Mix-up led to fatal US boat ride
Family of nine drowns in ‘duck tour’ after being reassigned new route
BRANSON: Nine members of a family of 11 were among 17 people killed when an amphibious US tourist boat capsized during a sudden storm on a Missouri lake, and they likely wouldn’t have been on the ill-fated trip but for a ticket mix-up.
Tracy Beck, of Kansas City, Missouri, said she recalled the family members waiting in line.
After they stopped for a picture, she said, a ticket taker realised they should have boarded at a different location and reassigned them.
The grief-stricken community, known for its country shows and entertainment, hosted two vigils Friday night.
About 300 people gathered in the parking lot of Ride the Ducks of Branson and others mourned at a church, singing Amazing Grace at both locations.
At the rally at the duck boat business, Rev Zachary Klein said he had no words of comfort to offer the victims’ families “because there simply are no words”.
Divers found the final four bodies on Friday in Table Rock Lake near Branson after the deadliest accident of its kind in nearly two decades.
State and federal investigators were trying to determine what sent the vessel known as a duck boat to its demise.
An initial assessment blamed thunderstorms and winds that approached hurricane strength, but it wasn’t clear why the amphibious vehicle even ventured out into the water.
Mayor Karen Best said Branson is typically a city “full of smiles. But today we are grieving and crying”.
“My heart is very heavy. Out of 11 of us, there’s only two that’s surviving, that’s me and my nephew,” Tia Coleman, her voice breaking, told Fox59 from her hospital bed.
“I lost all of my children. I lost my husband. I lost my mother-in-law and my father-in-law,” along with other relatives, she told the Indianapolis TV station.
Coleman said the boat’s captain told passengers earlier in their trip that they “won’t need” life jackets.
“He said it when we were in the water. When it was time to grab them, it was too late and I believe that a lot of people could have been spared.”
She added that the water “didn’t look ominous at the very first.” — AP/AFP