June 13 (UPI) — One person was killed and more than a dozen others had to be rescued after a New York tour boat capsized inside of an underground cavern system used to carry water from the Erie Canal.
The flat-bottomed boat, operated by Lockport Cave Tours, flipped over Monday morning toward the end of a tour. All 28 people on board were thrown into the water. The tourist who was killed was found trapped under the boat, officials said.
While the victim has not been identified, authorities said he was 60-years-old. His wife was also on the boat and was injured.
“We have one individual who has passed, we have a lot of questions that need to be answered,” Steven Abbot, Lockport’s police chief, told reporters. “Whether or not that leads to charges in the future, I do not know, but as of right now we’re treating it as a crime scene.”
A number of the passengers were able to get out of the water on their own, but 16 others had to be rescued, Lockport Fire Chief Luca Quagliano said.
The fire chief said 11 people were taken to nearby hospitals, mostly with minor injuries and hypothermia.
The underground boat ride takes tourists through a dimly lit tunnel, which was blasted out during the 19th century to transport water as an industrial spillway. The tourist attraction in Lockport, N.Y., is located about 20 miles east of Niagara Falls.
Investigators, at this point, do not know what caused the boat to overturn. There are only about two to three feet between the boat and the cave walls on either side.
“The boat did a 180-degree turn, so the bottom of the boat was upright in the water,” Quagliano said. “A number of victims were on top of that boat initially when rescuers got to them.”
Rescuers had to drill through an outside wall of the cave to reach the boat, which took them about an hour.
There were also no life preservers on board. Investigators are looking into whether the cave tour was required to provide them, according to Quagliano. The tourist attraction is privately owned.
All of the passengers on Monday’s tour were from the Western New York area, and were part of a Destination Niagara USA tour.
