20 Die As New Your Tour Boat Capsizes

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Published - Oct 03 2005 09:43AM CDT || CNN

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(CNN) Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will try Monday to determine how and why a tour boat capsized on an upstate New York lake, killing 20 passengers.

Some of the 47 passengers aboard the boat were part of a group of elderly people from Michigan, Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland said.

"Some were using walkers and wheelchairs and were not able to get around easily," he added.

Also aboard was the boat's captain.

The 40-foot boat, the Ethan Allen, overturned Sunday off Cramer's Point, on the western shore of Lake George.

The boat was navigating calm, 70-foot-deep waters on a clear, 69-degree day when at 2:55 p.m. the vessel apparently rolled over after being hit by the wake of a larger craft, Cleveland said.

"We know this happened very quickly," Cleveland told CNN. "He (the boat's captain) didn't have time to put out a mayday call by radio. He didn't even have time hardly to alert the passengers of the potential problem that was about to befall them."

The boat is operated by Shoreline Cruises, based in Lake George, New York, about 50 miles north of Albany. Both the operators and the captain, who was not hurt, "are cooperating with us fully," Cleveland said.

Though all the survivors were taken to nearby Glens Falls Hospital to be checked out, only as many as six appeared to need immediate treatment, he said.

"I'm not aware of any such incident of this magnitude in 37 years I've been on this job," said Wayne Bennett, superintendent of the state police. "This is unprecedented."

The passengers were drawn from four Detroit-area towns, including the suburb of Trenton, where 14 members of a local travel group left from a senior center Tuesday for a weeklong trip, said Patrick Hawkins, the town's parks and recreation director.

At least six of them were known to have survived late Sunday, he said.

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QUOTE\"Word is getting around now,\" Hawkins said. \"We have a very close senior community. ... There's a lot of shock and concern.\"  

He said authorities have contacted the relatives and family members of those on the trip and urged them to call police and hospitals in the Lake George area.  

Residents of the Detroit suburbs of Whitmore Lake, Livonia and Warren were also believed to have been on the trip.  

Hawkins said his department helped seniors get together for discount rates from the tour company, which has offices in Detroit and two Canadian cities.  

Witness Andrea Sause said she assisted with the rescue efforts.  

\"I saw like 20 people that were laying on the grass that were covered. And they were dead,\" said Sause, who was cleaning rooms in a nearby building when she heard ambulances and went to investigate with her father.  

\"We were helping, bringing blankets, and we were pulling the elderly out of the boat,\" she told a reporter. \"They were all frantic, and a lot of them had chest problems.\"  

Her father, Frank Sause, said he helped take people from a rescue boat, and \"most of them looked unconscious.\"  

The survivors, he added, \"were all pretty well shook up.\"  

Joanne Rahal said she was on her boat with her children when they saw smoke and went to investigate.  

\"There was all these people in the water,\" she said. \"A lot of them had life jackets. Some of them didn't, so we were trying to throw life jackets and get as many people on our boat as we could.\"  

Cleveland said it did not appear to him that anyone had time to put on a flotation device.  

\"I did not see anyone that had one on,\" he said.  

According to The Associated Press, adult boat passengers are not required to wear life jackets in New York. Boats must carry at least one life jacket per person, however.  

Rescue workers attempted to turn over the boat to save anyone who may have been trapped underneath, Rahal said.  

\"But then, when they did that, the boat started to sink all the way ... There was people floating in the water.\"  

In all, she said, she took into her boat seven people, two of whom were unconscious. Her attempts at CPR did not appear to have been successful, she added.  

The captain was an experienced pilot who was \"very distraught\" over the disaster, Cleveland said. There was no suspicion that alcohol or drugs were involved, he said.  

He said authorities are conducting a criminal investigation into the incident to preserve evidence. But he added, \"Preliminarily, we don't believe there has been any criminal conduct here.\"


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