Duck boat sinks in Branson, at least 13 dead

[RPM 26355]

Just now, deft said:

Dude, really (on the second bolding)? You think in those choppy waters they’re gonna say “shit this is scary, which kid wants to take the wheel?”

No. I'm saying safety and liability were not at the forefront of their business model. Thought that was pretty plainly said. You know why they don't let kids take the yoke in a airliner? Because it's not fucking safe. Aeroflot 593 out front should have told ya.

[po elvis 2076]

8 minutes ago, RPM said:

No. I'm saying safety and liability were not at the forefront of their business model. Thought that was pretty plainly said. You know why they don't let kids take the yoke in a airliner? Because it's not fucking safe. Aeroflot 593 out front should have told ya.

if you were on a duck boat in calm waters, you would care if they sat a kid in front of the wheel with the captain right there?

[Stoogey 219]

On 7/20/2018 at 1:16 PM, Stoogey said:

Riding duck boats is a lot of fun. But the emphasis is on the scenery, the novelty of amphibious vehicle and jokey narration. On a perfectly calm lake the WWII ducks are not responsive and clumsy. At one point the boat operator had a little boy steer the duck. while commenting, "You don't even know where we're going,"  to laughter.  

 

38 minutes ago, RPM said:

 

Quote

Kids get to drive the boat!

 

 

12 minutes ago, deft said:

Dude, really (on the second bolding)? You think in those choppy waters they’re gonna say “shit this is scary, which kid wants to take the wheel?”

Yes. Kids get to drive the DUKW. 

[RPM 26355]

23 minutes ago, po elvis said:

if you were on a duck boat in calm waters, you would care if they sat a kid in front of the wheel with the captain right there?

If I owned the company? Yes.

[ImissWallyPryor 9046]

We rode one of those in Seattle in May. Checking in so y’all know I’m safe. 

Ours didn’t have windows. With windows and a canopy, life vests don’t help much. It just means everyone will end up in a cluster of panicking humanity. 

Edited July 24, 2018 by ImissWallyPryor

[CoTex 1162]

When they pulled the "boat" up on CNN today, it looked like the windows were blown out.  I wonder how much effort it would have taken to kick out a window, when this became unrecoverable.

Do any of you remember G650's experience from last year's Chicago - Mac race?  They lost and recovered a man overboard at night.  He's probably racing that same race right now.

 

[Stoogey 219]

36 minutes ago, RPM said:

If I owned the company? Yes.

Good for you. A small child cannot reach the pedals. A small child cannot turn the wheel. No power steering. The DUKW is drifting. After the joke about not knowing where we're going the operator scoots him or her down from the driver's seat, the kid gets a round of applause and the narrator launches into his spiel about the natural history of the area.  Then the engine comes to full power and we're off to the river to make a landing.

You are more likely to be injured if the DUKW really connects with a tree in the forest. Some trees along the DUKW path don't have a lot of bark. 

I've been on tours when the child driver part is omitted because there aren't any little ones and the kids aboard might be able to turn the wheel. Not that it would make that much of a difference. DUKWs are slow to respond and clumsy. 

From the Wisconsin Dells Army Ducks (there are two DUKW tour companies a couple of blocks from each other) website:
 

Quote

FAQ. What if it's raining?

Tours depart daily rain or shine! However, in cases of lightning and severe weather, we’ll then suspend operations until the weather passes and the tours can resume. Ducks are all equipped with canopies and plastic curtains, however, you’ll most likely get wet if it rains during your tour.

The canopies are more for shade from the sun when on the open water. And as I mentioned on Friday, are supposed to be easily removable per USCG. In Alaska, the modern ducks had a roof because coastal Alaska is a rainforest.

[Stoogey 219]

9 minutes ago, CoTex said:

When they pulled the "boat" up on CNN today, it looked like the windows were blown out.  I wonder how much effort it would have taken to kick out a window, when this became unrecoverable.

Do any of you remember G650's experience from last year's Chicago - Mac race?  They lost and recovered a man overboard at night.  He's probably racing that same race right now.

 

They didn't find the guy who fell overboard yesterday.  https://www.dailyherald.com/news/20180722/chicago-sailor-who-fell-overboard-during-race-to-mackinac-remains-missing

[Trey3216 15357]

Going from surface to 40 ft down would take no time. It then rolled to 80 feet down.  You can get the bends trying to surface from there.  Not likely they survived the bottom and the roll with all that panic.   They would’ve blended out trying to kick and surface that quickly 

[RPM 26355]

7 minutes ago, Stoogey said:

Good for you. A small child cannot reach the pedals. A small child cannot turn the wheel. No power steering.

Perhaps you can see why it's a horrible idea. Need more evidence?

Quote

 

A transcript of the tape printed in the magazine Obozrevatel shows that the Russian crew nearly managed to save the Airbus plane and the 75 people on board, but that it was hampered by the presence of children and its unfamiliarity with the foreign-made plane. 

Everyone on the flight from Moscow to Hong Kong was killed.

The tapes show that in the half hour before the crash, the pilot, Yaroslav Kudrinsky, gave up his seat to his 12-year-old daughter and then his 16-year-old son.

"Daddy, can I turn this?" the daughter, Yana, asks as she sits at the controls.

Her father points out stars and city lights, and warns her not to push any buttons.

The scene quickly turns terrifying, however, when the captain's son, Eldar, takes the wheel.

"Turn it! Watch the ground as you turn," the captain says. "Let's go left. Turn left! (pause) Is the plane turning?"

 

There's a reason Joey can't hang out with Capt. Oveur anymore.

[SubliminalHorn 6811]

11 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Going from surface to 40 ft down would take no time. It then rolled to 80 feet down.  You can get the bends trying to surface from there.  Not likely they survived the bottom and the roll with all that panic.   They would’ve blended out trying to kick and surface that quickly 

Don’t believe you get the bends if they aren’t using a breathing apparatus. 

 

Anyway, watched the interview with Tia, one of th survivors of the family that lost 9 family members. Holy shit, it was heart wrenching. I don’t know how she picks up the pieces and goes on. Her husband and three young children gone in a instant. I can’t imagine. 

[Stoogey 219]

3 minutes ago, RPM said:

Perhaps you can see why it's a horrible idea. Need more evidence?

Yes, I do. At what altitude do you think these WWII amphibious vehicles fly?

 

[RPM 26355]

1 minute ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Don’t believe you get the bends if they aren’t using a breathing apparatus. 

[RPM 26355]

1 minute ago, Stoogey said:

Yes, I do. At what altitude do you think these WWII amphibious vehicles fly?

 

Ran out of answers, huh? I'll take that as a tap out.

[Stoogey 219]

1 minute ago, RPM said:

Ran out of answers, huh? I'll take that as a tap out.

You think sitting a little kid incapable of steering or touching the pedals in the operator's chair for ninety seconds during the drifting part of tour is equal to teenagers piloting a jet?

I'll take that as you're a fucking idiot. 

[RPM 26355]

1 minute ago, Stoogey said:

You think sitting a little kid incapable of steering or touching the pedals in the operator's chair for ninety seconds during the drifting part of tour is equal to teenagers piloting a jet?

I'll take that as you're a fucking idiot. 

So you think it's perfectly safe and reasonable to let a child (who by your definition can't even touch the controls) take control of a moving commercial vehicle? It doesn't matter if it's on land, air or water. Is it cute? Hellz yes. Is it safe? Hellz no. Is it covered by their insurance? Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm gonna say no way in hell is that covered. I'm sure you have no problems letting a kid drive the school bus, because hey it's dry land. What could possibly go wrong?

I do admire your twisting this into a completely different conversation than safety and liability were not at the forefront of their business model. Well played.

[LongestHorn 759]

5 minutes ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Don’t believe you get the bends if they aren’t using a breathing apparatus. 

 

Anyway, watched the interview with Tia, one of th survivors of the family that lost 9 family members. Holy shit, it was heart wrenching. I don’t know how she picks up the pieces and goes on. Her husband and three young children gone in a instant. I can’t imagine. 

Just caught the Anderson Cooper interview of Tia and it was brutal.  They were told the boat could take 18-20 foot waves and their PFD was above them but they wouldn't need them.  First big wave broke and most of it went out the back.  Next wave swamped them and as she stood up, she was floating up against the darkening glass in the dark searching with her hands for any opening as the water became colder and colder as the sank.  She felt someone push her leg and she was floating up was the water began to warm.  When she broke the surface, Showboat was tossing PFDs from the dock.  Next thing she remembers is being pulled out of the water and looking for and seeing none of her people.  

She said when they found her husband, he had all three of their children with him.  

[Coelenterate Fuccboi 13119]

Let’s stop getting emotional about kids “driving”. I’m sure it’s much like a kid “driving” a car. You know, where they sit in grandpa’s lap and hold the wheel while grandpa actually has control of the vehicle.

[Updawg 2286]

18-20ft waves? That's insane. Maybe the crew were really that dumb and not just caught off guard. Terrible.

[Lhorn 4963]

2 hours ago, LongestHorn said:

Just caught the Anderson Cooper interview of Tia and it was brutal.  They were told the boat could take 18-20 foot waves and their PFD was above them but they wouldn't need them.  First big wave broke and most of it went out the back.  Next wave swamped them and as she stood up, she was floating up against the darkening glass in the dark searching with her hands for any opening as the water became colder and colder as the sank.  She felt someone push her leg and she was floating up was the water began to warm.  When she broke the surface, Showboat was tossing PFDs from the dock.  Next thing she remembers is being pulled out of the water and looking for and seeing none of her people.  

She said when they found her husband, he had all three of their children with him.  

Good lord. That is a nightmare and heartbreaking beyond belief. 

[KaiserSoze 998]

3 hours ago, SubliminalHorn said:

Don’t believe you get the bends if they aren’t using a breathing apparatus. 

 

3 hours ago, RPM said:

 

Subliminal is correct in this case. At either of the depths in question (40ft or 80ft), without a breathing apparatus you're not going to be alive and breathing long enough for your body to get the bends when it surfaces. 

 

Edited July 24, 2018 by KaiserSoze

[RPM 26355]

Didn't think about it from that pov.

[Wally Pryor 5263]

Incredible.  Survivors, but going to be a tough ride for this family. 

Last week, on a sunny day with a storm in the forecast, six families boarded Stretch Duck 07 in Branson  Every family lost someone when the boat sank into Table Rock Lake, killing more than half of the 31 passengers. Every family, that is, but one. 

All the members of a family of nine survived — an outcome that defies probability to the point of qualifying as unbelievable, said Mandi Keller of Texas, a member of the family who wasn’t on the boat.

The unlikely survival of the entire family astonished a first responder there that night. “To me, that’s really the most remarkable piece to all of this,” said Steve Martin, a chaplain with the Missouri Highway Patrol and Nixa Fire Department. “It’s the untold story.”  Martin was at Branson City Hall to receive the family Thursday night after they were shuttled there, together, unbroken.  “They themselves have no explanation,” he said. “They’re dumbfounded (as to) how they all made it out.” 

The members of the family remaining whole, according to a Missouri Highway Patrol report, are 15-year-old Gillian and her father and stepmother, Shayne and Tiffany Collins; and the rest of their family: Cayden, Chloe and Tomlin McDonald; Tayden Kimbley; Talyssa Mann; and Ronita McKinley. Only one, McKinley, 64, was injured. She was in serious condition after coming out of the water but has since been discharged from the hospital, Martin said.

Keller believes her family “will always feel guilty.” But they shouldn’t, Martin said. He said the family was traumatized that night after they all narrowly escaped death.He knows of no good explanation for how or why the family survived. “They didn’t survive because they stuck together or planned how to navigate,” Martin said.

The youngest member of the family, a 10-year-old, told Martin he felt the waves pushing him toward the Showboat Branson Belle, a large riverboat nearby.  “The Branson Belle — it was good for some and not as good for others,” Martin said. The family of nine found safety by climbing up a paddle on the rear of the Belle, or clinging to the side of the riverboat until bystanders came to hoist them to safety. “The only thing I can say with consistency is that they all ended up in different places and found safety in different ways,” Martin said. “There was no rhyme or reason to why, why all nine of them lived and every other family unit lost people.”

https://www.kansascity.com/news/state/missouri/article215335845.html

[Steamboat1874 4085]

Sorry but how did they not see that storm approaching on radar?

I saw images of the radar from that day and it was clear a heavy line of storms were approaching that area.

[CoTex 1162]

Radar?  What ever happened to look out the damned window?  These people weren't crossing the North Atlantic in a Viking Warship.  This lake is basically a narrow river.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.5820697,-93.3198884,3812m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

"Hey, look, there's a storm coming, we should head back 300 yards to the cove/marina/boat ramp/shelter of that island over there."

[El Diablo 4232]

22 minutes ago, CoTex said:

Radar?  What ever happened to look out the damned window?  These people weren't crossing the North Atlantic in a Viking Warship.  This lake is basically a narrow river.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/@36.5820697,-93.3198884,3812m/data=!3m1!1e3

 

"Hey, look, there's a storm coming, we should head back 300 yards to the cove/marina/boat ramp/shelter of that island over there."

Is it as flat as West Texas there? Seeing the thunderstorm in the next county can be difficult if you can't see over the hills around you. I don't know, I'm just asking, I'm not familiar with the geography there.

[relapse98 634]

On 7/20/2018 at 9:29 AM, Brisketexan said:

It's Branson, dude.  Prying people away from a buffet there is harder than putting a man on the moon.

Branson Belle doesn't have a buffet, sadly.

[relapse98 634]

On 7/20/2018 at 10:46 AM, smuggs said:

There's an island with trees on it ~40 yards from the boat. Spin that piece of shit around and run it up on the rocks. 

Same island where the Branson Belle spent a night a few years back after it had some propulsion issues during high wind.

[relapse98 634]

That lake is no joke. My relatives have a house up there and we took a $100 hamburger ride over to the State Park Marina a few years back. There were some storms in the general area but we thought we'd be ok. After the burgers, we loaded back up and about the time we got to where the Belle docks, the bottom fell out and it looked like the start of the video for this sinking. It was an eventful ride back to their dock and then half of us had to stay there while the other half rode up in the mule to the golf cart and then came back for us.

 

Also if that boat sunk where I think it did (the early part of the video shows an island) then that's the island where the Belle got stuck and is right near where the Belle's dock is and I'm pretty sure the Duck's enter the water at the State Park which is just south of there. Those things weren't in the water long at all before all this went down. I still don't get why they didn't turn around - they were close to the ramp they came in on, if not even enter in the first place.

Edited July 24, 2018 by relapse98

[El Diablo 4232]

Years from now people will be wondering why they're having to wait for their Duck Boat ride to start when there was a lightning strike 30 miles away.

[RPM 26355]

Not sure if this played a factor, but it doesn't look like safety and liability were at the forefront of their business model.

Inspector said he warned duck boat company about problem

(CNN) - Steven Paul could see the duck boat's danger almost immediately.

It was August 2017, less than a year before 17 people would die from the capsizing of the Ride the Ducks Branson amphibious vessel.

Paul, a mechanical inspector, saw a glaring problem when he examined the duck boat.

"One of the most prominent things I found was the exhaust being in front of the vessel, which -- according to Department of Transportation standards -- would not pass regulation," he told CNN's "New Day" on Monday. "The exhaust has to come out past the passenger compartment."

Paul saw footage of the sinking and remembered the big danger that he had warned about.

"One of the things I saw first in the eyewitness video ... was that the ship was taking heavy waves to the front end. With the exhaust coming out the front and going down below the water line, the waves are obviously pushing water up in that exhaust," he said.

"If water gets up in the exhaust, the engine is eventually going to stop."

Paul said he told the operator of the duck boat about his findings last year. The response?

"I pretty much got a, 'Thank you for your report.' And they paid their invoice," said Paul, owner of the Test Drive Technologies inspection company. "I didn't hear much feedback about my findings at all, although I do have several pages of my report (that) cite the Department of Transportation standards."

That was 11 months ago. Fast forward to last week, when the boat capsized amid howling winds and ferocious waves.

Ripley Entertainment Inc., the parent company of the duck boat business, has not responded to CNN's request for a response to Paul's comments.

Paul said he and his family have enjoyed riding duck boats in the past. But for duck boats to operate safely, he said, changes need to be made in how they're regulated.

Because duck boats carry tourists on both water and land, they're regulated by two separated agencies -- the Coast Guard for when the boat is on water, and the Department of Transportation when the vehicle is on land.

"There is a huge disconnect between the U.S. Coast Guard and the Department of Transportation," Paul said.

"If (there's) anything good that can come out of this unfortunate accident is that the two regulating bodies can come together. They can form one type of inspection for amphibious vehicles and decide, who's going to regulate it? Who's going to do the inspections? What are the inspection requirements going to be? And realistically, that needs to happen, or the ducks need to be shut down."

Edited July 24, 2018 by RPM

[Deej 76926]

1 hour ago, relapse98 said:

That lake is no joke.

In a bad storm, very few bodies of water are a joke. 

As a kid, way back before we had phones that kept us constantly up to date, I spent a lot of time on the water fishing with my dad. If there was any inkling of bad weather, we got the hell off the lake. Not worth dying over some fish or sightseeing. 

[chainsaw 9873]

Hang 'em high.

[jimmyjazz 46137]

I vacationed on Table Rock Lake many many times as a kid.  It's similar to Lake Travis, although much bigger.  It's not in a canyon.  It's actually at a lower elevation than most of the Ozarks, on a plateau, and you can literally see for miles, if not tens of miles.  Storms do not "sneak up" on boaters unless they're completely stoned.

Edited July 24, 2018 by jimmyjazz

[relapse98 634]

51 minutes ago, RPM said:

Inspector said he warned duck boat company about problem

I kinda wonder about the timeline here. He notified the duck company August 2017.

Herschend (owners of Dollywood, Silver Dollar City, Stone Mountain, Talking Rocks, White Water Branson, Dolly Parton's Stampeded, Branson Belle, Harlem Globetrotters) owned a portion of Ride the Ducks until December 2017 when it was sold to Ripley.

 

Who received the report in 2017? Was Ripley the independent investor from 2012-2017? Did that report ever make it to the new owner Ripley? Was the report done as part of Ripley purchasing the attraction? Just some questions that I know are more in depth than what a general article would cover.

[TornACL 7722]

19 hours ago, RPM said:

So you think it's perfectly safe and reasonable to let a child (who by your definition can't even touch the controls) take control of a moving commercial vehicle? It doesn't matter if it's on land, air or water. Is it cute? Hellz yes. Is it safe? Hellz no. Is it covered by their insurance? Until I see evidence to the contrary, I'm gonna say no way in hell is that covered. I'm sure you have no problems letting a kid drive the school bus, because hey it's dry land. What could possibly go wrong?

I do admire your twisting this into a completely different conversation than safety and liability were not at the forefront of their business model. Well played.

You seem dense, and I can't tell if it's intentional or not.

If a child can't touch or otherwise manipulate the controls, then they are -- by definition -- not taking control of a commercial vehicle.

[Huckleberry 33099]

19 hours ago, LongestHorn said:

Just caught the Anderson Cooper interview of Tia and it was brutal.  They were told the boat could take 18-20 foot waves and their PFD was above them but they wouldn't need them.  First big wave broke and most of it went out the back.  Next wave swamped them and as she stood up, she was floating up against the darkening glass in the dark searching with her hands for any opening as the water became colder and colder as the sank.  She felt someone push her leg and she was floating up was the water began to warm.  When she broke the surface, Showboat was tossing PFDs from the dock.  Next thing she remembers is being pulled out of the water and looking for and seeing none of her people.  

She said when they found her husband, he had all three of their children with him.  

Absolutely heartbreaking. Damn.

[phdhorn 6224]

From a weather standpoint, I don't think there's much of an excuse.  A severe thunderstorm watch was issued that day (July 19) at approximately 11:58 a.m. putting basically the entire SW quarter of Missouri, including the Table Rock area, into the "slight" category (which as most know is still a pretty good chance).  By 3 p.m. the first Warnings were issued for active storms in West Central Missouri/East Central Kansas moving SW at about 50 mph.  This would put them in a bee line for that area a few hours later.

At that point, anyone with lake business who knows anything will put a kind of yellow alert on their operations, just be aware. The storms were clearly identifiable, although still far away.

By 6:07 p.m. a new Severe Thunderstorm Warning was issued for the counties just NW of the Table Rock area. This would be your Red Alert, as in don't send anyone out there, period. This was the point of failure, as I see it.  I don't know if the office tried to contact the captains or if they had their phones or whatevers off, but this was the point where this disaster was imminent.  The owner said, "the storm came out of nowhere."  No it didn't.  It was on the radar for at least 45 minutes before you set out.   And, if that's not enough, by 6:32 p.m. the NWS issued a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for the Table Rock Lake area itself, which was just as the boat was setting out.  If you do your business on the lake, I can't even begin to imagine you not checking the radar every single godamn day [/George Patton] in the summer, never mind that there were at least six hours of warned storms, in a completely predictable pattern of moving towards the SE in that part of the country, in context:
 

Quote

Maybe the most damning part is this?  This article mentions how the NTSB now says that the boat set out while hurricane force winds were coming across the lake; I mean, really???

The other stuff of course matters, as in the errors by the captain, the construction of the duck (i.e. canopy roof preventing "up and out" escapes, the quick flooding of the duck, etc.   But from a weather standpoint, this thing did anything but "sneak up" on anyone unless they had their heads under a rock.  Maybe we'll find that some passengers checked their phones and knew the storm was coming, asked about it, and were told meh, no problem.

Ducks aren't particularly lithe, sleek boats, but I don't blame them.  I mean shit, anything in that water would probably sink short of an aircraft carrier or a steel bubble.  I can't even begin to imagine how people who make their living off of knowing lake conditions failed so miserably.  That's by far the cause to me.  Maybe there will be a "good" reason, but man I can't even begin to think of any.  They should have known.  They had plenty of time and all kinds of warning blaring out.

[RPM 26355]

1 hour ago, TornACL said:

You seem dense, and I can't tell if it's intentional or not.

If a child can't touch or otherwise manipulate the controls, then they are -- by definition -- not taking control of a commercial vehicle.

Then, using your definition, nobody is in control of a moving commercial vehicle which backs my point. I'm confident their insurance underwriter did not ok that, but they did it anyway. I'm also confident this played absolutely no part in the sinking, but their safety and liability issues did.

[TornACL 7722]

3 minutes ago, RPM said:

Then, using your definition, nobody is in control of a moving commercial vehicle which backs my point. I'm confident their insurance underwriter did not ok that, but they did it anyway. I'm also confident this played absolutely no part in the sinking, but their safety and liability issues did.

Trumpwrong.gif

I can't believe you're having this much trouble with such an amazingly simple concept. 

I don't think you're much of a boater. 

Edited July 24, 2018 by TornACL

[RPM 26355]

1 minute ago, TornACL said:

I can't believe you're having this much trouble with such an amazingly simple concept. 

Same here. Seems pretty simple to me.

[CoTex 1162]

You know who has an interesting story?  The crew and passengers on the boat that didn’t sink.

 

ill be interested to see their ntsb interviews.

[relapse98 634]

Seriously, wtf is wrong with people?

The grandma that taped the duck sinking has been receiving less than uplifting messages.

Quote

Yet of course, for no rational reason, she has been pummeled on social media. She’s received personal messages calling her all of the usual woman-hating names, along with a few new ones.

“You’re going to regret this for the rest of your life,” one of the cleaner messages said. Yes, she will, but not because she could have done anything except put her own life in jeopardy had she jumped into the water from the nearby Branson Belle Showboat, where she and her husband Jeff had gone to celebrate their wedding anniversary.

Uh yeah. Let's see, everyone else was already dialing 911. Inundating the 911 center isn't going to help one bit. She can't rescue them herself while sitting inside of a giant moving paddlewheel boat. There's just about literally nothing she could do other than what she did - tape what happened and provide that to the authorities so they have a clearer picture of the events.

 

Man people can be such pieces of shit.

 

Edit: including one who commented on the above article

Quote

Bobby Gaddy

umm i would have risked my life to save 17 people,,too many ppl on that that boat who who were young enoung should had tried..you stupid tourists would rather sacricfice lives of others to have a perfect getaway,,,this is why locals hate you..if i was on the branson belle and was behind this woman i would have jumped in..selfish and stupid tourists

No you wouldn't. You wouldn't have jumped off of a giant moving paddlewheeler into those waves. 100% guarantee you. While he does appear to be a captain at the Titanic exhibit in Branson, I'm not sure that relates to any real world useful skills.

Edited July 25, 2018 by relapse98

[woohorn 1131]

I kinda wonder about the timeline here. He notified the duck company August 2017.

The inspector was hired by purchaser as part of due diligence.

I think operator (or whoever mandated that he carry on in weather) was at fault here, but lack of exits was a problem too.

Inspector is kinda an attention whore who makes sure his inspection business contact information is in every shot and his observations are pretty generic and obvious. There is clearly a problem if these sink and that needs to be handled through regulation or laws. Maybe the exhaust issue is a reason states need safety inspections for cars.

Also surprised he isn't under a NDA considering his inspection was part of purchase due diligence.

[JimmyHoffa 1188]

On 7/24/2018 at 5:04 PM, phdhorn said:

Maybe the most damning part is this?  This article mentions how the NTSB now says that the boat set out while hurricane force winds were coming across the lake; I mean, really???

The other stuff of course matters, as in the errors by the captain, the construction of the duck (i.e. canopy roof preventing "up and out" escapes, the quick flooding of the duck, etc.   But from a weather standpoint, this thing did anything but "sneak up" on anyone unless they had their heads under a rock.  Maybe we'll find that some passengers checked their phones and knew the storm was coming, asked about it, and were told meh, no problem.

Ducks aren't particularly lithe, sleek boats, but I don't blame them.  I mean shit, anything in that water would probably sink short of an aircraft carrier or a steel bubble.  I can't even begin to imagine how people who make their living off of knowing lake conditions failed so miserably.  That's by far the cause to me.  Maybe there will be a "good" reason, but man I can't even begin to think of any.  They should have known.  They had plenty of time and all kinds of warning blaring out.

Sadly it probably boils down to a bad decision based on trying to get one more tour in and more money in the til. And you are correct they should have known especially with the limited capacity of the "boat" to be anywhere near the lake with those potential storms on radar. 

[Gil Bang 26024]

Fuuuuuuck. 

The owner of the company "stretched" the boats length, and didn't consult with any engineers.  He just fucking winged it.  

[Gil Bang 26024]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/26/self-taught-businessman-with-no-engineering-credentials-designed-missouri-duck-boat-records-say/?ICID=ref_fark&noredirect=on&utm_content=link&utm_medium=website&utm_source=fark&utm_term=.bd353e588350

[chainsaw 9873]

Sounds very aggy

[Deej 76926]

1 hour ago, Gil Bang said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/07/26/self-taught-businessman-with-no-engineering-credentials-designed-missouri-duck-boat-records-say/?ICID=ref_fark&noredirect=on&utm_content=link&utm_medium=website&utm_source=fark&utm_term=.bd353e588350

He'd fit right in a Schlitterbahn. 

[Trey3216 15357]

2 minutes ago, Deej said:

He'd fit right in a Schlitterbahn. 

Beat me to it. 

 

Gross Negligence is a helluva strategy