Shipowner stopped for repairs before deadly Baltimore bridge collapse, US claims in $100 million lawsuit

BALTIMORE (AP) — The owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused the deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the ship, the Justice Department argued Wednesday in a lawsuit seeking to recover over $100 million that the government did. spent to clean up underwater debris and reopen the city’s harbor.

The lawsuit filed in Maryland provides the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of failures at Dali that left the pilots and crew helpless in the face of impending disaster.

The Justice Department alleges that mechanical and electrical systems on the massive ship were “jury-rigged” and poorly maintained, culminating in a power outage moments before it crashed into a support column on the Francis Scott Bridge Key in March. Six construction workers were killed when the bridge collapsed into the water.

“This tragedy was completely avoidable” if not for the companies’ decision to place “an ill-trained crew on a grossly unsuitable vessel,” says the lawsuit against Dali’s owner, Grace Ocean Private Ltd., and manager Synergy Marine Group, both of Singapore. .

“They did this to reap the benefits of doing business in American ports. However, they cut corners in ways that put lives and infrastructure at risk,” the complaint said.

Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Grace Ocean, said the owner and manager had no comment on the merits of the claim, but “we look forward to our day in court to clear things up.”

Justice Department officials declined to answer questions Wednesday about whether a criminal investigation into the crash remains ongoing. FBI agents boarded the ship in April.

The ship was en route from Baltimore to Sri Lanka when steering failed due to loss of power. Six men on a road crew filling potholes during a night shift have died. The collapse snarled commercial traffic through the Port of Baltimore for months before the canal was fully opened in June.

The companies filed a petition in court days after the collapse, seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the costliest maritime accident case in history. Justice Department officials said there was no legal support for this offer of limitation of liability and vowed to vigorously challenge it.

“Through this civil action, the Department of Justice is working to ensure that the costs of cleaning up the canal and reopening the Port of Baltimore are borne by the companies that caused the collapse, not the American taxpayer,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.

The story continues

The case comes a day after the victims’ families announced their intention to file a lawsuit to hold the ship’s owner and manager responsible for the disaster.

Brawner Builders, which employed the victims, filed its own compensation claim Wednesday, saying the company lost “six beloved employees” as well as the construction equipment and vehicles they were using.

Documents released last week by the National Transportation Safety Board showed that investigators discovered a loose cable on the Dali that, when disconnected, triggered a power outage similar to what happened as it approached the bridge on March 26.

But Dali had already faced power problems earlier. Its first maintenance occurred while it was still docked in Baltimore after a crew member accidentally closed an exhaust silencer during maintenance, causing one of the diesel engines to stall, according to safety investigators. The crew then switched from one transformer and circuit breaker system—which had been in use for several months—to a second that was active upon departure. The second system is where investigators found the loose cable.

The Justice Department’s complaint points to “excessive vibration” on the ship, which lawyers called “a well-known cause of transformer and electrical failure.” Instead of dealing with the source of the excessive vibrations, the crew members “butchered” the ship, the complaint alleges.

The complaint states that equipment in the engine room cracked and pieces of cargo shook. Inspectors also found loose nuts and bolts and broken electrical cable ties, the Justice Department says. The ship’s electrical equipment was in such poor condition that an independent agency halted further electrical tests because of safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.

“In conclusion, this accident happened because of negligent and grossly negligent decisions made by Grace Ocean and Synergy, who recklessly chose to send an unsuitable vessel to navigate a critical waterway and ignored the risks,” said the Deputy Attorney General acting Chetan A. Patil.

When the active transformer and circuit breaker system failed as the ship approached the bridge, power should have been automatically transferred to the ship’s other system, the lawsuit says, “but this automation, a safety feature tailored for on this occasion, it was unwisely disabled. .” Instead, the ship’s engineers had to manually restore power, which took a full minute, the complaint says.

Had the transformers been in automatic rather than manual mode, the ship “would not have lost power and direction for any significant period of time, and the devastating tragedy that ensued would not have occurred,” the suit says.

Power was momentarily restored by engineers, but shut down again due to a separate problem with the ship’s fuel pumps that resulted from a cost-cutting measure, the Justice Department claims.

The anchor could not be deployed immediately and the bow thruster was unavailable during critical moments when the ship’s pilots were desperately trying to avoid disaster, according to the complaint.

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Richer reported from Washington.