Everyone accounted for after tanker collides with a New Orleans riverboat

American Cruise Lines said the passengers and crew members were evacuated. Thirty-two passengers were taken to local hospitals.

The Details

By Shayna Jacobs and Tim Stelloh | NBC News Published November 13, 2026 Updated on November 13, 2026 at A large tanker ship struck a riverboat with more than 100 passengers in New Orleans on Friday, capsizing the cruise vessel and prompting a major rescue effort in the Mississippi River.

The American Heritage ship, managed by American Cruise Lines, was T-boned by the tanker while docked near the French Quarter, a spokesperson said in a statement.

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Thirty-two passengers were hospitalized in the collision, though none of those injuries were critical, New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno told reporters.

All of the passengers had been accounted for, she said.

Moreno called that fact “a miracle on the Mississippi.”

Nearly four hours after an asphalt tanker crashed into a river cruise boat, New Orleans Mayor Helena Moreno said that no passengers remained unaccounted for and none of the hospitalized passengers were in critical condition.

The cause of the crash was unclear and remained under investigation, Moreno said.

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There were between 180 and 190 people aboard the Heritage, Moreno said. The boat had been docked in the port for about two hours before the incident, NBC affiliate WDSU reported.

Officials said the tanker lost control and collided with the riverboat at 12:30 p.m. in the Port of New Orleans, one of the nation’s largest ports. While passengers were disembarking, the riverboat began to sink and flipped, Moreno said.

“When that occurred, we started to have people in the water,” she said.

She described the effort to rescue those passengers as an “all hands on deck approach.” The American Heritage, which had been set to embark on a seven-day cruise to Mississippi, eventually capsized.

Video and images verified by NBC News show a number of people wearing life jackets in the water near the site of the crash.

A passenger who was on the riverboat told NBC News that she had to crawl to safety after the collision.

“After the initial crash, it hit us again and we flipped over and I had to crawl over the railing and people to save myself,” Rhonda Akers said.

Akers said her husband was hospitalized with a head injury and she was waiting to see him.

A 3-mile stretch of the river was closed to traffic while responders assessed the situation. A Coast Guard official told reporters that authorities were working to reopen the waterway as soon as possible.

Atlantic Asphalt, the tanker that struck the cruise vessel, is based in the Marshall Islands and is owned by Chinese and Liberian companies, according to public records.