Victims' attorneys urge city to end duck-boats on river

Attorneys for the two Hungarian tourists killed in last month's duck-boat accident on the Delaware River have written to Mayor Nutter and City Council members, seeking to ban the vessels from the river and urging the Nutter administration to hold a public forum on the issue.

The lawyers' letter, dated and hand-delivered on Thursday, cited the May 1999 sinking of a duck boat in Hot Springs, Ark., in which 13 people, including three children, died.

"The Miss Majestic sank in less than a minute because it lacked adequate buoyancy," the letter read. "In lay person's terms, the duck boats, when flooded, sink, rather than float."

The letter was signed by Robert Mongeluzzi and Andrew Duffy of the Center City firm Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky, and by Peter Ronai and Holly Ostrov Ronai of the New York firm Ronai & Ronai.

Mayoral spokesman Doug Oliver said the administration hadn't had a chance to review the letter. "We'll reserve comment until then," he said.

In a press advisory issued last week, officials of Ride the Ducks, which operates the boats, disputed "speculative comments made by various third parties" and said the Arkansas accident had nothing in common with the July 7 collision with a barge on the Delaware.

In any case, the decision to allow the amphibious vessels back in service shouldn't be "made behind closed doors with [duck-boat] industry representatives," Mongeluzzi said yesterday.

"These issues should be debated in a public forum," he said. "I urge Ride the Ducks and the duck-boat industry to show up and answer questions, and I would like that opportunity as well."

In the letter, the lawyers also pointed to a map that appears on the Philadelphia Ride the Ducks Web site showing the route taken by the duck boat in the city. When the vessel enters the Delaware, according to the map, it appears to loop over to the Adventure Aquarium on the New Jersey side of the waterway.

If this is the Ride the Ducks route, that "means that they have been flagrantly operating outside their approved areas," the letter said. Coast Guard guidelines require the duck boats in Philadelphia to stay within 300 feet of the coastline.

Bob Salmon, of Ride the Ducks, strongly denied that implication, saying that the duck boat does not go to New Jersey and stays within the 300 feet.

"All it is is an illustration; it's not to scale," said Salmon, the company's marketing and sales vice president. "It shows some of the sights that we pass by and that we go into the Delaware. That's all. It's just an illustration."

Ride the Ducks and Adventure Aquarium both are owned by Georgia-based Herschend Family Entertainment Corp.