After fatal boat accident: Was the ferry captain distracted by dolphins?
Florida (USA) - A good four days after the fatal ferry accident in the US state of Florida , the skipper of the boat that crashed into the ferry has spoken out for the first time. He accuses the ferry captain of being distracted by watching dolphins.
On Sunday evening, a boat crashed into a ferry off the Memorial Causeway Bridge in Florida, killing one person.
The boat captain's lawyer read out a letter on Tuesday in which Jeffry Knight holds the ferry operator responsible for the fatal crash.
He accuses the operator of failing to equip the vessel with the necessary navigation lights. Several eyewitnesses had confirmed that the ferry was not adequately lit. However, it was not only a lack of lighting that caused him to overlook the ferry.
Just a few moments before the collision, the captain of the ferry and his crew were allegedly looking for dolphins in the water, which distracted them and caused them to stop paying attention to navigation.
Alcohol played no part in the accident
Knight also vehemently denies that he immediately fled the scene of the accident . As theNew York Post reports, he tried to stay on site as long as possible. But for his own safety, he had to flee because his boat was full of water.
"The distraught mother of an infant on board pleaded for an immediate departure after the accident because she feared her eight-week-old child might have suffered injuries," it continues.
After reaching the shore, the boat driver would have immediately instructed one of his passengers to call 911, with whom he would have been in contact for several minutes. Meanwhile, he followed his instructions to help the injured people on the ferry.
Knight even offered to take the ferry passengers to shore in his boat. A voluntary alcohol test of the boat captain later showed that he had not been under the influence of alcohol during the accident.