The New York Times

Friday, July 9, 2010

Officials Identify Body Found in River as Missing Tourist

By LIZ ROBBINS

The body of one of the two missing Hungarian tourists was recovered early Friday morning from the Delaware

River near where a 250-foot barge collided with a stalled amphibious sightseeing boat, throwing 37 people into the water.
 
 The authorities believe the body to be that of Dora Schwendtner, 16, from Mosonmagyaróvár, who was part of a 15-person youth group tour that had come to Philadelphia for a three-week cultural exchange. One young man, whom the Coast Guard identified as 20-year-old Szablcs Prem, is still missing.

"The body found is consistent with the description of the missing girl," Jeff Moran, a spokesman for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner's office said, adding that an autopsy would be performed on Friday to confirm her identity.

As crews on Friday prepared a large crane to hoist the sunken duck boat from the riverbed, communities in

Philadelphia and in western Hungary were still trying to deal with the grief of a trip that turned to tragedy.

Marshallton United Methodist Church in West Chester, Pa., was hosting the members of a Hungarian high

school youth group for a religious and cultural exchange program that started last Friday.

Foreign ministry officials from Hungary said they were trying to book the group - which had consisted

of 13 students and two adults - back on flights to the country as soon as possible. Eszter Pataki, a spokeswoman for the ministry, confirmed that the body found was one of the students, though she would confirm the identity because of privacy laws.

"Everybody is shocked because it was supposed to be a nice trip," Ms. Pataki said. "They still had hope," she added, that the two missing passengers would be found alive.

The National Transportation Safety Board is conducting the investigation, focusing on why no distress call had been recorded from the small tourist boat when it stalled on the water minutes before it was gorged by a large passing barge.

The crash threw 37 people from the "duck boat" into the river, leaving many to bob in life jackets fighting the current as the boat sank.

Members of the safety board began speaking to crew  members from the tourist boat, operated by Ride the

Ducks tours, and from the tugboat that had been towing the barge owned by the City of Philadelphia.

Robert Sumwalt, a board member involved in the investigation, said that preliminary blood-alcohol tests from crew members - two from the duck boat and five from the tugboat - "all came back negative." Drug test results, he said, were still pending.

The accident occurred around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday, when the duck boat encountered mechanical difficulty

shortly after entering the water for the second half of its amphibious tour of historic Philadelphia. The engine

stalled and at least one passenger told the authorities that they were waiting for another vessel to pick them

up in the busy waterway.

Meanwhile, an unmanned and unmotored barge, which the Coast Guard said Thursday was 250 feet long and

towed by a tugboat, kept getting closer to the helpless craft, according to several witnesses on the shore and

passengers. Investigators were trying to determine why the tugboat did not stop.

"We have heard from the Coast Guard that there is no recorded distress call," Mr. Sumwalt said. He added that investigators would also be looking into the possibility that the engine might have overheated, causing it to stall.

On Thursday, Ride the Ducks, the Norcross, Ga. company that operates the Philadelphia duck boat tour, suspended operations in Philadelphia and at its five other locations around the country - Branson, Mo.; Newport, Ky.; San Francisco; Stone Mountain Park, Ga.; and Seattle, according to the company's Web site.

Chris Herschen, president of Ride the Ducks, told reporters Thursday at a news conference in Philadelphia that the captain of the boat appeared to have followed all standard procedures. But Mr. Herschen would not say whether the captain had sent out a distress signal.

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URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/10/us/10boat.html