Boat Crew Tested, Released After Crop-Duster Scare

A Mississippi River towboat and crew that were doused with an unknown substance by a crop-dusting plane have been released after initial tests for chemical or biological agents were negative.

Federal and state authorities searched crop-dusters’ flight records Monday as health officials were awaiting the results from a second round of tests.

“It was definitely a criminal act, whether it was a hazardous substance or not,” said Bob O’Brien, commanding officer of the Marine Safety Office in Memphis, Tenn.

According to the crew’s report, O’Brien said, the low-flying plane passed directly over the 17 barges bow to stern. The crew, two of whom were on deck, said the plane released a light, white substance or mist, according to the report.

Officials earlier said the captain reported that the plane circled around to spray a pleasure craft. O’Brien said the captain reported that he also thought another craft was sprayed.

Neither the pleasure craft nor the crop-duster has been identified.

Area crop-duster pilots were shocked and angry that one of their own allegedly sprayed people intentionally.

“We’re here to help the farmer, we’re not here to hurt people,” said Karen Brunetti of Shelby Air Service in Shelby, Miss. “If they were playing around, it was just the wrong time for them to be doing it.”

Some crop-dusters, skeptical that the spraying was purposeful, said the incident was all the worse because of recent terrorist threats and hoaxes.

Officials were seeking witnesses who may have seen the plane. Although it was unknown if the plane originated in Mississippi or Arkansas, Jennifer Gordon of the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management said her agency was told the investigation was a Mississippi matter.

The towboat and its 11 crew members, isolated since Friday afternoon, were released from quarantine near Rosedale, Miss., around midnight Sunday.

Officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention cleared the crew after determining that no health threat existed, the Coast Guard said.

State health officials said clothing samples tested came back negative, but authorities are still awaiting results from swabs from the boat.

Investigators with the Mississippi Department of Agriculture were checking records with about 40 crop-dusters in counties along the Mississippi River north of Rosedale.

The FBI is also investigating, but spokeswoman Deborah Madden said her office could not comment on the case.

Mississippi’s agriculture department, which is responsible for the chemicals involved in crop-dusting, has several ways to check a pilot’s flights.

First, crop-dusters must log every flight and every chemical used on a flight. Some airplanes even have a Global Positioning System memory card, which tracks and records flight paths.

Investigators are also checking with local farmers who may have seen the duster, said Chris Sparkman of the state agriculture department.

Otherwise, investigators may try to match cockpit tachometer readings with doctored log books, a clue that would provide flight mileage but not exact locations.