Officials: Duck Boat Radioed Tug, Got No Reply

In the minutes before a barge rammed into an idled tour boat, dumping more than 30 tourists overboard and leaving two Hungarian visitors dead, radio calls from the tourist craft to the tug boat pushing the barge went unanswered, the National Transportation Safety Board said Monday.

The crew of the tug Caribbean Sea included a master, a mate, an engineer and two deck hands, the NTSB said in a news release. One mate refused to meet with investigators, it said.

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One of the deck hands was also asleep at the time, but it wasn't immediately clear whether he was on the clock.

The tour boat's mate and a deck hand both said their radio calls to the tug "received no response," the NTSB said. The agency said it also interviewed others aboard different boats who said they "recalled hearing" the duck boat's radio calls.

The tour vessel was an amphibious "duck boat," which has wheels that allow it to travel on land and in water. The duck boat in Wednesday's accident had entered the water when an apparent mechanical problem left it adrift in the path of the barge.

The collision flipped the boat and dumped 35 passengers and two crew members into the Delaware. Two Hungarians visiting Philadelphia as part of a language program, 20-year-old Szabolcs Prem and 16-year-old Dora Schwendtner, were missing for two days before their bodies were found.