A Tanker Slammed Into a Docked Riverboat as 129 Passengers Were Stepping Off — Then the Boat Began to Roll

The American Heritage had been tied up at the New Orleans riverfront for about two hours. Its red paddlewheel was still, the brown Mississippi was sliding past, and the people aboard were just starting to step off.

At about 12:30 p.m. on Friday, a 500-foot tanker came at them.

Jamie Holford had just pulled into the port parking lot. He was due to board the five-deck riverboat later for a kitchen-equipment job, and he had only just pulled in when he heard it. “I mean, I literally pulled into it — just a hard crunch, you know, and seen the boat move,” he told KLFY. Asked by CBS News what the impact sounded like, he didn’t hesitate: “It sounded like a war movie. Just imagine tons of steel crunching.”

What happened over the next few minutes — and what officials announced when they finally finished counting heads — had a city that has seen more than its share of disasters calling it something else entirely.

The Ship That Wouldn’t Answer the Wheel

The vessel that hit them was the Atlantic Asphalt, a Marshall Islands-flagged tanker built to haul asphalt and bitumen, the thick black tar that ends up on roads and roofs. Public records list it as owned by Chinese and Liberian companies, according to WWNO. Bloomberg ship-tracking data showed it was running to Louisiana from Philadelphia with no cargo aboard, after an earlier load in Venezuela.

It was not supposed to be anywhere near the dock at 1350 Port of New Orleans Place, just below the Crescent City Connection bridge. New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno said there appeared to be “some sort of loss of steering.” NBC News reported that the American Heritage, operated by American Cruise Lines, was T-boned while docked near the French Quarter. Mariners even have a separate word for this kind of crash — an “allision,” when a moving ship strikes a stationary one.

The riverboat never stood a chance. Built in 2015, the 295-foot American Heritage is a floating hotel with a classic red stern paddlewheel and room for up to 150 guests. Port officials said about 129 passengers, plus crew, were aboard at the moment of impact.

“It Hit Us Again”

Rhonda Akers was one of them. She told NBC News the first blow wasn’t the last.

“After the initial crash, it hit us again and we flipped over and I had to crawl over the railing and people to save myself,” she said. Her husband was taken to the hospital with a head injury; when she spoke to NBC, she was still waiting to see him.

From the dock, Holford watched the riverboat fight to stay upright. “When we walked to it, the back end was kind of sinking in, but it wasn’t drastic,” he told KLFY. “Then the back end lifted up, almost like the bilge pumps were pumping out and it was getting back right. But then it started going back down again.”

Passengers began scrambling off as the boat took on water. Then it toppled. “When that occurred,” Moreno said, “we started to have people in the water.”

Video verified by NBC News showed people bobbing in the brown Mississippi in life jackets while others clung to the high-side railing as the far side of the ship slid under. Holford saw people climbing over those railings as the vessel rolled. “It looked like something off the Titanic,” he told CBS News.

A Rescue That Came From Every Direction

What happened next was a scramble of everyone who could reach the water. Port NOLA Harbor Police got there first and went into the river to pull people out. New Orleans firefighters lowered ladders over the edge of the dock. Tugboats and other vessels already on the river swung in; CBS News reported nearby boats pulled more than a dozen people out of the water.

Above them, a police drone that happened to be flying on an unrelated call was redirected to the scene, Police Superintendent Anne Kirkpatrick said, and its camera showed people in the water. The Coast Guard sent small boats, cutters and helicopters.

By late afternoon, the American Heritage lay capsized on its side against the dock. Then came the number everyone had been dreading — and it wasn’t the one they expected.

Every passenger and crew member was accounted for. Nobody had died.

Thirty-two people were taken to local hospitals, Moreno said, and none of them were in critical condition. No one aboard the tanker was hurt. “This truly is a miracle on the Mississippi,” she said, “and that is a credit to all of the first responders, local, state, federal, who literally jumped right in to help.”

The Investigators Who Couldn’t Get There

Gov. Jeff Landry flew into New Orleans for the evening news conference. He said President Donald Trump had called him to say, “Whatever Louisiana needs, we will make sure that they get.” Trump later thanked the Coast Guard on Truth Social, writing: “Incredibly, nobody was killed by this major collision.”

But the people whose job is to explain why a tanker can plow into a docked cruise boat ran into a problem of their own. The National Transportation Safety Board launched a Go Team on Friday afternoon — and then, shortly after the crash, the FAA grounded every departing flight in the country.

“I know they are desperately trying to get here,” Rep. Troy Carter told WDSU. “Normally they would get on their FAA charter plane that would be here pretty quickly from Washington. Unfortunately, all air traffic has been grounded.” The NTSB team was expected to arrive Saturday morning.

“This is an active investigation,” Landry said. “We are going to get down to the bottom of exactly what happened here, and make sure that we make any adjustments necessary.”

The Belongings Still Under the River

For now, the questions — why the tanker lost control, whether it really struck twice, how a ship that size ended up against a passenger dock — belong to the investigators. The Coast Guard closed about three miles of the river, from mile marker 93 to 96, to all vessel traffic, and said its focus was shifting to reopening it. The RTA’s cross-river ferry was suspended, and a riverfront festival was called off for the day.

The survivors, meanwhile, were sent to local hotels with transportation arranged, Moreno said, working with the Red Cross and University Medical Center. Some needed replacement prescriptions; their medicine was still aboard the boat. Families looking for someone involved were told to call 311 in New Orleans or 504-539-3266.

They had pulled into New Orleans expecting the gentlest moment of any cruise — the walk ashore. Some of them left the Mississippi without their bags, without their medicine, thirty-two of them headed for the hospital. But every one of them left.