Duck boat that sank in deadly accident is raised from Missouri lake

The duck boat that capsized and sank last week on a sightseeing cruise was raised from a Missouri lake Monday, more than three days after the accident that killed 17 people near the tourist town of Branson.

Footage from Springfield, Missouri, television station KYTV showed a crane attached to a barge pulling the duck boat from Table Rock Lake and another boat pushing the vessel toward shore.

The boat, which was submerged in 80 feet of water, went down Thursday evening after a sudden thunderstorm generated near-hurricane strength winds.

Divers attached a sling to the boat, then raised the vessel. Once it was brought to the surface, it was drained, Coast Guard Capt. Scott Stoermer told reporters.

The vessel will be loaded onto a vehicle and taken to a facility where the National Transportation Safety Board will take custody of it, Stoermer said.

An investigation into the sinking of a sightseeing boat that claimed 17 lives will look at whether operators violated Coast Guard rules by venturing onto a Missouri lake as thunderstorms rolled in, a Coast Guard official said Monday.

Coast Guard Lt. Tasha Sadowicz of the agency’s St. Louis office said the boat that capsized and sank was known as “Stretch Duck 07.” Like all 22 duck boats in operation in Branson, it was required to undergo annual inspections. The most recent was in February.

But Sadowicz said the Coast Guard’s “certificate of inspection” placed limits on when the boats can enter the water based on wind speed and “sea state,” which refers to the height of waves.

Sadowicz did not have information on Stretch Duck 07’s limits but said they will be a focal point of the investigation.

Nine of the people who died belonged to one Indiana family. Others killed came from Missouri, Arkansas and Illinois. Seven survivors were taken to a Branson hospital, where the last patient was discharged Sunday.

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Mandi Keller, who was not aboard the vessel, told The Kansas City Star that the survival of her 15-year-old daughter, Gillian Collins, and eight other relatives was a “complete miracle.” They were the only family aboard in which no one died.

Missouri State Highway Patrol chaplain Steve Martin said the family’s survival was “remarkable” and that there is no explanation for it. He said the relatives, who found safety in different ways, were suffering from survivors’ guilt.

Divers have recovered a video-recording device that was aboard the boat, although it’s unclear whether it was working when the boat capsized or whether any data can be retrieved, including audio. The recorder was headed to the NTSB lab in Washington, D.C.

Steve Paul, owner of the Test Drive Technologies inspection service in the St. Louis area, said he issued a written report in August 2017 for Ripley Entertainment, which owns Ride the Ducks in Branson, after inspecting two dozen boats. In the report, he explained why the vessels’ engines — and pumps that remove water from their hulls — might fail in inclement weather.

Paul said he would not know if the boat that sank is one that he inspected until it has been recovered from the lake.

Ripley Entertainment, which owns the duck boat business in Branson, has not responded to questions about Paul’s concerns.

The company’s website said it was offering to pay for all medical and funeral expenses for victims, to return all personal items from the accident scene and to help with families’ travel or accommodations. The company also said it was offering grief counseling for its own employees.

Ripley has made few comments since Friday, except to say that the accident was the company’s first in more than 40 years in Branson.