Families of two of the nine that died when a duck boat sank in a Missouri lake, have filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit wanting $100 million in damages from the owner of the boat.
According to the lawsuit, the fatal accident was caused by “unacceptable ignorance of safety by the Duck Boat industry.” Thus, the families are seeking $100 million against the owners of the duck boat.
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The families also called the authorities to ban duck boats, as the families’ attorneys indicated 26 deaths linked to six previous duck boat accidents.
As the families said, duck boats are “death traps for passengers”, as the boat canopies set passenger safety at risk. As for this incident, the lawsuit claims that the duck boat operators did not take into consideration the recommendations to remove the canopies.
In addition, the lawsuit blames the owners of the duck boat that despite being warned that engines and bilge pumps might fail in bad weather, they did not take measures to ensure the safety of the passengers.
Finally, the suit alleged that the company knew about the bad weather conditions, but when the boat experienced them, the captain did not tell passengers to put on their life jackets, but he lowered the side curtains, “further entrapping passengers in the soon-to-sink vessel.”
Last week, a private contractor hired to inspect the duck boats, Steven Paul, said that he had seen a problem in the sunken boat that could have caused problems and informed the operator.
Steven Paul examined the boat in August 2017 and found a problem with the exhaust which was in front of the vessel. As he said, the exhaust needs to come out past the passenger compartment.
As he said to CNN, in the duck boat that sunk, the exhaust was coming out the front and going down below the water line, with the waves pushing water up in that exhaust. If water would get in the exhaust, the engine would eventually stop.
Mr. Paul informed the operator of this issue and highlighted that the regulation of duck boats has to be changed.
