The builder of the Dali cargo ship and Baltimore city officials are welcoming the U.S. government’s bringing of criminal charges against the ship’s manager for the deadly and costly collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024.
Shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) contends the criminal charges brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) last week against Synergy Marine Group correctly assign responsibility and are consistent with findings of the investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
The NTSB concluded a loose wire was to blame for power outages that eventually led to the allision. HHI maintains the loose wire should have been detected through regular maintenance and is not related to the original design of the ship built more than 10 years ago.
Synergy has disavowed responsibility for the wire. Synergy and the ship’s owner Grace Ocean have sued HHI, alleging that its “defectively designed” switchboard led to the power loss and subsequent collision.
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The shipbuilder HHI also argues that the criminal charges reflect narratives in civil lawsuits that Synergy and Grace Ocean hav settled, including last week’s $2.5 billion settlement with the state of Maryland. In 2024, they settled with the federal government for $102 million.
However, those civil settlements contain no admission of wrongdoing by Grace Ocean or Synergy.
Also, the same NTSB report says shipbuilder HHI bears some fault for the accident.
When Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown announced the state’s $2.5 billion settlement with the owner and manager, he also indicated that the state’s “pursuit of justice” was not finished. “We will continue to press our claims against the shipbuilder whose fault helped bring this bridge down,” Brown stated.
The criminal charges are allegations, and Synergy has not been convicted of any crime.
HHI Response
HHI insists that the settlements show that the owner and manager “understand that they bear responsibility” for the tragic incident.
“Their capitulation reflects their awareness of their many failures – including serious misuse of the ship’s fuel supply systems in violation of class rules and poor maintenance and operation of the ship, which put their safety and the safety of others in jeopardy,” HHI said in a statement to Insurance Journal.
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HHI said the DOJ’s criminal indictment also “shows that Synergy attempted to conceal evidence of its wrongdoing, obstructing the NTSB’s investigation into the matter.”
According to HHI, when it delivered the ship nearly 10 years before the allision, there was no indication that any wire was loose. Also, the Dali was built with “automated redundancies” so the vessel could quickly recover from a power loss, features that were in keeping with accepted engineering practices at the time.
