BRANSON, MO — Nine members of an Indianapolis family were among the 17 people killed Thursday night when a duck boat sank in a thunderstorm near Branson Missouri, WRTV reported. As of Friday, authorities have called off the search for survivors after the amphibious tourist boat capsized near Branson, which also left seven others injured. The boat overturned during a severe thunderstorm on Table Rock Lake, authorities said. Four children from the Indianapolis family are among the dead, and the 17 victims range in age from 1 to 70.
WRTV added that two other members of the Indianapolis family survived the accident, which is being called a “mass casualty.”
“I lost all of my children. I lost my husband. I lost my mother-in-law and my father-in-law. I lost my uncle. I lost my sister-in-law… And I lost my nephew,” survivor Tia Coleman of Indianapolis told the local Fox station. “I’m okay, but this is really hard.”
Coleman also told the outlet the boat captain told passengers not to worry about grabbing life jackets as they boarded.
Authorities have released the names of all 17 people killed:
Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader confirmed 31 people had been on the amphibious “duck boat” when it sank. He blamed winds in excess of 60 miles an hour for the accident.
A witness onboard the Branson Belle, a showboat docked nearby, captured video of the duck boat being battered by waves shortly before the accident.
Duck boats — like the one that sank in a thunderstorm Thursday night near Branson, — have been involved in a series of accidents across the country since at least 1999, when a similar incident killed 13 people on Arkansas’s Lake Hamilton.
In that case, the National Transportation Safety Board blamed poor maintenance rather than severe weather, but other aspects are eerily similar. As with the tragedy in Branson, more than half the amphibious boat’s passengers drowned, unable to escape the sinking craft. Also as with Branson, three children were among the dead.
In the Hamilton Lake accident, the NTSB ruled that a canopy likely trapped passengers on the doomed boat. Branson’s duck boats were also enclosed by a canopy.
Originally designed to ferry troops from ship to shore during the Second World War, duck boats resemble a cross between a bus and a boat. Critics have said the crafts are poorly designed, leading to a slew of accidents on both land and water, including one in 2002, 2010, 2011, 2015, and 2016
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On Friday, the company behind Boston’s Duck Boat Tours issued a statement on the Missouri tragedy, saying, “Our thoughts go out to the families of all those involved in yesterday’s tragedy in Branson, MO … The incident is currently under investigation, so it would not be prudent for us to comment or speculate as to what may have caused the incident, but extreme weather seems to have been a major factor.”
“We are deeply saddened by the tragic accident that occurred this evening at Ride The Ducks Branson,” said duck boat operator Ripley Entertainment in a statement released Friday morning. “This incident has deeply affected all of us. We will continue to do all we can to assist the families who were involved and the authorities as they continue with the search and rescue.”
The search and rescue effort is now over. Authorities said shortly before noon that all bodies had been recovered. An investigation is still ongoing in Branson to determine exactly what went wrong and who, if anyone, is to blame.
Ripley Entertainment president Jim Pattison Jr., said in an interview with CBS that, in hindsight, the boat shouldn’t have been in the water. But he defended the company’s decision not to suspend tours, telling the New York Times that the thunderstorm that sank the boat “came out of nowhere,” adding, “It was almost like a microburst.“
But a meteorologist with the National Weather Service disagreed with that assessment, telling the paper there had been more than half an hour’s warning before the storm struck.
It’s not clear if the company was monitoring severe weather alerts.
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has ordered flags to be flown at half staff at government offices across the state. He posted to Twitter Thursday night, shortly after hearing about the accident.
President Donald Trump also Tweeted about the incident Friday morning:
My deepest sympathies to the families and friends of those involved in the terrible boat accident which just took place in Missouri. Such a tragedy, such a great loss. May God be with you all!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 20, 2018
J. Ryne Danielson and The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.
Photo: A duck boat participates in a parade in Boston, Mass. (Jim Rogash/Getty Images)
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