STORY TOOLS

• E-mail story
• Comments
• iPod friendly
• Printer friendly

More

Share and Enjoy [?]

After a nearly nine-month investigation into the cause of a deadly boat crash off Big Marco Pass, an investigator with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has determined the wreck may have been the result of a combination of excessive speed, operator inexperience and alcohol.

But the father of the man who was killed while driving the boat said the investigators seemed to be in over their heads and refused to look into possible defects with the boat and potential negligence on the part of previous owners.

Jeff Burke, the lead investigator into the crash that killed Harper Simpson II, 31; Simpson’s fiance, Meagan Molter, 22; and Molter’s mother, Linda, 42, and brother, James, 20, calls the circumstances leading up to the crash a “perfect storm.” Jennifer Molter, 16, was the only survivor of the crash.

Burke has completed his investigation, though his final report has yet to be compiled.

The case is closed, Burke said, and there is no ongoing criminal investigation.

“If you ask me, I believe it was the perfect storm,” Burke said. “I believe it was a combination of his actions on that day -- it was a combination of the speed, and I have to say operator inexperience.”

A boating accident report indicates that at about 5:20 p.m. on Jan. 6, 2007, Simpson was operating his 33-foot 1994 Powerplay speed boat at “excessive speed.” He turned the boat and attempted to jump a large wake from another boat.

The Powerplay left the water at a 45-degree angle. The back end hit a second wave causing the front of the boat to “stuff” into a third wave, the report said.

The hull was destroyed by the impact and four of the five passengers were killed immediately.

It is unclear exactly how fast the boat was traveling, but witnesses said it was “operating at a high rate of speed,” Burke said.

Other than in no-wake zones, there is no speed limit on the Gulf of Mexico.

A medical examiner’s report showed that Simpson had a 0.05 percent blood-alcohol level at the time of the crash, below the Florida legal limit of 0.08 percent that applies to all vehicles, Burke said.

“Harper Simpson was not by state law legally impaired, however there was alcohol in the system,” Burke said. “The people on that boat had consumed alcohol that day, including Harper Simpson.”

Simpson’s father, also Harper Simpson, doesn’t buy the commission’s explanation.

He compared the boat crash to a vehicle driving on Interstate 75 and blowing up without hitting anything or being hit. The speed of the boat and alcohol aren’t enough to explain why a boat made for high speeds would come apart when it hit a wave, he said.

“That boat was built to go fast on the Gulf of Mexico and I’m sure that’s what he was doing,” the father said. “I will never argue that.”

Simpson said his attorney, Jacksonville-based Rod Sullivan, had the wreckage inspected by two boat experts who determined that two new, powerful engines were installed in the boat years before Simpson’s son bought the vessel in December 2006. The experts also determined that significant alterations had been made to the boat’s deck and hull, the elder Simpson said.

Burke was there the day the boat experts examined the wreckage, he said, but his job is only to determine if any state or federal laws or navigation rules had been violated the day of the crash.

“I determine the facts of the investigation and what elements were leading up to that event and that’s it,” Burke said. “We traced back the prior owners of the boat. However, I did not talk to the prior owners about why the work was done or why the boat was sold.”

The elder Simpson believes the investigators did their best, but were in over their heads.

“I don’t think they ever trained for multiple deaths in a single boat accident,” he said. “My guess was this is the first time they’d seen anything like this.”