Federal prosecutors have brought a criminal charge against the chief engineer of the cargo ship tied to the 2024 collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, alleging he failed to alert the U.S. Coast Guard to dangerous conditions aboard the vessel.
Karthikeyan Deenadayalan was charged Monday in U.S. District Court in Maryland with one count of violating the federal Port and Waterways Safety Act. His attorneys did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
At the same time, prosecutors submitted notice of a deferred prosecution agreement, though the filing did not spell out its terms. Such agreements generally allow charges to be dismissed if a defendant fulfills specific requirements, which can include cooperating with investigators, providing testimony, or paying restitution.
According to court documents, Deenadayalan was serving as chief engineer of the container ship Dali while it was in the Port of Baltimore in the days leading up to the fatal collision. Prosecutors allege he willfully failed to inform the Coast Guard that two of the ship’s generators were being powered by an improper fuel pump that lacked a backup system.
The Dali, which was departing Baltimore for Sri Lanka, lost power twice within four minutes as it headed out to sea in the early morning of March 26, 2024. Investigators have said the initial outage was likely caused by a loose wire in a switchboard, which led to a loss of steering.
Prosecutors say the ship’s problems did not end there. After power was restored, the vessel suffered a second blackout because the fuel pump being used on the two generators was not built to restart automatically after the first outage. The Dali then slammed into a supporting column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing the structure to collapse and killing six construction workers who were repairing potholes on the bridge.
The Singapore-based ship operator and another employee were indicted on criminal charges in May, accused of relying on the improper pump and then lying about it to investigators. Synergy Marine Pte Ltd. and Chennai, India-based Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd. and the ship’s former technical superintendent Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, 47, are charged with conspiracy, misconduct causing death, failing to immediately inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a hazardous condition, obstructing the National Transportation Safety Board and making false statements.
A trial in the case against the ship’s operator and the technical superintendent has been scheduled for October 2027.
After the indictment, Synergy Marine expressed disappointment and accused the U.S. Justice Department of turning an accident into a crime. Nair’s lawyer, David Gerger, had a similar response, saying in May that his client “thinks about this accident every day, but he certainly did not cause it.”
In April, a $2.25 billion settlement was announced between the state of Maryland, Synergy Marine and Grace Ocean Private Limited, the Singapore-based ship owner. Grace Ocean hasn’t been charged with any crimes related to the collapse.
Earlier this month, a federal judge agreed to postpone a civil trial over the collapse after a flurry of last-minute settlements resolved most of the remaining claims, including deals resolving all pending claims over the deaths of six construction workers.
Virtually all of the unresolved claims are alleging economic losses by businesses and local governments. None of the remaining parties were asking to start the trial as scheduled this week.
