Federal prosecutors have made a deferred prosecution agreement with the chief engineer of the containership Dali. The experienced Indian mariner has admitted to actions that violate the Ports and Waterways Safety Act by...
Federal prosecutors have made a deferred prosecution agreement with the chief engineer of the containership Dali. The experienced Indian mariner has admitted to actions that violate the Ports and Waterways Safety Act by not reporting a serious hazard on the ship before it collided with Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge.
This agreement, announced on Friday by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland, is the first time someone directly involved in the ship's operation has admitted to criminal behavior linked to one of the worst maritime disasters in recent U.S. history.
Chief Engineer Karthikeyan Deenadayalan acknowledged he knew that the Dali and two sister ships—the Maersk Saltoro and Cezanne—were using an unsafe fuel system that lacked backup, which could prevent the ships from recovering from a power loss.
According to the facts noted in the agreement, these vessels employed a flushing pump as part of their fuel supply system, even though it wasn't designed to restart automatically after a blackout. Deenadayalan understood that this lack of redundancy created risks for safe navigation and could threaten bridges and shore structures, yet he failed to notify the U.S. Coast Guard as required by law.
The deferred prosecution agreement allows prosecutors to pause criminal action against Deenadayalan as long as he follows the terms set in the agreement. Although there are charges against him for violating the Ports and Waterways Safety Act, prosecutors pointed out that these charges are just allegations until proven in court.
This agreement also sheds light on conversations between Deenadayalan and Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, a technical superintendent from Synergy, who was also indicted last month along with two ship management companies.
Deenadayalan admitted that Nair instructed him to send a "convincing" email to the ship's charterer about the Dali's fuel consumption, aiming to avoid drawing attention to the use of the flushing pump.
This admission fits into the larger criminal case revealed in May against Synergy Marine Pte Ltd, Synergy Maritime Pvt Ltd, and Nair.
Federal prosecutors claim the defendants knowingly operated the Singapore-flagged Dali with unsafe modifications, which contributed to the blackout that caused the ship to strike the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024.
The incident resulted in the deaths of six construction workers, closed access to the Port of Baltimore for weeks, and caused around $5 billion in economic damage.
The indictment states that the Dali experienced two power losses within four minutes of leaving Baltimore Harbor. Investigators believe a loose wire in a high-voltage switchboard caused the first blackout. However, prosecutors argue that modifications to the backup systems compromised critical safety features.
The flushing pump is central to the case; prosecutors claim it was wrongly utilized to provide fuel to two diesel generators, despite its design not allowing for automatic restart after a blackout. Consequently, the generators supposedly lost their fuel supply after the first outage, resulting in a second blackout that left the vessel without propulsion or steering just before impact.
These allegations align with findings from the National Transportation Safety Board, which determined that an improperly secured signal wire caused the initial electrical failure on the nearly 1,000-foot vessel.
Additionally, the shipbuilder HD Hyundai Heavy Industries has alleged that the vessel's operators bypassed safety features after delivery by replacing automatic fuel supply pumps with the non-redundant flushing pump, a change that the company claims violated safety standards and directly led to the second blackout.
The broader criminal case is still ongoing. The defendants, including the two Synergy companies and Nair, deny any wrongdoing and are presumed innocent until proven guilty in court.
This case is under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, and the Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal Investigation Division.