Boat That Sank, Killing 20, Lacked a 2nd Crewman, Officials Say

[eric myers 2]

October 4, 2005
Boat That Sank, Killing 20, Lacked a 2nd Crewman, Officials Say
By MICHAEL COOPER
LAKE GEORGE, N.Y., Oct. 3 - The tour boat that capsized in Lake George on Sunday, killing 20 elderly sightseers from Michigan and Ohio, did not have the two crew members aboard required by its license, officials said Monday.

The boat, the Ethan Allen, was carrying 47 passengers and one crew member - its operator - when it sank, investigators said. But the boat's license requires it to have at least two crew members - one operator and one other hand - whenever it carries more than 21 passengers, said Wendy Gibson, a spokeswoman for the state's Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, which regulates commercial boats.

Monday night, the state suspended the operating licenses of the five other cruise boats owned by Shoreline Cruises, which owns the Ethan Allen, citing its apparent failure to abide by the staffing requirements. Law enforcement officials said that investigators would examine the issue to see whether any criminal laws had been broken. Officials at Shoreline Cruises did not return calls seeking comment Monday night.

It was unclear whether having a second member of the crew aboard the Ethan Allen could have altered the deadly outcome on one of the state's most popular and scenic lakes, given the speed with which the boat tipped over and sank and the fact that none of the elderly tourists aboard, some of whom used walkers, were wearing life jackets. But it is conceivable that a second pair of hands could have helped save lives in the water, or taken some action to help steady the boat before it capsized.

The authorities initially reported that 21 people had died, but on Monday they said that 20 of the 47 tourists on board the boat had perished.

The revelation that the Ethan Allen was not carrying the two crew members required by its license came as a team of divers laboriously raised the boat from the murky lake bottom 70 feet below the surface, and as local, state and federal investigators worked to determine what caused the boat to capsize on such a fair day.

And it came as the grieving relatives of the victims began to make their way here from Michigan to reclaim the dead, and as most of the survivors of the accident - men and women, married couples and neighbors, all of whom had spent a week on a fall foliage tour of New England - began to make their way home to Michigan by bus. Officials at Glens Falls Hospital said that eight people remained hospitalized as of 4:45 pm.

The captain of the boat, Richard Paris, 74, told investigators that it capsized after he tried to maneuver into a big wave or the wake of some other boat, officials said. "He tells us that the boat got into some waves, and a wake; he attempted to steer out of it, and in doing so, the boat tipped over onto its side and rolled over," said Sheriff Larry Cleveland of Warren County, who is leading the investigation.

But Sheriff Cleveland said it was unclear whether there were any boats in the vicinity capable of creating a big enough wake to capsize a tour boat.

Mr. Paris, a retired New York state trooper who has been a boat pilot for about 20 years, told a reporter Monday night that his employers and attorneys had advised him not to discuss the accident. "I did what I could, but it wasn't enough for some of them," he said, looking distraught as he ventured out onto his back deck while his wife, Ruth, cooked dinner.

Investigators were trying Monday to determine what role, if any, the boat's seating may have played in the sinking of the Ethan Allen.

Citing the accounts of survivors, law enforcement officials said in the afternoon that they believed that the boat's seats were not anchored to the deck. They also said that the first wave to hit the boat appeared to have sent many of the elderly passengers sliding down the deck in their seats, upsetting the balance of the boat and possibly tipping it over. But when the boat was brought to the surface, officials found wooden benches fixed to the floor.

Gov. George E. Pataki, who came here Monday, called the sinking of the Ethan Allen "a tragedy of immense proportions" and pledged a thorough investigation.

"We have an obligation to make sure that every stone is turned over, every nook and cranny looked at, to make sure we determine why this happened, and to take any actions we can possibly take to prevent it from happening again," Mr. Pataki said.

Mark V. Rosenker, the acting chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that seven investigators were beginning the painstaking work of trying to piece together the causes of the accident. "It's much too early determine what happened out there in the lake," he said at a morning briefing.

A message on the answering machine at Shoreline Cruises said, "Our Shoreline family is deeply saddened by yesterday's tragedy aboard the Ethan Allen," and went on to say that the company was cooperating fully with investigators from the safety board.

With the raising of the Ethan Allen, the investigators will have something to work with. Divers - including some of the state police divers who helped salvage the remains of T.W.A. Flight 800 from the Atlantic Ocean in 1996 - went to the bottom of the lake with giant balloonlike bags they called lift bags. Once the bags were in place, they were inflated, and the 38-foot boat slowly rose.

The boat's sopping wet American flag was one of the first things visible above the surface of the shimmering water at 4:30 p.m.

For the survivors, the capsizing was a terror that they are unlikely to forget.

Jeane Siler, 76, of Trenton, Mich., had come on the tour to unwind from the stress of volunteering for the American Red Cross in Louisiana, where she helped in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. "And we were having a beautiful trip," she said. "The weather was superb. Everything we did was joyous. We were all friends."

"I was talking with a friend, having a conversation," she recalled. "If there was a wake, I wasn't necessarily aware of it. I did see the boat turn. It turned into the wave then I noticed the cabin floor was getting wet. And why, I don't know, but I stood up. And I didn't know if I jumped out or if I was thrown from the boat when it tipped."

Then pandemonium broke loose.

"All of my friends around me, some of them, not being able to swim, were fumbling about," Mrs. Siler recalled. "Some of them were screaming. And those that could were trying to hang onto the side of the boat."

Someone grabbed her foot. A woman began screaming. "I asked her not to scream because she was panicking some of the other people," Mrs. Siler said. "She was just terrified."

"When I got out of the boat, I thanked God for letting me live," Mrs. Siler said. "And I prayed that my friends would all get off the boat. And I kind of went numb. I know I started to tremble. I couldn't stop trembling."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Al Baker, Sewell Chan, John Holl and Donna Liquori.