More than 30 tourists were lucky to survive after their amphibious “Duck” vehicle sank because of years of poor maintenance, a report has found.
The Marine Accident Investigation Branch said that the Wacker Quacker 1 had not had safe levels of buoyancy foam to ensure that it stayed afloat for more than a decade before it sank in Salthouse Dock, Liverpool, in June last year.
In a second incident, 28 passengers and two crew had to be rescued after the Cleopatra caught fire on the River Thames close to the Houses of Parliament.
The investigation branch says in a report on both incidents due to be published today that the Liverpool sinking had come only a few months after another Second World War Duck vehicle, formally known as a DUKW, had sunk in the same Liverpool dock while being towed with no passengers on board, the Times reported.
Branch chief inspector, Steve Clinch, reportedly said: “The sinking of two Liverpool DUKWs in quick succession highlighted extremely poor standards of maintenance, and that for nearly 14 years they had operated with insufficient buoyancy foam to keep them afloat should they suffer major damage.
“It was extremely fortunate when DUKW Wacker Quacker 1 sank in Salthouse Dock that none of the 33 passengers and crew on board was drowned or injured as they abandoned ship.”
He said that safety briefings had not adequately prepared passengers for the emergency.
Clinch said the incidents had made it clear that other DUKWs being used for sightseeing tours across Britain did not have the required amount of buoyancy foam to ensure that they still floated when flooded.
London Duck Tours, which ran the Cleopatra, was one of the companies that had made changes, but Clinch said the “foam was so tightly packed around machinery that it caught fire, resulting in 30 passengers and crew needing to rapidly abandon the vehicle into the Thames”.
He said: “As this report is published, I am encouraged that the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and DUKW operators are working closely together to devise a framework for safely operating amphibious vehicles.
“However, I am concerned that it has required two potentially fatal DUKW accidents to stimulate all involved into taking actions that should have been completed before passenger-carrying operations were first authorised.”