Courier-Post
FOLLOWING WEDNESDAY’S COLLISION AND SINKING of the tourist boat in Philadelphia (see the Firegeezer REPORT HERE), Friday was an eventful day. The bodies of the two missing passengers were recovered and the “Duck boat” was raised from the bottom by a sea crane. Also, more information became available after the captain of the tour boat was extensively interviewed by the federal investigators.
* The 35 passengers were all part of a tour group from Hungary and most of them were teenagers. The two drowning victims were located and retrieved at separate times on Friday. The 16-yr.-old girl was found by a fisherman shortly before 5 am, and the young man was recovered at 3 pm. The Hungarian government is making arrangements to get the group on a flight back home this weekend.
* A salvage crew located and raised the sunken boat Friday and it has been inspected for any mechanical defects. So far, the only problem they have found is a loose radiator cap.
This video from WTXF-TV Ch. 29 shows the craft as it was pulled from the river:
* The duck boat captain has made a statement to the investigators. The Courier-Post reports:
The captain asserted that he asked a tugboat pushing the barge to change course, said Robert Sumwalt, a representative of the National Transportation Safety Board. But, Sumwalt said, “He did not report to us any acknowledgement (from the tugboat’s crew).”
People on the boat have said the accident occurred five to 10 minutes after the duck boat stopped, Sumwalt said. During that period, the captain declined an offer of help from a passing duck boat, which had a full load of passengers, and prepared to wait for an empty tour boat to be sent to the scene, Sumwalt said.
The captain told investigators he made his first distress call when the northbound barge was around 400 yards from the tour boat. He and the crewmate said they instructed passengers to don life vests as the 250-foot barge approached their 35-foot boat.
At a news conference on Thursday, Sumwalt said the tour boat made no distress calls on a channel monitored by the Coast Guard. But the captain said he believes his calls were made on a different channel used for ship-to-ship communication.
You can read the full report from the Courier-Post HERE.
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