Lawyers allege California scuba boat fire that killed 34 was result of safety violations, charging s
Source: Washington Post
National
Lawyers allege California scuba boat fire that killed 34 was result of safety violations, charging station
By Miranda Green
Jan. 13, 2020 at 1:00 p.m. EST
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Owners of a scuba-diving boat that caught fire off California's Channel Islands last summer, trapping passengers below deck and killing 34 people, failed to follow mandated safety protocols and did not provide adequate charging procedures for electronic equipment, which likely caused the blaze, according to new legal claims on behalf of four of the victims.
Several claims filed in U.S. District Court in California on Monday allege that crew and owner negligence were responsible for the wrongful deaths on board the Conception, a well-known and popular vessel that had ferried generations of divers and sightseers to coastal spots off Santa Barbara since the early 1980s. The Sept. 2 overnight fire in the galley area killed everyone who was sleeping below deck during the Labor Day weekend trip — the only survivors were the captain and four crew members who had been in a sleeping area above.
Robert Mongeluzzi, a California lawyer who represents the victims, said an initial investigation by authorities showed that there were several lapses on the boat that allowed the catastrophe to happen. Passengers and a crew member in the sleeping compartment were unable to escape, the crew wasn't prepared for such a fire, and the boat did not have proper charging capabilities for the technology on the boat. ... “There was no night watch, there wasn’t adequate training, the location of the charging stations in a level above the sleeping birth with multiple electronic devices with ion batteries was a death trap,” Mongeluzzi told The Washington Post.
The catastrophe — one of the deadliest maritime accidents in modern history — happened after a night of celebrating three birthdays. Thirty-three passengers and one crew member retired to the tightly packed bunks below deck in the early morning hours of the last day of the voyage. ... A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report found that all six members of the crew were asleep at 3:15 a.m. when the fire broke out in the galley. Government regulations mandate that commercial ships must maintain a roving watch with someone awake aboard at all times.
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Green is a freelance journalist based in California.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/lawyers-allege-california-scuba-boat-fire-that-killed-34-was-result-of-safety-violations-charging-station/2020/01/13/c777ca32-361a-11ea-9541-9107303481a4_story.html
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