| May 1, 1999 |
Miss Majestic, the Arkansas tourist duck boat, sinks on Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, killing 13. “You can’t believe how fast that thing sank,” says one of the passengers who escaped to safety.
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| July 2 |
After months of planning – and working to help pay their trip-of-a-lifetime expenses - Szeb and Dora excitedly arrive in New York City as members of the Hungarian Bridge-Builders group with the Atlantic Bridge program, a Dutch-based organization that builds bridges of friendship and faith between young people around the world.
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| July 6 |
They are all smiles, having toured sights in New York and New Jersey. Philadelphia-area hosts Jackie and Clint Kennedy welcome the contingent to their suburban Chester County home. Going unnoticed in local newscasts is a story out of Oahu, Hawaii where a tourist duck boat bursts into flames, seriously burning an employee.
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| July 7 |
The 13 Bridge-Builders and seven local hosts visit Historic Philadelphia to see the sights on a Ride the Ducks tour, the quirky attraction that operates on city streets and in the Delaware River. Just before 2 p.m., with 35 passengers on board, Duck Boat 34, shortly after leaving its dock at Penns Landing, is having engine trouble. Its crew drops anchor, tragically in a busy shipping channel, and the sludge barge, Resource, apparently never spots the distressed craft. Pushed by the tug, Caribbean Sea, the barge blindly collides with the helpless duck boat. It immediately begins to sink. Its canvas canopy acts as a cage, trapping under the water some passengers trying to escape. Only Szeb and Dora are not recovered today and fear builds they may not survive.
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| July 8 |
Herschend Entertainment Group, owner of Ride the Ducks, temporarily shuts down all five of the company’s operations.
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| July 9 |
Szeb and Dora’s drowned bodies are recovered from the Delaware River, more than one mile down river from where the boat capsized.
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| July 10 |
While local and federal officials investigate what went horribly wrong, a Memorial Service for Szeb and Dora is held in Philadelphia. Mayor Michael Nutter, Hungarian Ambassador Bela Szombati, and a crowd of devastated mourners lament the tragedy, laying flowers in front of a pictorial display memorializing the two innocent victims.
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| July 12 |
In shock, the Bridge-Builders return to Hungary.
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| July 13 |
The tugboat pilot, represented by a criminal defense attorney, refuses to talk to NTSB investigators when questioned about the incident.
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| July 14 |
News reports say there was no lookout on the barge at the time of the collision. The mate of the short-staffed tugboat is relieved of duty while the official investigation continues. The salvage team begins efforts to raise the duck boat from the river bottom.
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| July 16 |
An out-of-control duck boat in Boston plows through several cars, injuring 5.
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| July 20 |
The City of Philadelphia replaces the tug operator and directs the new company to have lookouts posted on the deck of the barge.
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| July 23 |
Coast Guard releases chilling audio tapes from July 7 of the tugboat operator saying, “We are the ones that, I guess, capsized the duck boat.” Media reports say that the Philadelphia Streets Department failed to prepare tour vehicle safety reports for Ride the Ducks for years as required by law.
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| July 30 |
Plaintiffs co-counsel Ronai, Ronai, and Mongeluzzi, citing the July 7, 2010 collision, and the 1999 duck boat sinking on an Arkansas lake that claimed the lives of 13 passengers, call upon the City and Coast Guard to impose a moratorium on duck boat service on the river until officials say it is absolutely safe to resume operations.
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