The Staten Island Ferry ship Andrew J. Barberi struck a concrete maintenance pier at the St. George Terminal in Upper New York Bay at full speed on October 15, 2003, at 3:21 p.m. EDT. Seventy people were hurt, some seriously, and eleven individuals were killed. For seaman’s manslaughter, New York City ferry director Patrick Ryan and pilot Richard J. Smith entered guilty pleas and were sentenced to prison. Ryan disregarded the city’s requirement that two pilots remain in the wheelhouse while docking, and Smith was operating the aircraft while impaired by painkillers.
At the end of its 25-minute, 5-mile (8-kilometer) journey from South boat, Manhattan to St. George, Staten Island, was the 310-foot (94-meter) boat. About 1,500 people, or 25% of the 6,000-person maximum capacity, were on board. That afternoon, there were strong winds with gusts above 40 mph (64 km/h). It was said that the sea was “very choppy” in New York Harbour.
The ferry struck a concrete maintenance pier after veering out of its berth and failing to dock. As numerous passengers pressed forward to depart, the pier tore into the ferry’s main deck and ripped into the starboard side. While several people leaped overboard, some victims were trapped in a heap of glass, metal, and broken wood following the impact. Bulkheads, support frames, and support columns along the starboard side of the Staten Island end of the ferry were destroyed, among other major damage to the hull.
United States Coast Guard, PA2 Mike Hvozda, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Seventy individuals were injured in the incident, including several who lost limbs, and ten people were killed. An additional eleventh person died two months after the crash from injuries received during the collision. The majority of the injuries and all of the fatalities occurred to people on the main deck; many passengers were hospitalized for shock, and several passengers on the higher decks suffered injuries during the panic of the mob. Among the fatalities were a September 11th attack survivor and a woman who spent two months in a drug-induced coma following the collision. A waiter named Paul Esposito, 24, had both of his legs amputated below the knee. Kerry Griffiths, a 34-year-old English pediatric nurse who was sightseeing, used tourniquets to save his life.
Richard J. Smith, the ferry’s pilot, escaped the scene and was apprehended at his residence shortly after. Smith had cut his wrists and twice shot himself in the chest with a pellet gun in an attempt to end his own life. He was brought to the same hospital that was treating crash victims.
Later, it was discovered that Smith had fainted while operating the ship’s controls. Any or all of the following symptoms could have contributed to the crash: tiredness, blurred vision, seizures, and the use of the medicines Tylenol PM and tramadol. The ferry service’s management had not enforced the city’s requirement that two pilots be present during docking, and Smith was the only pilot in the wheelhouse at the time.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York filed charges against five individuals. When Smith applied for a pilot’s license renewal with the U.S. Coast Guard, he made fraudulent assertions in his medical report and was charged with eleven counts of seaman’s manslaughter. William Tursi, his physician, was accused of fabricating the same report. Patrick Ryan, the city’s ferry director, was also accused of making false statements and seaman’s manslaughter for not enforcing the two-pilot requirement. The captain of the boat, Michael J. Gansas, was accused of lying to investigators. The port captain, John Mauldin, was accused of lying to authorities and obstructing justice when he said that information about the two-pilot rule had been distributed to employees.
Smith entered a guilty plea to seaman’s manslaughter on August 4, 2004. On January 10, 2006, he was given a sentence of 18 months in prison. Patrick Ryan, the former municipal ferry director of New York, was given a year and a day in prison after entering a guilty plea to seaman’s manslaughter.
191 legal lawsuits were filed against the City as a result of the collapse, and victims and their families received settlements totaling more than $90 million. The boat’s structural repairs cost $6.9 million, while the pier’s cost was $1.4 million.
Many survivors and New York City residents were troubled by the attorneys’ claim that the Department of Transportation should not be held accountable for the crash, which was first declared an Act of God by the city. Citing a maritime statute from the 19th century, municipal lawyers would later contend that the total damages claimed against the city should not be greater than the ferryboat’s $14.4 million value.
The city was unable to cap damages, according to U.S. District Judge Edward Korman, who dismissed this argument on February 26, 2007, noting that “the city’s failure to provide a second pilot or otherwise adopt a reasonable practice that addresses the issue of pilot incapacitation was a substantial factor in causing the disaster.”
No other employees of the New York City Department of Transportation were charged in spite of these decisions or an independent federal probation report by officer Tony Garoppolo that examined the responsibility of the ferry service’s upper management and stated that “the lion’s share of culpability in this case as resting with the high level management of the Ferry Service.”
Due to a mechanical issue, the same boat was engaged in another collision on May 8, 2010. There were 37 injuries from the hit, including one major injury.