The owner and operator of the container ship involved in a deadly Baltimore bridge collapse in March 2024 are suing the ship’s builder, alleging a defective control panel design caused a power outage that led to the disaster.
The Dali twice lost power as it was departing Baltimore harbor and drifted out of control into a support of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, collapsing the span and killing six highway workers.
The collapse also caused an extended supply chain snarl at the Port of Baltimore, which hosts a major coal terminal and had been the leading U.S. hub for vehicle imports.
In a lawsuit filed July 31 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, owner Grace Ocean Private Limited and operator Synergy Marine Private Limited accused Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), the ship’s builder, of negligence that caused the fatal incident.
The plaintiffs charged that a defective design, specifically a loose wire in an electrical switchboard, caused a power outage at 1:25 a.m. the night of the collapse, cutting power to the engine and steering systems.
The National Transportation Safety Board in a 2024 report found that a cable that should have connected to a control for blackout protection was loose. That could have caused the switchboard to lose power without being detected.
Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine have denied wrongdoing since April 2024 but late that same year agreed to pay $102 million for civil claims brought by the federal government and other incident-related costs.
The plaintiffs are seeking damages for vessel repairs and coverage for any third party claims.
Find more articles by Stuart Chirls here.
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