Three children died after a boat called the Kandi Won capsized just after 10 p.m. and sank near Oyster Bay on the Fourth of July, and now Long Island police officers have called in an FBI dive team to recover the vessel.
The chief of police in Nassau County, Steven Skrynecki, said that of all the agencies that the officers had considered requesting help form, the F.B.I. was the best-equipped. He also said the dive team from would use equipment such as video cameras and sonar to get a picture of how the boat is position on the bottom of the Long Island Sound.
The current plan is to try using “air bags” to get the boat to float to the surface on Tuesday before draining water from it. Then the boat can be towed to shore and inspected. Skrynecki told The New York Times that Nassau County homicide detectives will not be able to complete their investigation into the incident until they can see the boat.
Although one of the passengers has said that the wake from a passing boat hit the Kandi Won broadside, causing it to flip over, Skrynecki said that officials were still determining the cause. It's also known that the boat was overcrowded that night, but it's unlikely that the extra passengers led to the accident.
“I’m not certain that the boat will provide all the answers that we’re looking for,” Skrynecki said. “We don’t know exactly what information we’ll get when this boat is brought up.”
So far, no charges have been filed against the owner or the driver of the boat. To pursue charges of criminal negligence, it would have to be proven that the boat's operators didn't comprehend the risks they were taking and that they contributed to those risks by dangerous behavior, like driving the boat too fast or being intoxicated.
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