Duck boat tours: Standards not met in London and Liverpool incidents

Two incidents involving Duck amphibious passenger vehicles in which one sank and the other caught fire showed extremely poor maintenance and a failure to meet standards, an accident investigation chief has said.

It was "extremely fortunate" that none of the 33 passengers and crew on board the Duck vehicle Wacker Quaker 1, formally known as a DUKW, were drowned or injured when it sank in Salthouse Dock in Liverpool on June 15 2013, said the Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) chief inspector Steve Clinch. Source: PA

In the second incident, when the London-based Duck Cleopatra caught fire on the River Thames in London on September 29 2013, the 28 passengers and two crew had to take to the water and were rescued by other vessels without serious injury.

In a joint report into both incidents, the MAIB said that the Wacker Quaker 1, whose passengers either swam ashore or were recovered by other crafts' crews, was the second Duck vehicle to sink in Salthouse Dock in a three-month period.

The report said that on both occasions the Ducks did not have the quantity of buoyancy foam required to provide the mandated level of residual buoyancy.

Mr Clinch explained that in the case of Cleopatra 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".

The MAIB said that in the June 2013 Liverpool incident the passengers and crew were not adequately prepared to deal with the emergency situation. Also, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency's (MCA) periodic survey and inspection regimes, and their unscheduled interventions had been ineffective.

Mr Clinch said: "This has been a protracted investigation during which it has become evident that regulators in several countries have struggled with the challenge of certifying World War 2 DUKWs for commercial passenger-carrying operations.

"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 were drowned or injured as they abandoned ship."

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