Federal safety investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recovered audio and released a preliminary timeline on Sunday of a collision between a cruise ship and a tanker vessel in the Mississippi River on Friday.The data was retrieved after more than 30 people were injured when a tanker collided with a docked cruise ship – American Cruise Lines’ American Heritage riverboat – near the port of New Orleans on Friday at about 12.30pm. All passengers aboard the cruise ship have been accounted for, officials said.The tank vessel suffered a sudden steering failure two minutes before slamming into the docked riverboat, causing it to tip on to its side, officials said.“It experienced the steering casualty, resulting in the rudder remaining to starboard,” said Bart Barnum, senior marine accident investigator for the NTSB’s office of marine safety, during a media briefing on Sunday. “Following the steering casualty, the Atlantic Asphalt veered to starboard toward the east bank of the river.”Before the collision, audio collected by officials captured “the ship’s whistle, warnings and requests for assistance broadcasted over the vessel’s marine radio, commands to deploy the vessel’s anchors, and emergency ship handling orders”, according to Barnum.The NTSB is leading the safety investigation alongside the US Coast Guard, as well as American Cruise Lines and representatives from the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the tanker’s flag state.A preliminary report is expected to be published within 30 days.Images and videos of the collision have been circulating online.

The father of a cruise ship worker who survived the collision spoke about the moment his daughter called him in the middle of the incident.“She’s FaceTiming me hysterically in a lifejacket in the middle of the Mississippi River crying, ‘Dad, dad, I had to jump off the boat,’” said Wayne Hager in an interview with Good Morning America over the weekend. “I’m hearing people screaming and yelling in the background and kind of like some, I don’t know, like metal grinding noises or whatever.”Emergency personnel and crews work the scene after a tanker crashed into a river cruise ship in New Orleans on Friday. Photograph: Enan Chediak/The Times-Picayune/APVideo of Leelah Hager posted on social media later shows her in the water wearing a life vest immediately after the collision between the Atlantic Asphalt tanker and the cruise ship, which had about 190 passengers and crew aboard.

Other images of the incident show how the tanker caused the American Heritage to capsize.New Orleans port officials filed a lawsuit seeking more than $1m in damages from the owner and operator of the asphalt tanker. Four crew members of the American Heritage filed a separate lawsuit against Nave Shipping and Thome Ship Management, which oversee the tanker, claiming they “suffered significant and life changing injuries to their mind and body”, according to the suit.According to the document, the collision caused the cruise ship to partially sink, throwing the crew members and passengers of the American Heritage “overboard into the Mississippi River, not knowing if they were going to live or die”, the lawsuit reads.The crew members of American Heritage are alleging negligence, gross negligence, carelessness or fault of the managers of the tanker.