Duck boat crash: Are minimum requirements enough?
July 9, 2010 by Fred HosierPosted in: Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Investigations, Latest News & Views, Transportation safety, What Would You Do?
PDF As a safety pro, you’ve probably contemplated this question: Are minimum government regulations enough to keep my employees and/or customers safe? It’s a question that probably should be asked in connection with the sinking of a tourist-filled duck boat in Philadelphia that killed two passengers.
The boat, with 35 passengers and two crew, stalled in the Delaware River after the vehicle caught fire.
As the boat was sitting in the river, waiting for help, it was struck by a barge being pushed by a tug boat. Two passengers drowned in the Delaware River.
Accounts from passengers say they had less than a minute to get life jackets on children. However, local media report that the duck boat was sitting powerless for 15 minutes before the collision occurred.
A Pennsylvania regulation requires children 12 and younger to wear life jackets on recreational vehicles. That rule doesn’t apply to the Ride the Duck tours.
For commercial vehicles, such as the duck boats, children don’t have to wear the life jackets. The company just has to have enough life vests on board for everyone.
Chris Edmonton, director of boating safety at the Boat US Foundation, said he assumed the duck boat captain would have asked the passengers to don their jackets once the vessel lost power.
“That’s what I would have done, but he is not legally required to have them do it,” Edmonton told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Questions remain about how much time the two crew members had to react once the duck’s engine failed.
So, how can you use this story in safety training?
The investigation into this case will surely look into how the two duck tour employees reacted when the engine unexpectedly failed.
Safety training for normal operating conditions is one thing. But how would your employees react to something unexpected?
Have you ever given workers a safety scenario during training and asked them how they’d handle it? Let us know in the Comments Box below.
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Tags: duck boat crash, government regulations, keep employees safe
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July 9th, 2010 at 6:07 am
[...] Duck boat crash: Are minimum requirements enough … Posted in industrial safety | Tags: customers-safe, employees, industrial safety, [...]
July 13th, 2010 at 8:51 am
These DUKW vehicles had a horible safety record during WWII; is anybody really surprised that they still do not have an excess buyancy if there is a leak or in heavy waters? The coast guard and other regulators should mandate not only life preservers be worn by everyone during the whole over-the-water trip but also there should be a prohibition against the awning placed over the vehicle that traps persons in sinkings of these vehicles. Also, contributing factor to this incident is that the vehicle lost power in a comercial traffic lane, there was apparently no way to notify the tug captain of the obstruction. Perhaps that the passenger vehicles traveling across commerical lanes be required to use visible beacons or have warning sirens to alert the comercial traffic of their presence.
July 13th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Common sense tells you to be as safe as possible….if you’re going out on the water, put a life vest on, no matter the minimum regulations.
July 20th, 2010 at 10:35 am
I agree John B, people need to start taking responsibility for their own lives and the lives of their children. If I were on the boat, and had children under my supervision, they would have had their life jackets on as soon as we got on the water.
The more you require or dumb things down, the lazier and less responsible people will get. It’s endless.
July 25th, 2010 at 6:15 pm
All I keep hearing about is what the Duck Boat did or failed to do. Does the tugboat captain have any accountability in this tragic accident? If that Duck Boat was stalled out there for 10 minutes, wouldn’t the tug captain have seen it long before he hit it? I haven’t heard anything from the Tugboat captain or company about what the captain was doing during this whole affair. I, for one, would like to hear both sides of this story!
July 26th, 2010 at 7:28 am
If I was deciding proper procedures I would have looked beyond the minimum, and looked at what actions would actually keep people safe. Common sense should have dictated a policy of life jackets on anyone under 12, or with limited mobility. In the event of any emergency procedures should have called for the immediate use of life jackets for everyone; and they should have been located within easy reach by every passenger. Of course considering the DUKW, life jackets would have been worn by everyone, period. I would certainly consider the company involved negligent in his situation.
While it is easy to say the passengers should have been responsible enough to see the need for life jackets, it is also true to say they would expect a company to be taking proper safety precautions.