Two tourist duck boats, modeled on the amphibious craft used in the Second World War, were out on Table Rock Lake in Branson, Missouri, on a summer evening when the National Weather Service issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 6:32. The boats carry passengers on an hour-long tour, starting on land, before they go down a boat launch ramp to start a 20-minute circle around the lake. The tours are popular with families; operators give children yellow duck whistles that make a quacking noise.
About half an hour after the warning, one of the boats made it back to land. The other, hit by 75-mph wind gusts and swamped by five-foot waves, sank, killing 17 people, including nine from one family.
The New York Times reports that dock hands at a nearby marina got on small boats and rushed out to help when they saw the duck boat going down. They pulled several people from the water; they were all dead, and no one was wearing a life jacket. The dock hands said it was the roughest conditions they had ever seen on the lake.
And USA Today reports that federal officials have warned about the dangers of duck boats for 20 years, and has called for changes in the way they operate. The National Transportation Safety Board has already found that they can lose buoyancy too easily when they take on water. The NTSB also said there is has been a lack of oversight because of conflicting regulations covering the land-and-sea craft. Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/us/duck-boat-branson-accident.html
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/07/20/duck-boat-amphibious-vehicle-regulations/807244002/
