[jonathanp88]

There used to be 2 operators of these things in Britain.

After a series of incidents(fires at sea, sinking) due to shoddy maintainence by poorly resourced bus mechanics and questionable modifications made in a desperate attempt to make them, technically, seaworthy according to modern regulations, they have both shut down. I'm kinda surprised the US still has them in such numbers.

[TangoTrotFox]

I did some further research here. We've had these commercial duck trip services since 1946 (that company is still in business!). According to the NTSB [1] more than go on tours with more than a million passengers per year as well. That number is probably up since that report was from 1999.

And the only two major incidents at sea have been caused by extreme human error. The 1999 issue was a mechanic leaving a 4.5" access hole to the hull unplugged. And the most recent involved the captain taking the passengers out into a serious storm with 70+ mph winds and 4-6 foot waves. Like most things in the media today this just seems like absurd sensationalism over an event that people can be emotionally exploited to click on lots of stuff about.

[1] - https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Pages/MA...