Pataki Wants Higher Boat Standards
Officials investigating the deadly capsizing of a Adirondack tour boat Wednesday conducted a "very scientific road test" of a twin vessel to see whether excess, suddenly shifting weight may have caused the tragedy.
Gov. George Pataki, meanwhile, said New York's boating safety standards need to be toughened — and singled out the state law that kept authorities from giving the captain of the Ethan Allen an alcohol test the day of the accident, which killed 20 elderly passengers.
The National Transportation Safety Board loaded the Ethan Allen's sister vessel with barrels of water on Lake George to determine how the boat would have handled while carrying a full load of passengers weighing an average of 160 pounds.
The Ethan Allen was carrying 47 passengers — senior citizens who had come from Michigan and Ohio to enjoy the fall colors — when it flipped over Sunday on Lake George. Its capacity was 50 people — a number based on a New York standard that assumes the average passenger weighs 140 pounds.
Just days before the boat overturned, the Coast Guard began rethinking its own per-passenger weight limits to take into account Americans' expanding waistlines. The current standard, set 25 years ago, assumes a 140-pound average for each man, woman and child.
Investigators also were awaiting results of an alcohol test on the Ethan Allen's captain, Richard Paris, 74, who was the only crew member aboard the 38-foot boat when it overturned.
Paris voluntarily provided a urine sample Tuesday at the NTSB's request, Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland said. Investigators did not have reasonable cause to test Paris immediately after the accident because he showed no signs of impairment during an interview, Cleveland said.
The urine test can detect alcohol consumed days earlier. Paris has told investigators his last drink before the accident was a beer the previous Thursday morning.
Pataki said Wednesday that in the next few days he will propose legislation to make the state's boating-safety standards as tough as existing federal regulations. Pataki said he's specifically looking at the federal requirement for testing a pilot for alcohol and drug use after a fatal crash, but he did not provide other details.
Wednesday's test on the sister vessel, the de Champlain, was "a very scientific road test," acting NTSB Chairman Mark Rosenker said.
Investigators considered not only the possible extra weight from the passengers, but also weight added from recent changes to the boat, such as a larger engine and a wood-Fiberglas replacement for a canvas canopy. Investigators also examined the effects of weight suddenly shifting to one side, a possible cause of the accident.
NTSB spokesman Terry Williams said investigators also will put the Ethan Allen back in the water as part of the probe, but gave no details. The boat Wednesday remained in the airport hangar where it has been since being hauled from the lake Monday.
The V-shaped hull of the vessel appeared to be structurally intact, as were the hard-top canopy, steering wheel, throttle and gauges. Three of the 14 windows were missing, and two cracks could be seen in one of the side panels above the hull on the left side — the side the boat rolled onto.
A dozen orange life vests were stacked on some of the benches, and one was stuffed above a raised glass window. No one was wearing a vest when the boat overturned.
Four of the 27 people brought to Glens Falls Hospital on Sunday remained hospitalized Tuesday.
The Coast Guard has known for some time that its weight requirements are outdated, but it did not take action until the NTSB warned about the problem after a water taxi sank in Baltimore last year, killing five people, Coast Guard spokeswoman Angela McArdle said.
The Coast Guard awarded a contract a few weeks ago to a research firm to determine how increasing the average weight per passenger would affect vessels around the country, she said.
Asked why the Coast Guard did not move more quickly, McArdle said: "It has such wide-ranging implications. You need to address the economic impact on the industry, looking at the scope. It's not something where we can just say, `Now passenger ferries must carry 20 fewer people."'
McArdle said it was too early to say when a new regulation would be drawn up or what the new weight standard might be.
After a 2003 commuter plane crash that killed 21 people in North Carolina, the Federal Aviation Administration raised its summertime weight average from 160 pounds per person to 174, including carry-on baggage.