Posted on 01/09/2013 7:50:33 AM PST by Sub-Driver
New York Ferry Crash: Up To 50 Injured
3:30pm UK, Wednesday 09 January 2013
A commuter ferry has crashed into the dockside in Lower Manhattan in New York, injuring between 30 and 50 people.
The Sea Streak Ferry, which provides daily services from Atlantic Highlands in New Jersey struck Pier 11 in the East River not far from Wall Street at about 8.45am ET (1.45pm GMT).
Officials say at least one of the passengers was in a critical condition with head injuries.
The vessel apparently had a hard landing as it was trying to dock.
"There was a jolt when that occurred, throwing the people forward into their seats and the walls," Sea Streak President James Barker told NBC 4 New York.
Passenger Ellen Foran said people tumbled on top of each other, hysterical and crying.
"All of a sudden, the boat felt like it smashed into a wall," Richard Correra told WCBS-TV.
"Dozens of passengers got thrown out of their seats, got thrown forward," he said.
"Some were heading downstairs and just flew down the stairs and hit their heads on various poles and walls."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sky.com ...
You forgot lighting a cigarette, putting on mascara (Hey, it’s New York), & changing the station on the radio.
I like ferries. As long as they’re short & I’m not the first car.
They should limit ferries to 10 seats....to avoid mass casualties.
Or for stricter fairy regulation in the least. After all, “we have to do something!” And we have to do it immediately so that this tragedy doesn’t lose momentum. Think of all those poor docks. It’s for the docks. Never let a fairy crises go to waste. How many more fairies have to suffer before America wakes up and puts and end to it? (Now we’re just being bad aren’t we?)
Share the lead.
What if you had jumped up just as the boat impacted the dock? Would you feel it?
Chinese or Russian sub?
Well, it’s clear from the photos that there were no unusual seas and no high wind. The ferry looks like one of those double hulled planing boats. They are fast and efficient going forward at full speed, but hard to maneuver.
Still, sounds like a screw-up of some kind. The helmsman must have done something wrong. Got a bit off course and decided not to back off and try all over again, or something like that.
I just checked the map. It looks like that ferry was doing runs of about 20 miles each way to and from the Jersey Highlands. There are similar boats in Milwaukee, WI that cross Lake Michigan to Muskegon, MI in about 2.5 hr. for the 78 mi. run. Such boats really move, often at over 30 mph. Taking the Jersey ferry would be a good way to avoid the hassels of surface travel. I bet it’s a bit pricey.
And the ferry companies can, no doubt, not afford black boxes, so there will have to be millions in federal grants to allow for the equipment to be available and installed. And not just on ferries.... as you said, ALL floatation vessels need this immediately.
That said, prayers for anyone hurt in this accident.
It depends. Galileo had the answer, of course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_relativity
Time to BAN Ferry’s (of all kinds!).
Indeed!
HA!
Put Biden on this right away! We need commissions, etc!
It depends. Galileo had the answer, of course. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galilean_relativity"
Would it matter if you were holding a feather at the same time you jumped?
I enjoy watching the old black and white movies, and especially the silent ones - not for the stories so much but for the background scenery which was taken for granted back then (ads, prices of goods, long-gone buildings, sail ships, etc.)
I remember laughing at loud at a city scene when a Model T knocks a pedestrian down. The guy gets up, shakes his fist at the driver, and walks off. I thought that nowadays, a scene like you describe would occur over the same accident.
15 is too many!
Ferries should have only 8 fixed, non living, non injurable passengers, and “passenger buttons” that allow the addition of passengers should be banned.
They are presently checking to see if any of the crew are members of the NRA.
Sea Streak is pretty good. I took it one year when I worked in the city. Expensive as heck, but a relaxing ride.
If the helmsman is a young person, my guess is texting is to blame. If the person was a senior citizen, could be they hit forward throttle rather than reverse.
I had an apartment down on the battery for several years, and you could see those high-speed ferries zipping up the bay. Yes, they’re really fast and convenient, but they don’t maneuver well when they come down off a plane. Probably this guy was running a few minutes late, made a bad approach, and decided to gun it around into the dock rather than back off and try again—which would annoy the passengers and be an admission of error.
So he made a much bigger error. That’s my guess.
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