All aboard river cruise boat are rescued after it was hit by tanker in New Orleans
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- A tanker struck the American Heritage river cruise boat in New Orleans on Friday, partially submerging the vessel with 129 passengers aboard as rescue crews worked on the Mississippi River.
- Video showed passengers in life jackets being pulled from the water onto nearby ships; authorities had not immediately said whether anyone was injured or killed.
- The five-story paddleboat was finishing an eight-day cruise. It was not clear whether the tanker was carrying asphalt or other materials when the vessels collided.
NEW ORLEANS — A tanker in New Orleans that apparently lost its steering slammed into a docked river cruise boat with 180 people aboard Friday, the mayor said. All aboard survived after the crash prompted a massive rescue operation for passengers and crew who plunged into the Mississippi River as the ship took on water and began to topple over.
Video from the scene showed the much larger Atlantic Asphalt tanker hit the cruise boat while it was docked as metal and glass crashed and crunched.
Tugboat operators, nearby workers, police and several other rescuers rushed to help. New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno called it “a miracle on the Mississippi.”
The mayor said 32 people were taken to hospitals, but none of them had critical injuries.
The boat started listing within minutes and flipped while emergency workers were still trying to get everyone off the ship.
Dozens of people on board and at least two police officers were dragged from the 66-degree river onto nearby ships.
Devon Flanagan was at his job nearby at the Port of New Orleans when workers rushed down the dock. He got out of his truck and saw the American Heritage on its side and passengers in the water.
“It was just chaos,” he said. “You had all types of ships, like other barges and other companies down there trying to help out, which also was a little convoluted because you had people still in the water.”
The cruise ship was built in 2015 and operated by American Cruise Lines. It is five stories and can hold up to 150 passengers.
The American Heritage was finishing an eight-day cruise to several Mississippi River destinations in Louisiana and Mississippi.
The cruise line said it was working with the Coast Guard and would share more information when it can.
The tanker involved in the crash specializes in carrying large quantities of asphalt and bitumen, a semi-solid substance that is often used for road construction and roofing, according to the live shipping tracker MarineTraffic.
Ships carrying asphalt and bitumen are often heated well above 250 degrees to prevent the asphalt from solidifying on the ship, according to the maritime periodical Marine Insights. It is not immediately clear whether the ship was carrying any materials when the crash occurred.
The 520-foot-long vessel had a final destination in New Orleans, according to MarineTraffic, and was sailing under a flag for the Marshall Islands.
Brook and Collins write for the Associated Press. Collins reported from Columbia, S.C. Ed White in Detroit, Safiyah Riddle in Los Angeles, M. Reo in Washington, Anna Wilder in Austin, Texas, and Beatrice Dupuy in New York contributed to this report.
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