NEWS: Duck Tour Boat hit by Barge In Philadelphia

[spaceace12]

A barge rammed into an amphibious tourist “duck boat” rendered helpless by mechanical trouble on the Delaware River in Philadelphia on Wednesday afternoon, capsizing the small boat and sending the 37 people aboard into the river, authorities said.

 

 

Two people were missing despite frantic rescue efforts, officials said.

 

Before the crash, a small fire broke out on board the tourist boat, causing it to shut down, said Charles H. Ramsey, the Philadelphia police commissioner. “The boat was sitting in the water waiting for help,” he said.

 

That was when the city-owned barge hauling sludge, pulled by a tugboat, ran into the tourist boat, and the duck boat sank, authorities and witnesses said. State and federal investigators are on their way to launch an investigation, officials said, even as a search has begun for the submerged tourist vessel.

 

Commissioner Ramsey said the two people still unaccounted are a 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old male. Nine others were hospitalized for minor injuries.

 

“This is a very serious situation,” Philadelphia Mayor Michael A. Nutter said. “We’re going to do everything we can to obviously get to the bottom of it.”

 

The tug boat, owned by K-Sea Transportation and under contract to the city, had five crew members on board, a company spokesman said, but they were not injured. The barge was unmanned and did not have a motor, officials said. Meg Scharpf, 40, said she witnessed the entire crash from the Philadelphia shore, while she was visiting the popular Penn’s Landing area with her family. At first she saw that the tugboat and barge were “a little too close for comfort” to the stalled duck boat — until discomfort suddenly turned to tragedy.

 

“The barge hit the broadside of the duck boat, and then they were gone,” Ms. Scharpf said. “I heard nothing, I didn’t hear a scream.”

 

And then, after 10 agonizing seconds, Ms. Scharpf said she was reassured when she saw people “pop up in their life jackets,” some 200 yards from shore and they were calmly floating in the river. ...........

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/08/us/08boat.html

 

Herschend Family Entertainment posted a Facebook post

 

Our thoughts and prayers are with our Ride The Ducks guests and their families in Philadelphia. We are attending to their needs first. In the interim, we have suspended our Ride The Ducks operation in Philadelphia.

 

(I posted this here since it is somewhat Theme park related)

[megamatt]

Wow... thats too bad... Does anyone know if it was possible for the barge to stop or turn around?

[testtrack321]

Wow... thats too bad... Does anyone know if it was possible for the barge to stop or turn around?

 

Probably not, it was unmanned and unpowered (only pulled by a tug boat). Even if it could, the time and energy it would require to stop and turn around would be impractical and probably put the safety of those in the water at risk.

 

Thoughts are prayers are with the family of those missing....

[chadster]

wow, we had a bardge crash into a bridge on 1-40 many years ago, caused the bridge to crash into the river. Many people lost their lives as a result (they drove off the end of the missing bridge and landed in the river) Sad situation.