Ship owner cut corners on repairs before deadly Baltimore bridge collapse, US says in $100M lawsuit

BALTIMORE -- The owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the vessel, the Justice Department alleged Wednesday in a lawsuit seeking to recover more than $100 million that the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port.

The lawsuit filed in Maryland provides the most detailed account yet of the cascading series of failures on the Dali that left the vessel’s pilots and crew completely helpless in the face of looming disaster.

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

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

“They did so to reap the benefit of conducting business in American ports. Yet they cut corners in ways that risked lives and infrastructure,” the complaint says.

Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Grace Ocean, said the owner and manager had no comment at this time but “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”

Justice Department officials refused to answer questions Wednesday about whether a criminal investigation into the bridge collapse remains ongoing. FBI agents boarded the vessel in April amid a criminal investigation into the circumstances leading up to the catastrophe.

The ship was leaving Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka when its steering failed because of the power loss. Six members of a road work crew on the bridge were killed in the collapse. The men were working an overnight shift filling potholes on the bridge deck.

The collapse snarled commercial shipping traffic through the Port of Baltimore for months before the channel was fully opened in June.

The companies filed a court petition days after the collapse seeking to limit their legal liability in what could become the most expensive marine casualty case in history. Justice Department officials said there is no legal support for the companies’ bid to limit their legal liability and they would vigorously contest it.

“With this civil claim, the Justice Department is working to ensure that the costs of clearing the channel and reopening the Port of Baltimore are borne by the companies that caused the crash, not by the American taxpayer,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in written statement.

The case comes a day after the victims’ families declared their intent to file a claim seeking to hold the ship’s owner and manager fully liable for the disaster. Several other interested parties, including city officials and local businesses, have filed opposing claims accusing the companies of negligence.

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

But the Dali had already been experiencing power issues in the hours before the collapse. The first blackout occurred when it was still docked in Baltimore after a crew member mistakenly closed an exhaust damper while conducting maintenance, causing one of its diesel engines to stall, according to safety investigators. Crew members then made changes to the ship’s electrical configuration, switching from one transformer and breaker system — which had been in use for several months — to a second that was active upon its departure. That second transformer and breaker system is where investigators found the loose cable.

The Justice Department complaint points to “excessive vibrations” on the ship that attorneys called a “well-known cause of transformer and electrical failure.” Instead of dealing with the source of the excessive vibrations, crew members “jury-rigged” the ship, the Justice Department alleges.

The complaint notes cracked equipment in the engine room and pieces of cargo being shaken loose by the vibrations. Inspectors also found loose bolts, nuts, washers and broken electrical cable ties, the Justice Department says. The state of the ship’s electrical equipment was so bad that an independent agency stopped further electrical testing because of safety concerns, according to the lawsuit.

“In sum, this accident happened because of the careless and grossly negligent decisions made by Grace Ocean and Synergy, who recklessly chose to send an unseaworthy vessel to navigate a critical waterway and ignored the risks to American lives and the nation’s infrastructure,” said Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General Chetan A. Patil.

When the active transformer and breaker system failed as the ship approached the bridge, power should have automatically transferred to the ship’s other system within seconds, the lawsuit says, “but this automation, a safety feature tailor made for the occasion at hand, had been recklessly disabled.” Instead, the ship’s engineers had to manually restore power, which took a full minute, according to the complaint.

If the transformers had been in automatic mode rather than manual, the ship “would not have lost power and steering for any meaningful period of time, and the devastating tragedy that ensued would not have occurred,” the lawsuit says.

Power was momentarily restored by the engineers, but it again switched off because of a separate problem with the ship’s fuel pumps, which was the result of cost-cutting measures, the Justice Department alleges.

Making matters worse, the anchor wasn’t able to be immediately deployed and the bow thruster was unavailable in the critical moments when the ship’s pilots were desperately trying to avoid disaster, according to the complaint.

The lawsuit also seeks punitive damages in hopes of deterring other companies “from engaging in such reckless and exceedingly harmful behavior in the United States’ navigable waters.”

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Richer reported from Washington.