U.S. takes legal actions against Dali ship owner and operator for $100 million over Baltimore bridge collapse

BALTIMORE : US Department of Justice is suing the owner and operator of the container ship Dali, saying negligence and dangerous cost-cutting decisions led to the ship ramming into — and destroying — Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge in March.

The catastrophe killed six construction workers and shut down a busy port for months; it also obliterated a segment of Interstate 695 carried by the bridge.

“The ship’s owner and manager … sent an ill-prepared crew on an abjectly unseaworthy vessel to navigate the United States’ waterways,” the Justice Department alleges in a civil claim that was filed on Wednesday in a federal court in Maryland.