The owner and manager of the huge container ship that brought down the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month needs to be held fully accountable for the deadly collapse, in line with court papers filed Monday on behalf of the Baltimore mayor and city council became.
The two corporations submitted a petition Shortly after the March 26 collapse, they asked a court to limit their liability under a provision of an 1851 pre-Civil War maritime law – a routine but necessary procedure in such cases. A federal court in Maryland will ultimately resolve who’s chargeable for what could possibly be the most expensive maritime disaster in history and the way much they owe.
Grace Ocean Private Ltd. based in Singapore, is the owner of the Dali, the ship that veered off beam and crashed into the bridge. Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., also based in Singapore, is the vessel manager.
In their filing Monday, the town’s lawyers accused them of negligence and argued that, amongst other things, the businesses must have recognized that the Dali was unfit to travel and manned the ship with a reliable crew.
A spokesman for the businesses said Monday that it might be inappropriate to comment on the pending litigation.
The ship was en path to Sri Lanka when it lost power shortly after leaving Baltimore and struck one among the bridge’s supporting columns, causing the bridge to collapse and 6 members of a road construction crew to fall to their deaths.
“For more than four decades, cargo ships have made thousands of trips under the Key Bridge each year without incident,” the town’s criticism states. “There was nothing on March 26, 2024 that should have changed that.”
FBI agents boarded the stuck ship last week as a part of a criminal investigation. A separate federal investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board will include an investigation into whether the ship suffered an accident Power problems before the trip began, officials said. This investigation will generally deal with the Dali’s electrical system.
In their earlier petition, Grace Ocean and Synergy sought to limit their liability to roughly $43.6 million. The petition estimates that the ship itself is value as much as $90 million and is due over $1.1 million in cargo revenue. The estimate also deducts two major expenses: at the very least $28 million in repair costs and at the very least $19.5 million in recovery costs.
Grace Ocean has also recently initiated a process requiring the owners of onboard cargo to cover a part of the salvage costs. The company did a “hood-sized” declarationallowing an external expert to find out what contribution each stakeholder should make.
Baltimore officials argue that the ship’s owner and manager needs to be held chargeable for their roles within the disaster, which has halted most maritime traffic through the Port of Baltimore and disrupted a key East Coast trucking route . The economic impact could possibly be devastating for the Baltimore region, the filing said.
“Petitioners’ negligence led them to destroy the Key Bridge and single-handedly close the Port of Baltimore, a source of jobs, municipal revenue, etc not a little pride for the city of Baltimore and its residents,” the attorneys wrote.
Lawyers representing the collapse victims and their families have also pledged to carry the businesses accountable and oppose their demands for limited liability.
Meanwhile, recovery teams are working to remove 1000’s of tons of collapsed steel and concrete from the Patapsco River. They have opened three temporary channels to permit some ships to go through the world, however the port’s primary shipping channel is predicted to stay closed for several more weeks.
