First off, I personally know one of the guys running the Turtle.. So pointing fingers is not necessa

Celebrity Cruises adventure tours usa homepage advertises parasailing 400 feet over St. Thomas on its website . You can watch's Celebrity's brief video about parasailing in St. Thomas here which describes the excursion as an experience of a lifetime.
A number of agencies are apparently involved in the investigation into this incident, adventure tours usa homepage including the Virgin Islands Police Department, Department of Planning and Natural Resources, Attorney General s Office, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
The Virgin Islands Daily News published an article this evening stating that squalls and wind gusts Tuesday afternoon may have factored into the death of Bernice Kraftcheck, 60, and the serious injury of her daughter Danielle Haese, 34, who was hospitalized overnight at Schneider Hospital.
The mother and daughter purchased a parasailing shore-excursion from Celebrity Cruises which was conducted by Caribbean Watersports and Tours . The excursion company conducted the parasailing trip aboard the 31-foot powerboat Turtle . The newspaper reports that two crew members operated adventure tours usa homepage the Turtle , which was carrying five passengers.
For example, a dozen passengers from Celebrity Cruises' Summit cruise ship were seriously injured when an open air excursion vehicle ran off the road in Dominica. We represented passengers against the cruise line and the excursion company in that accident. Information on the Dominica excursion accident is contained in an article Injured Visitors to Dominica Airlifted to Miami .
There is only 1 parasail company in St. Thomas. They service adventure tours usa homepage all of the cruise lines as well as all of the resorts on the island. adventure tours usa homepage The names of the boats are, Just Chute Me, Airgasm, and Turtle. Never have really seen a name of the company? So unfortunate that this has happened as they are a great group of captains and mates that run the operation.
The name of the company was Caribbean Watersports and Tours. It is owned by Joe Campana. First thing that should be noted is that Caribbean Watersports was operating WITHOUT a Business Certificate from St Thomas and was also operating WITHOUT insurance. Most of the boats from this tour operator are maintained on a substandard basis. The ropes are not replaced at recommended intervals, the chutes are not repaired by a reputable parasail adventure tours usa homepage manufacturer, nor are his captains given drug tests. Many times his boats can be seen at anchor with the crew drinking and smoking pot between trips.
The plus side here is that only one passenger was killed instead of 3 or 4. If a complete and thorough investigation is done this dangerous and unsafe company might be shut down before another tragedy strikes.
I'm appauled at your statement "it was only 1 life lost". It doesn't matter. Those people are my family and Danielle, the daughter, is hanging on for dear life after having brain surgery adventure tours usa homepage and is still in a coma. How dare you disrespect any human life.
I was on the Eclipse on the same cruise. MY GF and i took a parasailing adventure tours usa homepage excursion on same day in ST Thomas with the same company. Our boat got about 15 minutes out from the beach and broke down entirely. We were stranded on the open water for more than an hour. My first reaction was that clearly Celebrity does not monitor quality of the experience, adventure tours usa homepage since the captain and mate kept talking about how often their boats broke down etc. I resolved to report this to Celebrity but after this tragedy, i am afraid i have nothing of substance to add to the dialog. I will wait for the investigation to draw conclusions, but i strongly believe the parasailing company will be shown to be negligent and any honest accounting of the excursion operator would show Celebrity to be negligent too. I hate to say this because i am a big fan of Celebrity but i believe this to be true.
First of all, this is a tragedy that many are suffering from and my heart goes out to all involved. I worked at a tour desk that booked adventure tours usa homepage this excursion for over 15 years and I can say that this company does have insurance - very good insurance adventure tours usa homepage and are licensed. They have been nothing but professional in the 15+ years we worked with them. I know that the owner is extremely distraught. I would hope that everyone could reserve adventure tours usa homepage judgement since none of us have all of the facts and not get caught up in the finger pointing game. The focus should be on supporting the family.
After the accident two of the parasailing companys other boats came to aid the injured adventure tours usa homepage people. Since there was a death ALL the crew and captains were given drug tests! Out of 6 people 5 FAILED!!!!!!! What does that tell you?
"Sara", where in the world are you getting your facts from? And what gives you the right to capitalize adventure tours usa homepage on this awful tragedy by spreading inaccuracies? So malicious. How dare you even spew that the plus side of all this is that only one life was lost... that guest was a precious life and everyone is hurting over her death.
I've worked with Caribbean Parasail for years and can tell you that this is a top notch company, in business for 20+ years. They are one of the few that actually have a safety consortium, practice emergency drills, and are required to have licenses and a hefty amount adventure tours usa homepage of liability insurance by the cruise lines. They have parasailed (I believe they may be the largest operator in the country) an enormous amount of volume throughout the years and have never had a tragedy like this in their history. STTResident, I agree with you. The owner is very distraught and is doing everything he can to aid in the investigation. He will never be the same again.
First of all they are NOT the largest operator in the country. Second they are not a top notch company. Third a very large portion of their employees would not be able to pass a drug test. I’m sure the owner is distraught. I would be too, as would be anyone who was responsible for someone’s death. That’s right. Let’s get it straight. The owner WAS RESPONSIBLE for that accident. It was his company adventure tours usa homepage and it was his responsibility to make sure his boats were maintained properly and he had a competent adventure tours usa homepage and drug free workforce.
I also am saddened that someone lost their life and by that fact that another person lost someone that they loved. I’m not forgetting that the survivor may never be the same again. I think before anyone takes a firm stance on defending the owner and his company we should let ALL the facts come out. If in fact he did have a current business license and valid insurance that would go a long way in the decision as to what direction the authorities should go. If not than certainly a jail sentence would be appropriate.
Sara you clearly have a hidden agenda. The point you chose to highlight first (that CP is not the biggest operator in the country) is just pitiful. But good for you in backpeddling some of your insensitivity about the death of Mrs.Kraftcheck since this is what the focus of all our attention should be on.
Also it takes about 2 days for drug test results to come back so I would value knowing how you were privy to 5 of the employees not passing the test when all parties involved adventure tours usa homepage (the family, owner, insurance company, U.S.COAST GUARD) were still awaiting results when you were typing this.
When you own a company and something like this happens then yes you are accountable for all incidents adventure tours usa homepage and accidents that take place under your watch. If you read my prior post, I was never disputing that. The question here is if negligence was a factor and that is what the ongoing investigation is trying to determine. If equipment failure, operator negligence, and/or weather were factors in this accident.
First off, I personally know one of the guys running the Turtle.. So pointing fingers is not necessary. There are faults for everything in this situation. Maybe the owner should have handled business a little better about his employees and boats. But then again when you parasail, you sign papers.. And I would know this considering I worked for a parasail company three years with one of the guys who were on the Turtle. When you sign papers, "you are signing your life away." Parasailing is not dangerous. I've done it multiple times in my life. But before anyone starts criticizing MY friend, get your facts together.
The most common failure leading to death or injury are rope breaks. You can have a very strong rope and it still fails. One of the most common causal factor is the strength of the rope and lack of safety factor built into it. Operators ignore wind speeds, the rope gets overloaded and breaks. The ropes break at far lower values then their design strengths. adventure tours usa homepage Simply adding a knot to a line reduces the strength almost 50% and lab testing has proven this with old and even new ropes. (It is a well known fact in the cordage industry.) adventure tours usa homepage The second factor is that when the wind speed doubles the load on the parasail and towline quadruples which then overloads the rope. This is a mathematic­al formula.Sa­y you have a rope that's rated for 8000 lbs. Once tied to the harness it's effective strength is about 4000 lbs. Now take a parachute that at 10 mph wind speed against the chute causes a load of 1500lbs. When the wind picks up to 20 mph the load the load is nearly 6000 lbs and the line is likely to break. Those are just base numbers that the operator has no clue about. There are other variables including the size of the chutes, passenger loads etc,,,Ther­e has been five or six recent deaths.
Passengers should not go out if they know the weather is going to change or if storms or fronts are nearby. Some operators will take risks putting the riders lives at danger for the sake of making money.
A lot of comments about liability but not one fact about what actually happened. Every comment is either emotional (not without reason) or opinion. How about some information from someone who KNOWS something.
adventure tours usa homepage If it happens all the time maybe it's not so safe. If the rope is not designed adventure tours usa homepage for the stress that's being put on it maybe the Parasail operators should use a different rope. If this happens all the time how