Tourist boat capsizes in storm, killing 17 in Missouri

(Reuters) - Divers on Friday pulled the last bodies from the wreckage of a “duck boat” that sank a day earlier during a storm in a lake near a popular Missouri destination, killing 17 people in one of the deadliest U.S. tourist incidents in years.

The World War Two-style amphibious vehicle was filled with 31 passengers including children when a microburst storm hit Table Rock Lake outside Branson, Missouri. A video of the incident showed it battered by waves.

Duck boats have been involved in a string of deadly incidents that have killed more than three dozen people across the United States over the past two decades, by drowning and in crashes on land.

Wendy Doucey, an office manager at the Stone County sheriff’s office, said divers on Friday morning recovered the last four bodies from the sunken duck boat, 80 feet (24 m) under water.

“It’s important that we find out for sure what events did occur,” Missouri Governor Michael Parson said at a Friday morning news conference. “Today it’s just still early.”

The incident began around 7 p.m. (0000 GMT) on Thursday after thunderstorms rolled through the area, when two duck boats were out on the lake, officials said. Both headed back to shore but only one made it.

“From what I understand there was life jackets in the duck,” Stone County Sheriff Doug Rader told the press conference. He declined to say whether passengers had been wearing them.

The National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Coast Guard are investigating, officials said. Rader noted that the boat’s captain survived the sinking but the driver did not.

Officials did not comment on the identities or ages of the other people who drowned.

Rick Kettles, the owner of the Lakeside Resort General Store and Restaurant, said he had never before seen conditions on Table Rock Lake like Thursday’s.

“I am 54 and I started coming here when I was 6 or 7 years old. I have been on my lake most of my life and I have never seen it like this,” Kettles said. “I am trying to figure out why the boats were out there. I don’t get it, having a captain’s license myself.”

A microburst is a severe, localized wind gust, blasting down from a thunderstorm, typically covering an area less than 2.5 miles (4 km) in diameter and lasting less than five minutes.

The company that owned the duck boat, Ripley Entertainment, said it was working with families of the victims.

“Our number one priority is the families and our employees that were affected,” spokeswoman Suzanne Smagala-Potts said on Thursday.

Table Rock Lake is a 67-square-mile (174 sq km) reservoir on the White River.

Duck vehicles are modeled on the landing craft used in the D-Day invasion and used on sightseeing tours around the world.

Thirteen people died in 1999 when the duck boat they were riding near Hot Springs, Arkansas, sank suddenly. Following that incident, the NTSB warned the boats’ canopy roofs presented a hazard, making it difficult for people, even those wearing a life jacket, to escape when the craft begins to sink.

“You drown if you do, you drown if you don’t,” said Robert Mongeluzzi, a Philadelphia lawyer who has represented victims of other duck boat disasters.

The company that builds ducks, Ride the Ducks International LLC, agreed in 2016 to pay a $1 million fine after one of the vehicles collided with a bus in Seattle, killing five international students.

The company admitted to failing to comply with U.S. vehicle manufacturing rules.

Two tourists died in Philadelphia in 2010 when the duck boat they were riding in was struck by a tugboat on the Delaware River.

Branson is a family-friendly tourist destination whose attractions include “Dolly Parton’s Stampede” dinner theater, the Amazing Acrobats of Shanghai and a Titanic museum with a model of the sunken vessel’s front half.