Tanker T-bones docked cruise ship on Mississippi in New Orleans
32 hospitalized as all aboard accounted for after vessel rolls onto its side, mayor hails 'miracle' while investigators probe steering failure
Images
Emergency personnel on the scene after a tanker crashed into a river cruise ship in New Orleans on Friday. Photograph: Matthew Hinton/AP
theguardian.com
A tanker struck a docked river cruise ship on the Mississippi in New Orleans on Friday afternoon, sending dozens of people into the water before the vessel rolled onto its side. All 129 passengers and an unknown number of crew aboard the American Heritage were accounted for, and 32 people were taken to hospital with injuries officials described as mostly bumps and bruises.
The tanker, the Atlantic Asphalt, T-boned the cruise ship at about 12:30pm, roughly two hours after the American Heritage had docked to begin disembarking passengers. Video obtained from Barry Kern, proprietor of the Mardi Gras World tourist attraction near the scene, shows the cruise ship slowly rolling onto its struck side; witness Jamie Holford told local NBC affiliate WDSU it took 15 minutes from impact to the rollover.
New Orleans mayor Helena Moreno called the outcome a 'miracle on the Mississippi' at a news conference near the scene, crediting a multi-agency rescue effort. Tugboat crews could be seen pulling people in lifejackets from the water — no small feat in a river with infamously perilous currents. None of the hospitalized injuries were critical, and no one was killed.
The cause remains under investigation. Moreno said officials would explore whether the tanker suffered a loss of steering before the collision, a theory floated earlier by an emergency response source but not immediately confirmed. Tracking data from marinetraffic.com showed the Atlantic Asphalt's path as seemingly uneventful around the challenging river bend near Algiers Point, until it veered to starboard just after passing under the Crescent City Connection bridge.
That detail nearly mattered far more. The two-span cantilever bridge linking New Orleans' central business district and Algiers carries an estimated 160,000 cars daily. 'This is obviously a really bad incident,' Martin J Davies, a maritime law expert at Tulane University, told local Fox affiliate WVUE. 'But it could also have struck the bridge, which it didn't.'
The American Heritage is operated by American Cruise Lines; the Port of New Orleans confirmed the passenger count. Officials did not immediately say what the tanker was carrying or how the steering failure, if confirmed, occurred on a vessel that had just navigated one of the river's most difficult bends.