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After 12 weeks trapped aboard a cargo ship that lost power and destroyed a famous Baltimore Bridge, some of the ship’s 21 crew members may soon be able to return home to their families halfway around the world.
Lawyers for Baltimore city and the owners and managers of the Dali cargo ship reached an agreement late Wednesday that could see the eight crew members return home as early as Thursday, according to documents filed this week in U.S. District Court in Maryland.
The 20 Indians and one Sri Lankan on board have been trapped on board since March 26 when the giant ship lost power and veered off course, destroying the Francis Scott Key Bridge and killing six construction workers.
The crew have been unable to leave the ship for various reasons. No crew members have been charged in connection with the accident, but an investigation is underway to identify those responsible for the disaster. Baltimore’s mayor has announced legal action and vowed to “hold wrongdoers accountable.”
On Tuesday, lawyers representing the city and the bridge inspector who was nearly killed in the crash, upon learning that some of the crew members could be returning home this week, filed a motion asking the court to intervene before the lawyers had a chance to give them a testimony.
“The crew members are all foreign nationals and, of course, have significant knowledge and information about the events giving rise to this lawsuit,” Adam Levitt, an attorney representing the city, wrote in a request for an emergency hearing on Tuesday. “If the crew members are permitted to depart the United States, Plaintiffs may never have the opportunity to question them or present their testimony.”
As of Wednesday evening, a hearing on the matter was still scheduled for Thursday.
The request came after Levitt and other lawyers received an email from attorney William Bennett, who represents the ship’s owner, Grace Ocean, and ship management company, Synergy Marine.
An email attached to Tuesday’s emergency court filing said the eight crew members were expected to return home as early as this week.
“Our clients are in the process of arranging for a crew replacement for the DALI,” wrote William Bennett, one of the attorneys representing the ship’s owner, Grace Ocean, and its management company, Synergy Marine. “They have been informed that the U.S. Coast Guard will allow some crew members to return to their home countries, but will ask others to remain in the United States.”
The sailors will be “transported directly from the ship to the airport prior to the ship departing Baltimore, likely around June 20th,” Bennett wrote Tuesday morning.
Bennett’s email listed eight qualified crew members, including a cook, a mechanic and a fueler. “All of these crew members have been interviewed by the Department of Justice, and the Department of Justice has not opposed their departure from the United States,” Bennett wrote.
CNN has reached out to the Coast Guard and Department of Justice for comment.
Following Tuesday’s motion, U.S. District Judge James Breder ordered an emergency hearing Thursday morning to hear arguments from lawyers on both sides of the matter.
But new court documents show that late Wednesday, lawyers for the ship’s owners and management company and the city of Baltimore reached an agreement on terms for the deposition of the eight crew members.
As part of the agreement, the crew members do not have to remain in Baltimore: Their depositions “will take place in London or such other location as may be agreed in writing by all parties to the litigation,” according to an attachment to Wednesday’s court filing.
The testimony is expected to take place “after November 2024,” according to the document.
According to Wednesday’s court filing, Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine must not only make the crew members available for depositions, but also provide documents such as personnel files, employment contracts and training files.
“We agree to the terms as stated,” Bennett wrote in an email attached to the court filing.
With the agreement in place, “the City of Baltimore believes that the parties no longer require court intervention to resolve their dispute,” Leavitt wrote in Wednesday’s court filing. As a result, the city has asked that its request for an emergency status hearing be dropped, Leavitt said.
The judge responded in an order Wednesday evening, saying the trial would continue “because the agreement has not yet been expressly approved by all parties,” but he noted that “the Court believes that the agreement represents a prudent solution to this matter.”
Jerry Jackson/Baltimore Sun/TNS/Getty Images
Salvage crews remove the remains of the Francis Scott Key Bridge from the container ship Dali on June 18, 2024.
Jason Foster, an attorney representing the inspector, who said he narrowly escaped and lost six friends in the accident, said he could not pursue a civil lawsuit because the ship’s owners and management had sought to limit their financial liability.
Six days after the disaster, Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine filed a petition in federal court asking that any compensation payment be capped at $43.6 million.
But potential claimants have until Sept. 24 to come forward, so a decision on the request is unlikely to be made immediately, Foster told CNN Wednesday afternoon.
And federal civil procedure rules prevent Foster and other lawyers from calling crew members to testify until all potential plaintiffs have come forward, likely until after September.
But a new agreement reached Wednesday night will allow the eight crew members to leave the country before leaving.
Despite being separated from their families for months and their fate uncertain, the sailors are in high spirits, said Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Synergy Marine, the crew’s employer.
The company said it was “looking after them every day” and helping to ensure they had the supplies they needed, and local seafarers’ organizations have “given us a lot of support in taking care of our crew,” Wilson told CNN on Wednesday.
Singapore Maritime Officials Union/Singapore Seafarers Union/ITF
From left: Singapore Seafarers’ Association secretary-general Cheng Chuan and Singapore Maritime Officers’ Union deputy secretary-general Ngwee Guo Duan talk with crew members of the Dali on April 24, four weeks after the cargo ship struck Baltimore’s Key Bridge.
Crews received pizza and catering deliveries and watched cricket matches broadcast from home. “It’s the little things that mean a lot to the crew,” Wilson said.
But it remains unclear when the eight crew members and their remaining colleagues will be able to leave. CNN has reached out to the Singapore union representing the seafarers for comment.
CNN’s Mary Kay Maloney and Jeff Winter contributed to this report.
