This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

A survivor who lost nine of her relatives when the duck boat they were travelling aboard on an US lake has said the captain told passengers not to bother putting on life jackets.

Tia Coleman told the Indianapolis television station WXIN that she and a nephew were the only survivors among 11 relatives on the boat, which went down in bad weather on Table Rock lake in Branson, Missouri, on Thursday, killing 17 people.

Coleman said she had lost all her children in the deadliest accident of its kind in the US in nearly two decades. She also said the captain had told passengers they would not need life jackets. By the time of the accident it was too late, she said.

Ripley Entertainment, the owner of Ride the Ducks of Branson, was yet to respond to Coleman’s claims on Saturday.

The company’s president, Jim Pattison, told CBS on Friday that the boats had life jackets on board but passengers were not legally required to wear them.

Play Video 0:33 Footage captures Missouri tourist boat capsizing – video

It has been claimed that Coleman’s family would not have been on the ill-fated trip but for a ticket mix-up.

Tracy Beck, of Kansas City, Missouri, said she recalled the family members waiting in line. After they stopped for a picture, she said a ticket inspector realised that they should have boarded at a different location and reassigned them.

The Branson community hosted two vigils on Friday night, one in the car park outside the duck tour business and another at a local church. The Rev Zachary Klein told mourners that he had no words of comfort to offer the families of victims “because there simply are no words to comfort them”.

An initial investigation into the accident has blamed thunderstorms and winds that approached hurricane strength, but it is not clear why the amphibious vehicle had ventured on to the lake in the first place. The risk of severe weather was apparent hours before the boat left shore.

The National Weather Service in Springfield, about 40 miles north of Branson, issued a severe thunderstorm watch for its immediate area on Thursday, saying winds of up to 70 mph were likely. It followed up at 6:32pm with a severe thunderstorm warning for three counties that included Branson and the lake. The boat went down about 40 minutes later, shortly after 7pm.

“When we issue a warning, it means take action,” said meteorologist Kelsey Angle.

Suzanne Smagala, a spokeswoman for Ripley Entertainment, said the company was assisting authorities with their inquiries. She said it was the company’s only accident in more than 40 years of operation.

Pattison told CBS the boat “shouldn’t have been in the water” given the conditions on the lake.



“To the best of our knowledge, and we don’t have a lot of information now, but it was a fast-moving storm that came out of basically nowhere is sort of the verbal analysis I’ve got,” he said.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Rescue personnel gather after the ‘duck boat’ capsized and sank on Table Rock lake in Missouri. Photograph: Social Media/Reuters

Two crew members and 29 passengers were aboard the pleasure cruise. Seven of the 14 survivors were hurt when the vessel sank. The captain survived, authorities said.



Brayden Malaske, of Harrah, Oklahoma, boarded a replica 19th-century paddle-wheeler known as the Branson Belle on the same lake just before the storm hit.

At the time the water seemed calm and no one was worried about the weather but “it suddenly got very dark,” he said.

A video Malaske shot from the deck of the Belle shows the duck boat struggling through the choppy lake, with water only inches from its windows.

Originally designed for the military to transport troops and supplies in the second world war, duck boats have been involved in other serious accidents in the past, involving the deaths of more than 40 people since 1999.

“Duck boats are death traps,” said Andrew Duffy, a lawyer whose Philadelphia law firm handled litigation related to two fatal duck boat accidents there. “They’re not fit for water or land because they are half car and half boat.”

Five college students were killed in Seattle in 2015 when a duck boat collided with a bus, and 13 people died in 1999 when another sank near Hot Springs, Arkansas.