New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno said all 180 passengers and crew aboard the American Heritage survived after a tanker collision on the Mississippi River.
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A tanker that apparently lost its steering hit a docked river cruise boat in New Orleans on Friday, and Mayor Helena Moreno said all passengers and crew survived the crash.
Moreno said the American Heritage had 180 people aboard and that a massive rescue operation followed when the ship took on water and began to topple over.
At a news conference, Moreno said, “We have zero people unaccounted for, which truly is a miracle on the Mississippi,” as rescuers and others cheered.
Moreno said 32 people were taken to hospital, and none of them had critical injuries.
The boat began listing within minutes and eventually flipped while emergency workers were still trying to get everyone off. Dozens of people on board and at least two police officers were dragged from the Mississippi River onto nearby ships.
Coast Guard Capt. Melanie Burnham said it appeared the tanker had “some type of loss of steering,” but the exact cause of the crash was unknown.
U.S. authorities said the National Transportation Safety Board planned to investigate, though members were initially unable to reach New Orleans because flights nationwide were grounded due to communications problems at regional air traffic control centres.
Cruise officials brought uninjured passengers to a nearby auditorium and carried out a roll call to ensure everyone was accounted for. Moreno said many people lost identification and even car keys in the disaster.
The American Heritage is built in 2015, operates under American Cruise Lines, and can hold up to 150 passengers. The cruise was described as an eight-day trip to destinations along the Mississippi River in Louisiana and Mississippi, with a final destination in New Orleans.
A maritime law expert at Tulane University said videos of the crash suggested a catastrophic system failure aboard the vessel, and that the tanker appeared to be travelling upriver slowly as it struck the boat.
The tanker, Atlantic Asphalt, was owned by Nave Shipping SA, registered in Monrovia, Liberia, according to the International Maritime Organization, and described as a subsidiary of the China State Shipbuilding Corporation. The vessel is used to carry asphalt and bitumen.
China State Shipbuilding Corp. did not respond to a request for comment made on Friday afternoon.
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