U.S. sues ship’s owner and manager over Baltimore bridge collapse and seeks $100 million

The cargo ship Dali after it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March. The owner and manager of the cargo ship that caused the Baltimore bridge collapse recklessly cut corners and ignored known electrical problems on the vessel, the Justice Department alleged Wednesday in a lawsuit seeking to recover more than $100 million that the government spent to clear the underwater debris and reopen the city’s port. The Justice Department alleges that mechanical and electrical systems on the massive container ship had been “jury-rigged” and improperly maintained, culminating in a catastrophic power outage moments before it crashed into a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge in March. Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Grace Ocean, said the owner and manager had no comment at this time, but “look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.” Justice Department officials refused to answer questions Wednesday about whether a criminal investigation into the bridge collapse is ongoing. When that transformer and breaker system failed, power should have automatically transferred to the ship’s other transformer within seconds, the lawsuit says, “but this automation, a safety feature tailor made for the occasion at hand, had been recklessly disabled.” Instead, the ship’s engineers had to manually restore power, which took a full minute, according to the complaint.