Hopes fade for two missing tourists

With hopes fading, Coast Guard, police and fire boats pressed ahead today with a search for two foreign visitors still missing after their disabled tour boat was run over by a barge and sank in the Delaware River.

Federal officials in the meantime started an investigation to determine how the barge hit the Ride the Ducks amphibious vehicle on a clear, sunny day in the main shipping channel on Wednesday afternoon.

A key issue facing investigators is whether the crew on tug pushing the empty barge had an active watch in place before it slammed into the tour boat.

Officials earlier today abandoned plans to send divers to examine the sunken vessel, citing strong currents and zero visibility in the murky river bottom.

Still missing are 16-year-old girl and a 20-year-old man, both part of a group from Hungary that was on the ill-fated tour.

"We don't think there's a lot of hope, but we haven't suspended the active search," said Cmdr. Ben Cooper, of the Coast Guard. "We believe we know who the individuals are. We are contacting next of kin which is complicated by the international issue."

Thirty-five other people were pulled from the water after the city-owned sludge barge plowed into the tour boat.

Chris Herschend, president of Ride the Ducks, said the company had suspended operations nationwide.

Herschend, who would not discuss details about the investigation, said the firm was offering counseling to survivors.

Lt. Cmdr. Todd Gatlin, the Coast Guard's regional deputy commander for the region, said earlier he still held out hope the two missing tourists were alive.

But he acknowledged they may be dead, possibly trapped in the wreckage of the amphibious vehicle in about 40 feet of water.

Philadelphia Police diver Lt. Andrew Napoli said this morning divers had located the boat on Wednesday but that "there was absolutely no visibility."

Still, he said, they had tagged the boat to establish its location.

He said that if the two missing tourists are dead and not in the boat, their bodies might not surface for about three days.

Boats focused the search for the pair between the Benjamin Franklin and Walt Whitman Bridges, officials said.

Gatlin said the owners of the sunken boat now will have to develop a plan to recover the vessel. Any plan will have to be approved by the Coast Guard and the National Transportation Safety Board, the lead investigating agency.

Officials from the heavy duty towing firm hired to raise the boat from the Delaware arrived at Penn's Landing later in the day.

Adam Heffelfinger, heavy duty recovery operator from EVB Towing in Whitemarsh Township, said he was waiting for marching orders from the Coast Guard and Ride the Ducks officials before starting work.

Heffelfinger said a large crane on a barge would be used to raise the boat from the river bottom, after which it would be taken to a landing spot and loaded onto a tractor-trailer.

Gatlin said the boat had a World War II era hull but had been rebuilt over the years.

The search for the boat was suspended Wednesday night because of darkness.

A Coast Guard boat remained in the area where the vessel went down through the night.

As a prelude to their investigation, four NTSB officials visited the waterfront this morning to view the scene.

The group is expected to spend up to a week in the city both investigating the cause of the accident and developing recommendations to help prevent a repeat incident.

Read this morning's Inquirer story about the tour-boat crash at http://bit.ly/9PMUUz