through the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps). It has two adjacent lock chambers, one 600 feet long closest to the bank, and the other chamber, outriver, is 1,200 feet long. The 1,200 foot chamber had been completed and opened for operation on November 7, 1980. It has a long guide wall extending several hundred feet upriver from the lock chamber. This guide wall consists of a series of interlocking circular steel cells formed by pile-driven interlocking steel sheet piling filled with sand and covered with a concrete cap with an adjacent rub wall.
In making its approach to the 1,200 foot chamber, the tow of M/V Fort Pierre landed against the upriver end of the lower guide wall. The tow was piloted so that Barge OT-142 contacted the endof the guide wall first with the head of the tow moving in later. As the tow proceeded through the Lock, the deck crew of the M/V Fort Pierre discovered that Barge OT-142 was taking on water in its No. 2 and No. 3 wing tanks through holes in the port side of the barge. No holes or leaks had been discovered upon inspection by the crew before the barge had struck the guide wall.
After the locking procedure had been completed, the M/V Fort Pierre continued its journey to Cairo, Illinois. During this time, constant but unsuccessful efforts were made by the deck crew of the vessel to pump water from the wing tanks of OT-142. At Cairo, its cargo was off-loaded into another barge so that OT-142