The company also owns the Harlem Globetrotters. Herschend Family Entertainment is a privately owned theme-park company that owns Silver Dollar City Branson, co-owns Dollywood in Pigeon Ford, Tenn., and operates Stone Mountain Park in Georgia. In 2001, Ride the Ducks International partnered with Herschend Family Entertainment to expand. Hall wrote back, saying the recommendations were made “because the Board believed that immediate action was necessary to avoid additional loss of life.” “It will require considerable feasibility evaluation, and thus expense.”

“We have a potential solution that we are pursuing at the time,” McDowell wrote Jim Hall, then the NTSB chairman. In June 2000, Robert McDowell, then the president of Ride the Ducks Branson, wrote the chairman of the NTSB after the board told duck boat makers “without delay” to alter their boats so they wouldn’t sink when flooded like the duck boat in Arkansas. Ripley Entertainment does not own Ride the Ducks International. bought the assets of the Branson duck boat tour business in December, according to Ripley. The federal lawsuit also said Ripley Entertainment “prioritized profits over safety” in putting the boat in the water even though a severe thunderstorm warning predicted winds of up to 60 mph. The federal lawsuit said the companies “blatantly ignored” recommendations by the National Transportation Safety Board after 13 people drowned in Lake Hamilton in Arkansas in 1999 and after two Hungarian tourists drowned in Philadelphia in 2010. The Taney County lawsuit seeks damages of more than $25,000 from Ride the Ducks International, more than $25,000 from Ripley Entertainment, more than $25,000 from the two duck boat crew members and punitive damages. Robert Williams, the co-captain of the duck boat, also died. Kenneth McKee and Robert Williams by the three daughters of drowning victims William and Janice Bright. We hope that we will drive the death-trap duck boats out of business.-Attorney Robert MongeluzziĪ second lawsuit was filed in Taney County in Missouri against Ride the Ducks International LLC Ripley Entertainment Inc. Ripley spokeswoman Suzanne Smagala-Potts said the company is “saddened” by the accident. “We hope that we will drive the death-trap duck boats out of business,” said Philadelphia attorney Robert Mongeluzzi. and Amphibious Vehicle Manufacturing LLC. Ride the Ducks of Branson LLC Herschend Family Entertainment Corp. The lawsuit also named Ripley Entertainment Inc. Ride the Ducks International sold boats that were defective and unreasonably dangerous, according to the lawsuit filed in federal court in Missouri by administrators of the estates of Ervin Coleman, 76, and Maxwell Ly, 2, two of the 17 who died.

The Branson duck boat industry ignored warnings to change the design of their boats for two decades even though dozens of people died in disasters before the July accident in Missouri that killed 17 people on Table Rock Lake, according to a federal lawsuit that seeks $100 million in damages. Families of Victims Say the Builder and Owners Knew the Boats Were Dangerous

Stone mountain duck boats