The phrase "a man overboard" is correct and usable in written English.
It is typically used in maritime contexts to indicate that a person has fallen off a ship or boat and is in the water.
Example: "The crew quickly initiated rescue procedures when they heard the shout of 'a man overboard!'"
Alternatives: "person overboard" or "man over the side".
Was he himself a man overboard?
If there was a man overboard, it was ADA33 Smith for whom time was not increasing but running out.
Back in Alicante, the race-control team rushed to prepare for different emergency scenarios, like a man overboard or a helicopter evacuation.
We've traded in the subway's constant "stand clear of the closing doors" for the ferry's posted instructions of what to do in case of a "man overboard".
Simon Nicol – the only remaining survivor from their 1967 inception – compares the band to a ship: "Every so often, there'll be a man overboard".
Humorous rites of passage were countered by tense moments when an escort ship searched unsuccessfully for a man overboard and a returning pilot, low on fuel, had to land his F-18 in Baghdad.
Tip number four is: do not do a man-overboard drill with an actual man.
On the other hand, considering that Boeckel had lost his life in a man-overboard incident less than a month earlier, it was highly disturbing that four top sailors from three of the race's supposedly best-prepared yachts were not tethered aboard with a safety harness.
And then, from the fantail, comes a cry, "Man overboard!" A Special Forces officer -- a tall, sharp-featured, redheaded lieutenant Mr. Kerry would remember only as Rassmann -- is 200 yards aft, surfacing and diving for his life as snipers rake the river.
Captains have been known (a rarity, but it has happened) to throw a paralysed man overboard.
This is despite the deployment of a failed "man overboard" rescue manoeuvre – although in trying this out, the children have in fact perfected it, and it is to come in useful when there is a real man-overboard emergency.
