In March, the container ship “Dali” rammed the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, killing six people in the accident.
The Singaporean companies Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine have now agreed to a settlement payment of US$102m. However, this does not include the cost of reconstruction.
With the payment, the companies are settling a civil lawsuit filed by the US five weeks ago over the collapse of the bridge seven months ago. Further court proceedings are still pending and will be heard in the coming weeks.
Reconstruction of the bridge will cost billions
The settlement reached yesterday does not include damages for the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which was built and is now operated by the state of Maryland. Prosecutors have filed a separate lawsuit for those damages. Reconstruction will cost over US$1bn, according to Attorney General Anthony Brown.
The settlement covers just the cost of clearing the navigation channel, which Synergy Marine “would have been responsible for in any event,” the ship management company said. The companies had previously tried to limit the payment to around US$43m. The amount agreed was “not an indication of liability, which we expressly deny for the incident (…)”, Synergy continued.
The settlement is only a small part of the massive legal claims facing the owners and operators over the container ship accident. The other cases include lawsuits filed by the city of Baltimore, the state of Maryland and the families of the victims, as well as a number of companies.
“Dali” collided with Francis Scott Key Bridge due to power failure
In May, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) published a preliminary report on the fatal collision of the 300-metre-long “Dali” with the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the largest bridge in Baltimore. The ship, chartered by shipping company Maersk, experienced power outages about ten hours before leaving the Port of Baltimore and power outages again shortly before the collision with the bridge in the early morning hours of 26 March, causing the thousands of tons of the collapsed bridge to wedge into the bow of the ship. In the accident, seven workers carrying out repairs to the bridge fell into the Patapsco River in their construction vehicles. Six of them died.
The “Dali” left US waters last month; the crew was allowed to leave the ship earlier. It is currently on its way to a repair yard in the Chinese province of Fujian, where it is expected to arrive on 8 November.
