The captains of two Ride the Ducks boats that battled rough waters before one sank last month are targets of a criminal investigation, according to federal court documents filed Wednesday. 
 
 Kenneth Scott McKee, captain of the sunken Stretch Duck 07, and Barry King, captain of Stretch Duck 54, “are aware of their status as targets of the Government action,” the document says. They are under investigation for allegedly operating the vessel in a manner that endangered lives. 
 
 Seventeen of the 31 passengers on Duck 07 died when the boat sank in Table Rock Lake near Branson on July 19. Duck 54 was also on the water but made it to shore. 
 
 The documents filed in U.S. District Court Wednesday also indicate that Ripley Entertainment, which owns the duck boats, is another “target” or “subject” of the investigation. And they say that “several Ripley agents, employees, or officers have been identified as targets and/or subjects of the Government action.” 
 
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 The U.S. Attorneys’ manual defines a “target” as “a person as to whom the prosecutor or the grand jury has substantial evidence linking him or her to the commission of a crime and who, in the judgment of the prosecutor, is a putative defendant.” A “subject” of an investigation, the manual says, “is a person whose conduct is within the scope of the grand jury’s investigation.” 
 
 King’s wife turned to social media after the sinking that night to tell Facebook friends her husband was OK. She wrote that he was also on the lake that night, at the same time, and faced rough weather. 
 
 “He said he rode 4 ft waves and prayed,” she said. “He and his passengers rode on angels wings to safety. Our heart aches for the Captain and passengers of the Duck that capsized.” 
 
 One woman responded: “So thankful Barry was guided to safety! Definitely on angels wings! Prayers for all.” 
 
 The Star repeatedly has attempted to talk with both captains. Those attempts have been unsuccessful. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Three members of a family describe the duck boat tragedy as seen from the Showboat Branson Belle on Thursday at Table Rock Lake near Branson. 
 
 Cellphone video taken from the nearby Showboat Branson Belle, which was docked at the time of the storm, captured the two boats as they struggled in the lake. A viral video of the incident ended right before McKee’s boat went under. He was among the 14 survivors. 
 
 The first 911 call about Stretch Duck 07 came at 7:09 p.m., 14 minutes after the boat entered the water that night. 
 
 The National Weather Service had issued a severe thunderstorm warning at 6:32 p.m., specifically naming Table Rock Lake. The warning said winds in excess of 60 mph were possible. In reality, winds on the lake reached 73 mph with waves of more than 3 feet. 
 
 According to a recent report by the National Transportation Safety Board, the captain and driver were on board at 6:28 that evening when someone stepped onto the back of the boat and told the crew to take the water portion of the tour first. It isn’t known who that person is. The driver, whose job is to steer the duck boat on land, died in the sinking. 
 
 The U.S. Coast Guard referred the investigation to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri on Aug. 13 to pursue possible federal criminal charges. That office, based in Kansas City, includes the Table Rock Lake area. 
 
 According to the document filed Wednesday, the Coast Guard notified the U.S. Attorney’s Office that its preliminary probable cause determination was that the sinking of Stretch Duck 07 and the loss of lives “resulted from the misconduct, negligence, or inattention to the duties of the captain of the vessel at the time of the sinking, which is a violation of federal criminal law.” 
 
 The certificate of inspection for Stretch Duck 07 set stringent guidelines for wind and water conditions. It states that the “vessel shall not be operated waterborne when winds exceed 35 mph, and/or the wave height exceeds two feet.” 
 
 The Coast Guard also notified the U.S. Attorney’s Office of its preliminary probable cause determination “that the operation of Stretch Duck 54 on July 19, 2018, was undertaken by the captain of that vessel in a grossly negligent manner that interfered with the safe operation of the vessel and endangered the lives or bodies of persons on board the vessel.” 
 
 The federal investigation is being conducted in addition to a separate criminal probe by the Missouri attorney general. 
 
 Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley’s office confirmed to The Star on July 30 that it had opened a criminal investigation to explore the possibility of violations of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. 
 
 The act forbids fraud and deception in the sale of goods and services. 
 
 Several lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts, three on behalf of passengers who died and one on behalf of a survivor. Another was filed earlier this month by a man who jumped in the lake to try to help pull passengers to safety. 
 
 The latest suit was filed Aug. 20 in U.S. District Court by the daughter of William Asher, a St. Louis man who died in the tragedy. Jennifer Asher alleges that Ripley Entertainment “took the lives of seventeen people when it made the conscious decision to disregard the known dangers of its vehicles in volatile weather and instructed its employees to begin their excursion on the water.” 
 
 Wednesday’s filing asked the court to put a hold on the discovery process for all lawsuits until the criminal investigation is complete. Prosecutors say the action is necessary to prevent civil lawsuits from interfering with a federal probe. 
 
 Ripley spokeswoman Suzanne Smagala-Potts said last week that the company was cooperating fully with federal and state authorities. 
 
 “We are providing all documentation and materials requested in the case,” she said in an email to The Star. “However, as a party to the ongoing NTSB investigation, we are refrained from commenting to the media on the matters being investigated.” 
 
 The court documents filed Wednesday, however, cite a federal law regarding negligence or misconduct when operating a vessel. 
 
 According to that law: “Every captain, engineer, pilot, or other person employed on any steamboat or vessel, by whose misconduct, negligence, or inattention to his duties on such vessel the life of any person is destroyed ... shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.” ||||| Please enable Javascript to watch this video 
 
 SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Attorneys representing Indianapolis families whose relatives drowned at Table Rock Lake while on a "Ride the Ducks" tour filed a lawsuit Sunday against Ripley Entertainment alleging wrongful death, outrageous conduct and negligence. The lawsuit filed in federal court seeks at least $100 million in damages for the estates of Ervin Coleman and Maxwell Ly, three of the 17 victims who died in the boat sinking on July 19. 
 
 The duck boat carrying 31 people sank after taking on too much water during a storm, and the lawsuit contends that Ripley Entertainment recklessly put the lives of its passengers at risk by ignoring storm warnings and failing to take corrective safety measures. The lawsuit says that Ripley ignored repeated safety warnings over two decades about the duck boats' canopies, and the danger they pose during an emergency. It cites a 2002 National Transportation Safety Board report that found the canopies "essentially caged them (the passengers), making escape in limited time available extremely difficult." 
 
 The suit also calls out unheeded warnings made by inspector Steven Paul, who told the company in August of 2017 that the duck boats' bilge pumps that remove water from the hull could fail in bad weather because they were improperly placed in the exhaust system. 
 
 A number of other duck boat deaths are mentioned in the court filing, including a 1999 incident where 13 people drowned in Hot Springs, Arkansas, a 2002 incident in Ontario, Calif., where four died, two incidents in Philadelphia where a total of three people died, a 2015 incident in Seattle where five died and a 2016 incident in Boston where one person died. In 2000 following the Hot Springs incident, the NTSB said that immediate action was needed to provide reserve buoyancy for the duck boats, but the suit says the company ignored this recommendation. 
 
 On the day of the sinking, the lawsuit says company operators ignored a severe thunderstorm warning issued at 6:32 p.m. The captain and driver of Stretch Duck 07's were told to take the water portion of the tour before the land in an effort to beat the storm, a reversal of the original itinerary. As passengers boarded, the captain said he had monitored the weather before the trip. 
 
 When the boat sank, the lawsuit contends it was the culmination of defective design, ignored safety and storm warnings and breaks in company protocol. It says that operators should forego water entry if there is a risk of winds greater than 35 miles per hour and waves higher than 2.5 feet. The storm warning said winds could reach up to 60 miles per hour, and the boat encountered waves as high as 4 feet. 
 
 Based on those circumstances, protocol calls for the captain to tell passengers to put on their life jackets, but that didn't happen. During a 6:50 p.m. safety briefing the captain said passengers would not need their life jackets. 
 
 On Friday, the NTSB released an initial report following a review of video recordings, and within four minutes of being on the water, whitecaps rapidly appeared on the water and wind speeds increased around 7 p.m. The captain returned to the driver's seat, and the driver lowered plastic curtains, but court documents say as the boat sank, the curtains and canopy entrapped the passengers and crew. 
 
 At about 7:04 p.m., a bilge alarm went off. The NTSB said the captain reached down and the bilge alarm ended. 
 
 In the final minutes of the recordings, water splashed inside the area where passengers sit. At about 7:06 p.m., the bilge alarm once again went off, and a minute later, the inward-facing camera ended while the duck boat was still on the water's surface. A 911 call came in a 7:09 p.m. reporting that the duck boat sank and people were in the water. 
 
 There are nine counts in this lawsuit, including: two counts of Wrongful Death, two counts of Negligence, Strict Product Liability, Outrageous Conduct (punitive damages), two counts of Negligent Infliction of Emotional Distress, and Violations of the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. 
 
 Earlier on Sunday, FOX4 received notice that trial attorney Robert Mongeluzzi is holding a news conference on Monday at 10:30 a.m. Mongeluzzi is listed in this lawsuit as "pending admission" and has litigated other wrongful death suits involving duck boats. We will live stream the news conference on Facebook and at fox4kc.com.
– The duck boat sinking that killed 17 on a Missouri lake is now the subject of a federal criminal investigation after the Coast Guard found probable cause for negligence. The US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Missouri is seeking to delay civil lawsuits over the July 19 incident until the end of its "wide-ranging" investigation to prevent revealing evidence too early, though two boat captains already know themselves to be targets. Per the Springfield News-Leader, the Coast Guard found probable cause for "misconduct, negligence, or inattention to the duties of the captain" by Kenneth McKee of Ride the Ducks Branson's sunken Stretch Duck 07, and also probable cause that Barry King acted in a "grossly negligent manner" while operating Stretch Duck 54, which made it to safety. The Branson area had been under a severe thunderstorm warning for 20 minutes before Stretch Duck 07 entered Table Rock Lake, where 73mph winds whipped up waves more than three feet high. Per the Wichita Eagle, the boat wasn't to be operated in winds exceeding 35mph or waves exceeding two feet. Civil cases also accuse Ride the Ducks Branson, owned by Ripley Entertainment, of putting passengers at risk through use of boat canopies, citing a National Transportation Safety Board recommendation to remove them following a 1999 tragedy. The NTSB is also investigating this case, along with the state, per CNN. "We continue to fully cooperate," Ripley says in a statement, adding "we are providing all documentation and materials requested in the case."