Lake George, N.Y. ? A seemingly ideal day of sailing along a calm but busy mountain lake turned abruptly tragic Sunday when a tour boat carrying a group of senior citizens overturned, killing 21 people and injuring dozens more.

The glass-enclosed Ethan Allen was carrying tourists from Michigan on a fall foliage tour when it capsized shortly before 3 p.m. The accident on Lake George may have occurred when the boat was hit by the wake of a larger vessel, Warren County Sheriff Larry Cleveland said.

“We haven’t ruled anything out yet,” Cleveland said.

The 40-foot boat was carrying a tour group from the Trenton, Mich., area, and was sailing just north of the village of Lake George, a popular tourist destination about 50 miles north of Albany in the Adirondack Mountains. With calm waters, clear skies and temperatures in the 70s, it seemed perfect boating weather.

U.S. Rep. John Sweeney, who talked with survivors at the hospital, said the boat flipped in about 30 seconds, giving victims no time to react. The sheriff said none of the passengers was able to put on a life jacket.

Adult boat passengers are not required to wear life jackets in New York, but boats must carry at least one life jacket per person.

Patrol boats that reached the scene within minutes found other boaters already pulling people from the water. All passengers had been accounted for within two hours.

Fire department boats join the Warren County Sheriff's Department team in searching for bodies and survivors off Cramer Point on Lake George. A tour boat carrying senior citizens overturned Sunday in Lake George, N.Y.

Twenty-seven people were taken to a hospital in nearby Glens Falls. Some suffered broken ribs and others complained of shortness of breath. Seven survivors were to be admitted, hospital spokesman Jason White said.

He said the hospital had received 21 bodies.

Police investigators were at the hospital late Sunday to question survivors.

Officials gave conflicting information on the number of dead and passengers. Cleveland said there were 48 or 49 people aboard, which was close to the boat’s maximum capacity of 50.

Investigators were interviewing survivors to get an accurate count. The National Transportation Safety Board was expected at the lake today, the sheriff said.

The boat was last inspected in May and no problems were found, according to Wendy Gibson, spokeswoman for the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation.

Trenton, Mich., Mayor Gerald Brown, whose community is about 20 miles south of Detroit, said the group left Tuesday on a weeklong bus-and-rail trip to see changing fall colors along the East Coast.