Questions arise as LST returns to port in Evansville - 14 News, WFIE, Evansville, Henderson, Owensboro

Thursday night,  LST 325 returned to its home port of Evansville.

The World War II ship ran aground earlier this week in the Cumberland River on its way home after a two-week cruise. The investigation into what happened continues.

The ship is back, and now authorities are trying to figure what happened on that river in Kentucky.

A crowd gathered at Marina Pointe, hours before the ship made the bend in the river.

"We're waiting for the ship to come in, as the saying goes," said LST Volunteer Operations Manager John Engstrom.

On that ship, was Betty Voelker's husband, Jim. Jim is a cook on the ship. Thursday night, Betty was there to watch as the LST came in.

"It was so disappointing when I heard they were stuck," she recalled.

The ship was returning from a Nashville and Clarksville tour when it ran aground Monday night near Kuttawa, Kentucky.

The Coast Guard says tugboats freed the 70-year-old historic D-Day ship Wednesday night.

The Coast Guard originally said the cause of grounding appeared to be due to inclement weather. Now, there's been an allegation the pilot may have been drinking alcohol before the ship ran aground.

"One of the crew members on board made the allegation, told our investigators something like that," said Lt. Dan McQuate with the Coast Guard. "We are looking into that along with a number of other things to try and determine why they were outside the channel."

The captain of the ship, Robert Jornlin, tells 14 News the pilot was not drinking, and LST board members were not commenting on the allegation Thursday.

"The Coast Guard is doing its investigation and we'll take the position of no comment at this time," Engstrom said.

Betty Voelker says she's just glad to have the ship and her husband home.

"I'd normally be at the fall festival, but not tonight," she told 14 News.

The Coast Guard could not give any timeline on how long their investigation may take.