Barge hits tourist boat on Delaware River in Philadelphia; 2 unaccounted for, 35 rescued

Barge hits tourist boat in Philly; 2 missing

PHILADELPHIA — A disabled sightseeing boat adrift in the Delaware River with at least 37 people aboard was struck by a barge and capsized Wednesday, spilling passengers into the water and leaving two people unaccounted for after a frantic rescue effort.

The amphibious “duck boat” had gone into the water just after 2:30 p.m. and suffered a mechanical problem and a small fire, officials said. It was struck about 10 minutes later, then sank.

Searchers were looking for a 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man believed to have been aboard the vessel, which has wheels and can travel seamlessly on land and water, police Lt. Frank Vanore said. Several people went to hospitals, but there were no immediate reports of serious injuries.

There were 35 passengers and two crew members aboard the boat, said Coast Guard Senior Chief Bud Holden. Coast Guard boats assisted by police and fire crews worked to rescue people from the water, he said. A spokeswoman for the duck boat company says 39 people were aboard, and the reason for the discrepancy wasn’t clear.

Bystanders along the waterfront screamed as the barge hit the boat, said a security guard who was patrolling the waterfront.

“I whirled around as the barge began to run over the duck boat,” said Larry Waxmunski, a guard for the Delaware River Waterfront Corp. “After the barge hit it — it almost looked like slow motion — the duck boat began to turn over.”

“Fortunately, you began to see the life vests popping up almost immediately,” Waxmunski said. He then saw police boats beginning to pluck the tourists out of the water.

Television footage showed at least five people being pulled from the water wearing life vests in an area of the river near the Old City neighborhood, popular with tourists. Helicopter footage showed people in life vests being helped from boats on to a dock and at least one person on a gurney.

Terri Ronna, 45, of Oakland, N.J., said she was on a ferry going from Camden, N.J., across the river to Philadelphia when the captain announced that there was someone overboard from another ship and that they were going to rescue him.

“We were not even halfway over when they said there was somebody overboard and we were going to get them,” Ronna said. “There were people all over; we could see all these orange life vests.”

At a waterfront news conference Wednesday afternoon, Mayor Michael Nutter said authorities were trying to figure out exactly what happened.

“This is a very serious situation, and we are going to do everything we can to get to the bottom of it,” he said.

Hahnemann University Hospital spokeswoman Coleen Cannon said that 10 people were taken there, but that two refused treatment. Patients being evaluated included two teens, two adults and three children; she said she didn’t have information on their conditions.

One crew member from the duck boat was rescued by the ferry that the Delaware River Port Authority was operating on its scheduled route between Philadelphia and Camden, said authority spokesman Ed Kasuba.

Officials said the barge was owned by the city and being directed by a tugboat owned by K-Sea Transportation Partners of East Brunswick, N.J. The duck boat was operated by Ride the Ducks, which also operates tours in San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, Newport, R.I., and Branson, Mo.

A spokeswoman at the company’s headquarters in Norcross, Ga., said it would issue a statement when it had more information.

Holden, of the Coast Guard, said the duck boats are inspected annually, but he did not know when the boat involved in Wednesday’s crash was last inspected.

A duck boat sank at Hot Springs, Ark., on May 1, 1999, killing 13 of the 21 people aboard after its bilge pump failed. The National Transportation Safety Board blamed inadequate maintenance and recommended that duck boats have backup flotation devices.

In June 2002, four people were killed when an amphibious tour boat, the Lady Duck, sank in the Ottawa River near Canada’s Parliament.

Associated Press writers JoAnn Loviglio, Kathy Matheson and Patrick Walters contributed to this report.

(This version corrects the police lieutenant’s name to Vanore instead of Vanora.)