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I don't know who else has followed this story over the past day.

Duck boats are not particularly seaworthy. They got caught in a sudden storm on the open lake. One of two boats managed to make shore. The other foundered.

It's an absolute tragedy, and I hope there is no more increase in the death toll.

One significant factor is that allegedly, the boat's captain told the passengers not to put on lifejackets.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/20/missouri-mass-casualty-incident-after-tourist-boat-capsizes-on-table-lake

Survival time in the water is tripled by wearing a proper flotation aid.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
One significant factor is that allegedly, the boat's captain told the passengers not to put on lifejackets.

Drop the in the middle of the lake and let him drown like the innocent victims he killed.

Well, that's a bit much I think getting sacked and spending some time behind bars is good enough no need to resort to murder boner.

 Cheesecat wrote:
Well, that's a bit much I think getting sacked and spending some time behind bars is good enough no need to resort to murder boner.

His reckless disregard for the safety of the people he was responsible for just killed 17 people, for no reason besides his own sheer idiocy. If he won't continue the tradition of going down with the ship as the price of such utter failure, well, we can always assist him in doing so.

I'm just not a fan of killing people other than in self defense, protecting someone else, abortion (depending on your definition of what a human is) or only able to save so many people and unfortunately not all can make it, I know it's a moral argument and there's no winning with moral

arguments.

Without fuller details its hard to be certain as the writing only gives a very short summary that, at some point, they were told not to get the lifejackets. We've no context as to when this advice was given.

I wonder how they were stored as well, could be that if the boat was rocking around but considered still safe, they might have been told not to get them to avoid people moving around and increasing the instability/increasing chance of falling over or overboard.


More details would be needed then as it does sound like life jackets were not kept near the seats and might have been in a storage container or similar.


Horrible disaster indeed!

 Peregrine wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
Well, that's a bit much I think getting sacked and spending some time behind bars is good enough no need to resort to murder boner.

His reckless disregard for the safety of the people he was responsible for just killed 17 people, for no reason besides his own sheer idiocy. If he won't continue the tradition of going down with the ship as the price of such utter failure, well, we can always assist him in doing so.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Killing someone as a form of punishment is useless. The people who died won't be coming back, and all you get is even more grieving people. Instead, have him pay indemnities to the families of the victims and make sure he never is allowed to work with boats again.
I also heard that the weather was rather bad, but they still went into the water regardless. Given the lack of stability an amphibious vehicle has in the water compared to an actual boat, that is just asking to die. Amphibious vehicles like that are primarily land vehicles, they were never meant to cross large, open bodies of water. I think this accident begs the question of whether tourist tours on such vehicles should be allowed or not.

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Two wrongs don't make a right. Killing someone as a form of punishment is useless. The people who died won't be coming back, and all you get is even more grieving people. Instead, have him pay indemnities to the families of the victims and make sure he never is allowed to work with boats again.
I also heard that the weather was rather bad, but they still went into the water regardless. Given the lack of stability an amphibious vehicle has in the water compared to an actual boat, that is just asking to die. Amphibious vehicles like that are primarily land vehicles, they were never meant to cross large, open bodies of water. I think this accident begs the question of whether tourist tours on such vehicles should be allowed or not.

Actually it's quite useful as a deterrent. Drown this for his malicious disregard for the safety of his passengers and you make it clear that you either save your passengers or go down with the ship trying. And if you think you can save yourself instead of the passengers you get taken back out to correct that problem. So you might as well die trying and keep your honor intact.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Iron_Captain wrote:
Two wrongs don't make a right. Killing someone as a form of punishment is useless. The people who died won't be coming back, and all you get is even more grieving people. Instead, have him pay indemnities to the families of the victims and make sure he never is allowed to work with boats again.
I also heard that the weather was rather bad, but they still went into the water regardless. Given the lack of stability an amphibious vehicle has in the water compared to an actual boat, that is just asking to die. Amphibious vehicles like that are primarily land vehicles, they were never meant to cross large, open bodies of water. I think this accident begs the question of whether tourist tours on such vehicles should be allowed or not.

Actually it's quite useful as a deterrent. Drown this for his malicious disregard for the safety of his passengers and you make it clear that you either save your passengers or go down with the ship trying. And if you think you can save yourself instead of the passengers you get taken back out to correct that problem. So you might as well die trying and keep your honor intact.

Yes, because the best option to ensure that justice prevails is certainly to just take the captain out back and kill him yourself because he didn't drown with his own ship.

This isn't so much justice as straight up vengeance.

This company is about to be shut down. That boat had zero business being on the water, and they are without a doubt liable for everyone of those deaths, possibly criminally.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-44908615

saying nine of the deceased are from the same family.

Missouri Highway Patrol said the ages of the deceased range from one to 70.

The woman who says she lost nine members of her family has been named as Tia Coleman. She is one of two in her family to have survived.

"I lost all my children, I lost my husband, I lost my mother-in-law, I lost my father-in-law, I lost my uncle, I lost my sister-in-law - she was my sister - and I lost my nephew, I'm OK, but this is really hard," she told Fox News.

dreadful.

DUKW vehicles are fine for use on gentle rivers. They are not suited for open water in bad weather.

I don't know if the storm on the lake blew up unexpectedly.

 Cheesecat wrote:
I'm just not a fan of killing people other than in self defense, protecting someone else, abortion (depending on your definition of what a human is) or only able to save so many people and unfortunately not all can make it, I know it's a moral argument and there's no winning with moral

arguments.

Call it 'making sure he never endangers anyone else's life in the same manner ever again'. Because you can be SURE this is not the first time he's told passengers not to bother with life jackets.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
DUKW vehicles are fine for use on gentle rivers. They are not suited for open water in bad weather.

I don't know if the storm on the lake blew up unexpectedly.

You can "see weather coming" in the midwest. Well... they can surprise you, but... they should've had staff monitoring the weather and be prepared to book it for the shores...

FYI: the captain did perish in this accident.
https://stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/i-didn-t-even-sleep-in-branson-a-mix-of/article_8e41b0e1-e55a-51af-ae3d-140a55f8ab52.html

 whembly wrote:
FYI: the captain did perish in this accident.
https://stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/i-didn-t-even-sleep-in-branson-a-mix-of/article_8e41b0e1-e55a-51af-ae3d-140a55f8ab52.html

Unfortunately it was just the driver of the boat who drowned, the captain survived.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
DUKW vehicles are fine for use on gentle rivers. They are not suited for open water in bad weather.

I don't know if the storm on the lake blew up unexpectedly.

The storm itself did. The forecast for the day though had the severe weather forecasted, and the company should have taken proper precautions for it.

I don't think DUKW vehicles are a good idea for tourists. I'd swear I read somewhere that back in WWII when the military was using them they were considered to be deathtraps by the soldiers and marines who rode in them, and that capsizing was a major hazard for them in anything other than completely calm water.

I never thought I'd actually agree with Peregrine about anything in the Dakka OT forums, but I totally agree that that captain should be held criminally liable for every one of those people's deaths, and that execution should be considered. Realistically, I know it won't happen, but maybe we'll get lucky and someone will take the law into their own hands, or maybe the captain will have an "unfortunate accident" or something. And the company that ran the tours should be shut down permanently and there should probably be some kind of repercussions for the owners/operators as well, since they didn't really take the possibility of adverse weather into account.

 whembly wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
DUKW vehicles are fine for use on gentle rivers. They are not suited for open water in bad weather.

I don't know if the storm on the lake blew up unexpectedly.

You can "see weather coming" in the midwest. Well... they can surprise you, but... they should've had staff monitoring the weather and be prepared to book it for the shores...

FYI: the captain did perish in this accident.
https://stltoday.com/news/local/state-and-regional/i-didn-t-even-sleep-in-branson-a-mix-of/article_8e41b0e1-e55a-51af-ae3d-140a55f8ab52.html

There are a lot of times that you cannot see storms coming in the Midwest. We are an area that has sudden tstorms. We have crazy sudden weather.. However, it was on the radar, they should have known.

Also, the captain did not die. Please please please read the articles you post.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
DUKW vehicles are fine for use on gentle rivers. They are not suited for open water in bad weather.

I don't know if the storm on the lake blew up unexpectedly.

yes it was a squall line going through.