Feds charge ship operator in Baltimore's Key Bridge collapse
The operator of the MV Dali, a container ship that lost power and slammed into Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge in 2024, killing six people, is facing federal charges.
Updated on: May 12, 2026 / 10:48 AM EDT / CBS News
An indictment unsealed Tuesday morning charges Synergy Marine's Singapore- and India-based operations with conspiracy to defraud the United States, failing to inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, misconduct or neglect by ship officers causing death, false statements and obstructing an agency proceeding. Shore-based technical superintendent Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, a national of India, was also indicted.
It marks the first criminal charges in connection with the M/V Dali, which crashed into the Key Bridge while heading out to sea from the Port of Baltimore early in the morning of March 26, 2024. Six highway construction workers died. A project to replace the bridge is expected to cost billions of dollars and take until the end of the decade.
Federal prosecutors allege the defendants improperly used a "flushing pump" to supply diesel to two of the Dali's generators, rather than normal fuel supply pumps that have redundancies and can automatically restart. That pump's failure has been blamed for the second of two power outages in the moments leading up to the collision.
"If the M/V Dali had used the proper fuel supply and booster pumps, then the vessel would have regained power in time to safely navigate under the Key bridge," the indictment reads.