's website. It leases the ship and its officers from the Cyprus registered company, Louis Cruise Line. Registered in Malta, the ship measuring 679ft in length has a capacity for 1,462 passengers and 600 crew and boasts five restaurants, five bars, two swimming pools, a spa and a casino. A seven-night cruise of the Canary Islands in February and March with a stop in Madeira and the Moroccan port of Agadir is advertised online for £600 for a two-person cabin including return flights from London to Tenerife