Federal prosecutors have reached a deferred-prosecution agreement with the chief engineer of the containership Dali, Karthikeyan Deenadayalan, who admitted to conduct constituting a criminal violation of the Ports and Waterways Safety Act for failing to report a known hazardous condition before the vessel’s catastrophic allision with Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. It is the first admission of criminal wrongdoing by an individual involved in operating the vessel.

Deenadayalan acknowledged he knew the Dali and two sister ships were operating with a non-redundant fuel-supply arrangement that relied on a flushing pump not designed to restart automatically after a blackout, which could impair the vessels’ ability to recover from a power loss, yet he did not report it to the U.S. Coast Guard as required. The March 26, 2024 collapse killed six construction workers, closed the Port of Baltimore for weeks, and caused an estimated $5 billion in economic damage.

The admission ties into the broader federal case against Singapore-based Synergy Marine, Chennai-based Synergy Maritime, and technical superintendent Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair, who were indicted last month and have denied wrongdoing. The case is being investigated by the FBI, the Coast Guard Investigative Service, and the EPA Criminal Investigation Division.

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