HOUSTON - All 17 bodies have been found after Thursday’s deadly boat accident in Missouri.
Thirty-one people, mostly tourists, were on-board a duck boat when strong storms caused it to capsize.
They’ve been around for decades: the six-wheel amphibious trucks used during World War II to ferry ammunition and equipment from water to land.
But today, instead of war, they’re used for recreation.
Duck boats ferry hundreds every year through lakes across the U.S. But Thursday, it was a tragic ending to one of those tours on Table Rock Lake in Missouri.
The boat, on the last leg of its tour, was hit by strong winds from an approaching thunderstorm. The captain tried to make it back in, but it started taking on water, eventually capsizing, killing 17 inside.
It’s not the first time we’ve heard of a tragic ending like this.
In 1999, 13 people died after a duck boat sank on Lake Hamilton in Arkansas.
In 2010, two people drowned when a barge plowed into a Philadelphia duck boat that had stalled out in the Delaware River.
In 2015, five college students were killed, 69 injured, in Seattle when a duck boat collided with a bus on land.
Also in 2015, a Texas woman was killed after being struck by a duck boat while walking in Philadelphia.
In 2016, a duck boat ran over a scooter, killing a woman in Boston.
So how dangerous are they?
There are now 32 boating deaths in the past two decades from duck boats, an average of 1.6 deaths a year. With, according to the Coast Guard, 118 duck boats certified and operating.
Compare that to the roughly 700 deaths a year from recreational boats. But that’s with an average 12.5 million boats out on the water each year.