'Sinking Coffins': Family That Lost 9 Wants Duck Boats Banned
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (CBS News/AP) -- The owners and operators of a tourist boat that sank this month in Missouri, killing 17 people, put profits over people's safety when they decided to put the Ride the Ducks boat on a lake despite design problems and warnings of severe weather, a new lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City seeks $100 million in damages on behalf of two of nine members of an Indiana family who died when the tourist boat sank July 19 at Table Rock Lake near Branson. Others killed were from Arkansas, Illinois and Missouri.
"Duck boats are sinking coffins," attorney Robert J. Mongeluzzi said at a Monday news conference, announcing details of the lawsuit. "[Family members] have asked that this lawsuit lead the charge to ban duck boats so they no longer kill their passengers and the children who ride them."
"This tragedy was the predictable and predicted result of decades of unacceptable, greed-driven, and willful ignorance of safety by the Duck Boat industry in the face of specific and repeated warnings that their Duck Boats are death traps for passengers and pose grave danger to the public on water and on land," the lawsuit alleges.
Ripley Entertainment Inc., Ride the Ducks International, Ride the Ducks of Branson, the Herschend Family Entertainment Corp., and Amphibious Vehicle Manufacturing are named in the lawsuit, which was filed by a team led by a Philadelphia-based legal firm that has litigated previous lawsuits involving duck boats. The legal team planned a news conference Monday morning.
A Ripley spokeswoman said in a statement Monday that the company remains "deeply saddened" by the accident and supportive of the affected families. She said the company would not comment further because a National Transportation Safety Board is still underway and no conclusions have been reached.
The lawsuit says the boat operators violated the company's own policies by putting the boat into the water despite the weather warnings. It also says the captain violated protocol by not telling passengers to put on life jackets when the water got rough and instead lowering plastic side curtains, "thus further entrapping passengers in the soon-to-sink vessel."
Related: Boston Tourists Riding Duck Boats Say 'We Felt Very Safe'
The lawsuit cites an August 2017 report from private inspector Steve Paul , who looked at two dozen of the duck boats. The report warned Ripley Entertainment that the vessels' engines — and pumps that remove water from their hulls — were susceptible to failing in bad weather. It also accuses the defendants of ignoring warnings the NTSB issued in 2000 that the vehicles, which are designed to operate on land and water, should be upgraded to ensure the boats remain upright and floating in bad weather.
The 2000 recommendation from the NTSB was issued after a duck boat sank May 1, 1999, in Arkansas, killing 13 people.
"Since 1999, there have been 42 deaths associated with duck boats.... 60 million people would die if cars were as dangerous as duck boats," Mongeluzzi said.
When Robert McDowell, then-president of Ride the Ducks Branson, responded that upgrades would require significant costs, NTSB Chairman Jim Hall said the recommendations were made because the agency believed "immediate action was necessary to avoid additional loss of life." The lawsuit says the defendants ignored the warnings.
It also alleges McDowell designed and developed the stretch duck boats, including the Stretch Duck O7 that sank, despite having no engineering training.
The lawsuit cites a deadly incident in Boston involving a duck boat that occurred on land. Allison Warmuth, 28, was killed after colliding with a Boston Duck Boat Tours vehicle while riding on a moped on Beacon and Charles Streets on April 30, 2016.
In the wake of the tragedy in the Missouri lake, Boston Duck Tours said it continuously monitors weather conditions to keep riders safe.
"At Boston Duck Tours, the safety of our guests and our employees is our number one priority and will continue to work closely with our partners at the US Coast Guard, Department of Public Utilities, Boston Hackney Division and Department of Transportation to ensure we maintain these safety standards," the company said in a statement.
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