Here's a link to some more info on this:
tinyurl.com/2d2u2xand here's the news story from the above link, and it includes some of the human-drama of the event
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From The Times-Picayune
Metro News
FERRY CRASH REVISITED
30 years ago, the River Parishes were stunned by the deaths of 77 people in the worst ferry disaster in U.S. history
Sunday, October 15, 2006
By Matt Scallan
River Parishes bureau
Thirty years ago this week, the ferryboat George Prince, packed with construction and chemical plant workers, pushed off from a Destrehan dock into the Mississippi River and blundered into the path of the Norwegian tanker ship Frosta.
It was just after 6 a.m. on Oct. 20, 1976. Ferry pilot Egidio "Gene" Auletta, whose half-empty bottle of whiskey was later found in the pilot house, gunned the ferry's engines into the current. As the 120-foot ferry turned toward the Luling dock, Auletta seemed oblivious to frantic horn blasts and radio calls from the 665-foot-long tanker that towered over the ferry's port side.
A few minutes later, when the ferry was only 800 feet from its destination, the Frosta ran over the George Prince like a bathtub toy, flipping it and spilling cars and people into the water. Of the 95 people who boarded the ferry on that clear, chilly morning, 77 died, including Auletta and the four members of his crew.
Today, less than a mile from the site of the tragedy, the massive Hale Boggs Bridge straddles the river, enabling people to travel between the east and west banks of St. Charles Parish in moments. But there is nothing to mark the spot of the worst ferry disaster in U.S. history.
"People seem to have forgotten about it," said Royd Anderson, a Hahnville High School teacher who wrote and produced a 22-minute documentary about the disaster.
Anderson, 35, produced the film as the final project for his master's degree in communication at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
He started teaching television production at Hahnville High this year.
"When I started working on this two years ago, I had no idea I'd be working in St. Charles Parish," he said.
Monument controversy
The only monument to the victims sits 15 miles away near the St. John the Baptist Parish Courthouse in Edgard. It was placed there in 1979 after St. Charles Parish officials refused an offer to place it on the grounds of their courthouse in Hahnville.
Anderson and some of the victims' families said a memorial in St. Charles Parish is long overdue.
One idea is to place it at the public playground built under the bridge, whose foundations were rising out of the river when the accident occurred.
"There should be a memorial here and it should be on the east bank," said Thomas Pritchett, whose brother, Kevin, died in the accident at 16. Kevin, who lived a few blocks away from the landing, had lied about his age to get a construction job at the Monsanto plant in Luling, his brother said.
Pritchett said he was running late that morning and missed the deadly voyage by a few minutes.
Tanker bearing down
Charles Chatelain was early. The River Ridge man took the ferry every work day in his commute from River Ridge to the small Texaco refinery in Paradis. His 1975 Ford was the second vehicle to drive onto the ferry, a position that let him park just forward of the pilot house on the vessel's starboard side.
As the ferry moved across the river, Chatelain and the other passengers saw the Frosta bearing down on them.
As other passengers scattered, Chatelain dove into his truck, thinking it would be safe.
When the Frosta slammed into the other side of the ferry, Chatelain's truck was among the first to plunge into the dark water.
The collision shoved Chatelain out of his seat and into the truck's dashboard. As the truck sank, Chatelain said he struggled to get out, but could not. Suddenly, the water pressure popped out the truck's windshield, and the air trapped inside the cab propelled him into the water.
"It shot me out of there like a cannon," he said.
As he swam to the surface, he said he had to dodge cars and trucks that were falling on top of him. He was running out of air and began taking small "sips" of the river water made greasy with fuel.
He came up with a bellyful of water and his throat burning with diesel fuel from the ferry's tanks, and too close to the stern of the Frosta, which he feared would suck him into its propeller.
"I swam for what must have been 3 miles until I came upon what I thought was a barge. It turned out to be the hull of the ferry," he said.
He climbed onto the overturned ferry's hull, where he was rescued by another boat, which took him to the hospital.
"I was lying there half out of my mind, when the hospital administrator came in and said, 'Please, I've had to put guards around the hospital, because we've got 100 reporters out there who want to talk with you,' " he said.
He agreed to an interview on the condition that only one reporter would ask questions.
Two years of nightmares
Chatelain, now 64, said he dreamed of the accident every night for two years and the aftermath was a contributing factor to his divorce in 1977.
Chatelain said he avoided talking about the event for decades. He said he broke his silence to help Anderson with his project and to ensure that his children and grandchildren know what happened.
"It's been long enough," he said. "It doesn't hurt much any more."
A dozen St. John residents died in the wreck. Nineteen of the victims, including all of the crew, were from St. Charles Parish and 18 were from Jefferson. Another 17 victims were from Hammond, Tickfaw and Ponchatoula in Tangipahoa Parish.
"When they pulled my truck out of the water it was crushed like a beer can," he said.
As the recovery operation began, the banks of the river were lined with relatives awaiting the fate of their loved ones.
Pritchett said he and his mother, Dolores, scuffled with a sheriff's deputy as they tried to get closer to the river bank. They were booked with public intimidation, but the charges were dropped.
Too painful
Bodies were stacked in the Knights of Columbus hall in Norco and overflowed into the community's fire station.
"The whole community came out," said Clayton Faucheux, a former St. Charles Parish police juror. "We had as much help as we needed."
While the years have dulled the memory of the disaster for some, questions still remain as to why parish officials didn't want the monument.
News reports at the time attributed St. Charles' refusal to accept the monument to a variety of reasons, ranging from embarrassment by St. Charles officials about the disaster to politics.
However, Faucheux said it was just too painful.
"A lot of people died. It's just not something that we wanted to memorialize," he said.
Anderson mentions the controversy in his documentary, and, for that reason, St. Charles officials said they won't show it on the government access channel.
"We want the channel to be nonpolitical," said parish public information officer Steve Sirmon, who supervises its content. "The last thing we want is to have people say we're taking shots at somebody."
A Coast Guard investigation into the accident concluded in 1977 that the death toll was so high because the tanker quickly flipped the ferry over. A glancing blow, or a collision at a slower speed, might have allowed the George Prince to remain upright, it said.
The investigation concluded that Auletta's utter failure to take evasive action, or to post a lookout, was the primary cause of the disaster. An autopsy showed that six hours after he started work at midnight, Auletta had a .09 percent alcohol level in his bloodstream, just shy of what was then the legal limit of .10 percent.
But it said the death toll might have been lower had Nicholas Colombo, the local river pilot who was guiding the tanker upriver, had reduced speed more quickly when the ferry pilot did not respond to hails.
The accident did lead to regulatory reforms. Pilots are now subject to random drug and alcohol testing. And navigation rules, which in 1976 gave the right of way to ships crossing the river, now give it to vessels traveling upstream or downstream. . . . . . . .
Royd Anderson's documentary film, "The Luling Ferry Disaster," will be shown Thursday at 7 p.m. at the St. Charles Parish West Bank Regional Library, 105 Lakewood Drive, Luling, and Friday at 10 a.m. at the East Bank Regional Library, 100 River Oaks Drive, Destrehan.
The complete U.S. Coast Guard investigation report of the accident may be found at
www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/moa/boards/frosta.pdf Matt Scallan may be reached at mscallan@timespicayune.com or (985) 652-0953.
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(thanks Ernie, for bringing this history to our attention).
