All passengers and crew accounted for after New Orleans boat crash in ‘miracle on the Mississippi’

In what the city’s mayor declared a “miracle on the Mississippi”, all passengers were accounted for – with none killed or critically hurt – after a tanker collided with a river cruise ship docked on the Mississippi River in New Orleans on Friday afternoon.

Thirty-two people were taken to local hospitals after the Atlantic Asphalt tanker struck American Cruise Lines’s American Heritage at about 12.30pm – but none of their injuries were considered critical, New Orleans’s mayor, Helena Moreno, said at a news conference.

Zero passengers or crew members were unaccounted for, Moreno said. She attributed that fact to a hectic but effective multi-agency rescue effort after the American Heritage was struck and a number of people ended up in the river, whose waters are cold and its currents are infamously perilous.

That “truly is a miracle on the Mississippi,” Moreno said near the scene of the crash, as a group of fellow officials around her applauded.

The American Heritage had about 129 passengers – in addition to crew members – onboard when it was hit, Port of New Orleans press secretary Kimberly Curth said in a statement.

About two hours before that, the American Heritage had docked at the port to begin passenger disembarkation, Curth said.

Officials did not immediately provide details about what caused the crash. Moreno said investigators would explore whether there was some loss of steering on the Atlantic Asphalt before it struck the American Heritage, as an emergency response source had said earlier – but that had not been immediately confirmed.

The website marinetraffic.com showed the Atlantic Asphalt’s path was seemingly uneventful as it went around the challenging Mississippi River bend near New Orleans’ Algiers Point neighborhood. It had just made it past the Crescent City Connection bridge linking New Orleans’ central business district and the community’s Algiers section when it began heading generally to its starboard – or right – side.

Video provided to Guardian reporting partner WWL Louisiana showed the Atlantic Asphalt then T-boned the side of the American Heritage. The cruise ship eventually slowly rolled on to its side where it was struck, according to the video, which the CBS affiliate obtained from Barry Kern, proprietor of Mardi Gras World, a tourist attraction near the scene of the crash.

One witness, Jamie Holford, told local NBC News affiliate WDSU that it took 15 minutes “from impact to where it rolled over”.

“Surreal,” Holford said. “That’s what that was.”

Maritime law expert Martin J Davies of New Orleans’ Tulane University told local Fox affiliate WVUE that the Atlantic Asphalt was fortunate to have not hit the Crescent City Connection, which could have endangered motorists on a two-span, cantilever, steel truss bridge that is estimated to carry about 160,000 cars daily.

“This is obviously a really bad incident,” Davies said. “But it could also have struck the bridge, which it didn’t.”

A video from WDSU showed crew members of a tugboat working to pull people in lifejackets or holding on to flotation rings out of the river. An emergency response that drew in firefighters, US Coast Guard helicopter and boat crews, as well as port and city police – among others – also helped pull out people who ended up in the water in plain view of cameras and eyewitnesses.

One image on social media showed people climbing on the side of the cruise boat – specifically, on stateroom balconies – after it was struck, with chairs and tables strewn about after it evidently took on water.

An employee at the Ernest N Morial Convention Center next to the scene of Friday’s crash said she realized something was awry when she could see from her vantage point that the tip of the American Heritage was tilted. She then grasped the nature of situation when she heard desperate shrieks.

“People were screaming for help,” said the employee, who asked to not be named. She recalled how she and colleagues assembled wheelchairs, water and other items in case survivors would soon need them.

The American Heritage’s passengers were brought inside the New Orleans port’s administration building, next to the convention center.

At the news conference where officials then confirmed there were no casualties, Louisiana governor Jeff Landry echoed Moreno in invoking the term “miracle”, especially “when you think about the population that was on that cruise ship – and the ability for us to get them off and out of the water”.

“The Mississippi River is not some quiet pond,” Landry said. “There were challenges out there.”

With everyone accounted for, New Orleans’s US Coast Guard commander, Melanie Burnham, said the focus would shift to re-opening the river to traffic. It had been closed from mile markers 93 to 96 to facilitate rescue efforts.

US House majority leader Steve Scalise, a suburban New Orleans Republican, said on Friday that the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) would investigate the crash.

A statement from American Cruise Lines on Friday said “guests and crew were evacuated” from the American Heritage but did not elaborate. “We are deeply concerned for everyone involved,” the cruise operator’s statement added.

The American Heritage, a 300ft paddle-wheel ship, was built in 2015 and previously sailed as the Queen of the Mississippi. It has more than 80 staterooms and operates cruises on the Mississippi River, including ones which depart from New Orleans.

The Atlantic Asphalt is a oil tanker built in 2017 measuring approximately 160 meters in length and has a deadweight of 17,764 metric tons. It flies the flag of the Marshall Islands and is owned and commercially operated by Nave Shipping SA, a company registered in Liberia. Its maintenance, technical and safety operations are overseen by Singapore-based Thome Ship Management, according to online records.

The vessel, which had a next recorded destination for Singapore, does not appear on the international sanctions lists checked by maritime tracking services, including Magic Port.

However, it was previously fined C$7,800 by Canadian authorities for a violation of the Canada Shipping Act and related vessel pollution regulations.

The penalty, recorded on 11 August 2020, stemmed from an officer failing to properly carry out their duties while supervising a transfer operation aboard the oil tanker, according to the Canadian government.

To many in New Orleans, the crash involving the Atlantic Asphalt called to mind an episode nearby – nearly 30 years earlier – when a cargo ship struck a wharf adjacent to the city’s Riverwalk shopping center and Hilton Riverside hotel.

No deaths resulted from that case, which occurred on 14 December 1996 after the Liberian-registered Bright Field lost propulsion power, an NTSB report later said. But there were more than 60 injuries reported, including four which were considered serious.