Attorneys for duck boat victims say Philadelphia should bar vessels from river as unsafe
PHILADELPHIA - Lawyers for two Hungarian citizens killed in a duck boat accident on a river in Philadelphia are calling for the city and Coast Guard to bar the vessels from returning to the water — which the company says it hopes to do this season.
Mechanical inspections and on-the-water testing are being done on the 15 amphibious Ride The Ducks vehicles licensed for Delaware River operations. A 250-foot (76-meter) barge being pushed by a tug hit the stalled duck boat July 7, plunging 35 passengers and two crew members into the river.
Attorneys for the families of the two people killed cite a federal analysis of a 1999 accident in Arkansas in saying that the vessels are unsafe due to their design and canvas canopies.
