India’s chief engineer admits to criminal violation two years after Daly’s fatal accident in Baltimore.
On March 26, 2024, the container ship MV Dali left the Port of Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka. Shortly after leaving port, the ship lost power and struck a pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
A large section of the bridge collapsed into the river, killing six workers who were on the bridge at the time. The accident became one of the most important American maritime disasters.Now, two years after the accident, Daly’s then-chief engineer has admitted that he failed to report a serious condition to the US Coast Guard. Karthikeyan Deenadayalan, an Indian national who was Dali’s chief engineer, said he was aware Dali was using an unsafe fuel supply pump.
According to the Justice Department record, Dindayalan admitted that the unsafe pump, known as a scour pump, lacked redundancy, which compromised the ships’ safe navigation and their ability to recover from a power outage.
He admitted that he knew that the inability to recover from a loss of power could negatively impact the safety of the ship itself, as well as any bridge, structure or beach area.
What is MV DALY?
MV Dali is a 900-foot foreign flag container ship, registered in Singapore.
Synergy Marine Pte Ltd, headquartered in Singapore, and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd, headquartered in Chennai, India.
How did the accident happen?
Daly lost power twice in a four-minute period while sailing out to sea from Baltimore Harbor, causing her to crash into the Key Bridge. A loose wire in the high voltage switchboard likely caused the first power outage. DALI’s critical systems were originally designed with reliable redundancy and automatic restart capabilities so DALI could quickly restore power after a power outage.
But shortly after the ship regained power, it lost power again.
The companies that were running the Daly allegedly changed ship and relied on the scavenging pump to supply fuel for two of the Daly’s four generators. However, the scavenger pump was not designed to automatically restart after a power outage, and Daly’s generators could not operate without a fuel supply, so the ship eventually experienced a second power outage.
If Daly had used the proper fuel supply pumps, the ship would have regained power in time to navigate safely under the main bridge.Earlier this year, these two companies, along with an Indian man, Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, who worked at these companies as a technical supervisor, were charged with conspiracy, willfully failing to promptly notify the US Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, obstructing agency procedures, and making false statements.Deenadayalan’s confession statement comes after a federal court brought charges against these three entities.
“Write a compelling email”
Dindayalan detailed his conversations and correspondence with employees from these two companies, including Nair, about the use of the unsafe cleaning pump on ships. Dindayalan said Nair ordered him to send a “persuasive” email to Daly’s tenant so they would not ask additional questions about Daly’s fuel consumption to prevent disclosure of the use of the cleaning pump.