Tug mate in Philadelphia duck crash did not put lookout on barge, union official says

The mate piloting a tugboat involved in a fatal accident last week did not station the only other working crew member as a lookout on the barge they were pushing up the Delaware River, a marine union official said Tuesday.

Instead, the deckhand remained in the tug, where he would have been making rounds and tending to anything the mate needed.

Coast Guard regulations, known as the Rules of the Road, say vessels must "maintain a proper lookout by sight." The rules are vague, however, and do not specify what pilots must do to comply.

Whether the tug crew was in the best position to see the disabled Ride the Ducks craft is one of the many questions arising from the accident last Wednesday, which killed two tourists from Hungary.

If the deckhand had been positioned on the barge, for example, he likely would have seen the tourist craft, anchored in the shipping channel with 35 passengers aboard.

But on a clear day, having a lookout on the barge should not have been necessary to spot the vessel and comply with the Coast Guard's safety rules, said Steve Oravets, the director of special projects for the tug crew's union, Local 333, United Marine Division of the International Longshoremen's Association.

In fact, he said, when only one deckhand is on duty, it is safer to have him inside the tug.

"You're just as likely to have something go wrong on the tug. . . . You want to have somebody up on the tug who can smell smoke, stick his head in the engine room," said Oravets, a tug captain for 20 years. "I've had a fire a couple of times and lost steering a couple of times, and I was damn glad I had a guy on board and not way out on the barge."

Oravets, who is based in Staten Island, N.Y., provided the first account of the collision from the tug crew's perspective. On Friday, federal investigators gave a detailed briefing based on interviews with the crew and passengers of the amphibious tourist craft.

Oravets came to Philadelphia shortly after the accident and met with four of the five crew members of the tug, the Caribbean Sea. He said the mate appeared shaken and was on his way home, so he did not try to speak with him.

The captain and deckhand on Duck 34 told investigators that they noticed the barge when it was 400 yards away.

Although there is a blind spot in front of a barge, at 400 yards the mate would have seen Duck 34 from the upper pilot house, Oravets said.

He said the mate may have assumed the vessel was under way and failed to realize it was disabled and anchored in his path.

"He's probably seen them cross his bow a hundred times," he said. "They don't pay attention to the Rules of the Road."

A Ride the Ducks spokesman noted that the group's captains were certified by the Coast Guard and said they followed the Rules of the Road.

It is not known whether the mate saw Duck 34, because he "exercised his Fifth Amendment right" and refused to meet with federal investigators on Saturday, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

Oravets did not know why the mate took the Fifth, but he said criminal charges often were pursued in fatal incidents.

"I assume this investigation is going to crucify the mate because he didn't have a lookout on the barge," Oravets said. "That's typically the case. The poor guy on the boat gets the blame."

Duck 34's captain and deckhand said they shut down their engine and dropped anchor in the shipping channel after seeing and smelling smoke on board, according to the NTSB.

Captain Gary Fox told investigators that he broadcast to nearby vessels on Channel 13 that he had stopped, and that he called the ducks' dispatcher to send another duck to pick up his passengers.

The collision happened from five to 10 minutes later, the NTSB said. When the barge, moving at five knots, drew close, Duck 34's crew tried to radio the tug on Channel 13 and signal the boat with an air horn, which failed.

The tug did not respond to the radio calls, but other vessels in the area reported hearing them, the NTSB said. Duck 34 did not use Channel 16, the emergency frequency monitored by the Coast Guard.

Coast Guard officials also said they did not pick up any radio calls on Channel 13.

Typically, Oravets said, a captain or mate is listening to three radios at the same time. He said the mate could have missed Duck 34's calls.

"He's in the upper pilot house. You're above the exhausts, so you're going to have all that noise," he said.

On tugs with five-man crews, the captain, the engineer, and one deckhand work from 6 a.m. to noon, then rest and sleep for six hours, before working from 6 p.m. to midnight.

From noon to 6 p.m., the mate and the second deckhand are on duty. The collision happened about 2:30 p.m., during the mate's shift at the wheel.

Federal investigators have interviewed the deckhand on duty, as well as the captain and engineer. They did not interview the off-duty deckhand, who was asleep at the time of the collision.

The Caribbean Sea, owned by K-Sea Transportation, was pushing a city-owned sludge barge. A spokesman for K-Sea has said the company will not comment on details of the collision because of the ongoing investigation.

Tugs used to have crews of six or seven members, including a cook and an assistant engineer, Oravets said. The industry in the New York area went to five-man crews in 1988, he said.

"Why doesn't he have an extra man up there?" he asked. "Because the company decided back in 1988 to go cheap."

Having only two people awake and on duty is "a vulnerability and always has been," he said, and the mate should not be blamed for making "a decision when he's working shorthanded."

"I know the guy wasn't drunk or asleep or anything like that," he said. "He was doing everything that's normally done on a tug."