BALTIMORE — The Justice Department on Tuesday announced 18 charges against the operators of the 100,000-plus-ton cargo ship that crashed into a Maryland bridge more than two years ago, causing it to collapse and killing six people.

Subscribe to read this story ad-free

Get unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.

Federal prosecutors said they were charging the international companies Synergy Marine Pte Ltd and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd, as well as ship technical superintendent Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair. The charges included conspiracy and misconduct or neglect of ship officers that resulted in death and obstruction.

The two companies and technical superintendent were also charged with conspiracy, willfully failing to immediately inform the U.S. Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, obstruction of an agency proceeding, and false statements, according to a statement announcing the charges.

The companies were also accused of misdemeanor violations of the Clean Water Act, Oil Pollution Act and Refuse Act, the department said. Those charges are related to the discharge of pollutants into Maryland’s Patapsco River, including the shipping containers, their contents, oil and the bridge itself.

The 900-foot ship Dali lost power twice and slammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the early hours of March 26, 2024, as a work crew was fixing potholes.

Six construction workers died when the bridge went crumbling down into the Patapsco River. Another construction worker fell into the waters below and sustained serious injuries but survived, while an inspector working as a subcontractor for the Maryland Transportation Authority escaped the collapse without injuries. The nearly two dozen crew members on the ship survived, along with two pilots who were helping the vessel navigate the harbor.

The construction workers were Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, Carlos Daniel Hernandez Estrella, Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, Jose Mynor Lopez, Miguel Angel Luna, Maynor Yasir Suazo Sandoval and survivor Julio Cervantes Suarez.

Cervantes Suarez told NBC News in July 2024 that the men who died, who were all Latino, included his nephew, brother-in-law and friends he had known for years.

“Alejandro, Miguel, Dorlian, Maynor, Carlos and Jose were making our roads safer when they lost their lives on that fateful day in March 2024,” said Jimmy Paul, a special agent in charge with the FBI’s Baltimore field office. “The collapse should never have happened.”

The collapse brought the critically important Baltimore port to a standstill for two months and reconstruction of the bridge is ongoing.

“The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge was a preventable tragedy of enormous consequence,” acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement announcing the charges. “This indictment is a critical step toward holding accountable those whose reckless disregard for maritime safety regulations caused this disaster. Six construction workers lost their lives, critical infrastructure was destroyed, pollutants were released into the Patapsco River and Chesapeake Bay, and the economic damage now exceeds five billion dollars.”

“This Department is committed to securing justice for the victims and ensuring those responsible are held to account,” he said.

The company Synergy Marine Pte Ltd is based in Singapore and Synergy Maritime Pte Ltd is based in Chennai, India, according to prosecutors. Nair, 47, is an Indian national who was a technical superintendent of both companies.

Prosecutors said they believe the ship’s technical superintendent is in India and that they would use all available law enforcement tools to bring him to the U.S. to face charges.

A National Transportation Safety Board report determined that the 947-foot-long Singapore-flagged cargo ship was transiting out of Baltimore harbor when it lost power and propulsion before striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Maryland U.S. Attorney Kelly Hayes said at the news conference Tuesday that the defendants allegedly altered the ship in a way that meant it could not regain power after the second blackout in order to avoid crashing into the bridge in time.

Cervantes Suarez said he hopes people remember those who died.

“I knew all of them, they were families. They were good people, good workers and had good values,” he said.

Gary Grumbach, Tom Costello and Owen Hayes reported from Baltimore. Daniella Silva reported from New York City.

Sixteen of the 18 passengers transferred to the U.S. from a cruise ship where there was an outbreak of hantavirus arrived in Omaha, Neb., on Monday for evaluation after disembarking the vessel in Spain’s Canary Islands over the weekend.

Of the 15 U.S. citizens and one dual U.S.-British citizen who arrived in Nebraska, all but one are currently being housed in the National Quarantine Unit. That patient tested positive for the virus and was being housed in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit, officials said at a Monday news conference. The 15 people in the quarantine unit will continue to be monitored for signs of the illness.

Passengers carry their belongings in plastic bags after being evacuated from the MV Hondius after docking in the Granadilla Port on Sunday in Tenerife, part of the Canary Islands, Spain.

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Advertisement

hide caption

toggle caption

Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Advertisement

Nebraska may seem an unlikely location to process these individuals, but it is home to the National Quarantine Unit — the only federally funded quarantine unit in the U.S. — and the separate Nebraska Biocontainment Unit. They are highly specialized facilities located at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and widely considered among the best in the world.

The $1 million, five-room biocontainment unit was dedicated in 2005. It was a joint project with Nebraska Health and Human Services and the UNMC. It is set up to safely provide medical care for patients with highly hazardous and infectious diseases and was used in 2014 to treat two doctors infected with Ebola. The National Quarantine Unit was completed in late 2019. It cost nearly $20 million, according to the Associated Press. Both facilities were used during the COVID-19 epidemic.

“We are prepared for situations exactly like this,” Dr. Michael Ash, CEO of Nebraska Medicine, said in a statement. “Our teams have trained for decades alongside federal and state partners to make sure we can safely provide care while protecting our staff and the broader community. We are proud to support this national effort.”

Two additional U.S. passengers on the cruise ship — a couple, with one showing symptoms of hantavirus — were transferred for monitoring to Emory University Hospital, where another advanced biocontainment facility is located.

When the biocontainment unit was first dedicated more than 20 years ago, the biggest concerns were anthrax attacks and severe acute respiratory syndrome, more commonly known as SARS, Dr. Phil Smith, who spearheaded the efforts at Nebraska Medical Center to create the biocontainment unit, told the AP in 2020. Smith died last year.

A hallway leading to rooms at the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

Nebraska Medicine

hide caption

toggle caption

Nebraska Medicine

Advertisement

The quarantine unit features 20 negative-pressure rooms designed to keep potentially harmful particles from escaping by maintaining lower air pressure inside than outside the rooms. The single-occupancy rooms provide patients with attached bathrooms, exercise equipment and Wi-Fi, according to the medical center.

“We have protocols in the quarantine unit that provide for safe care of these of these persons, including just all the activities of daily living so that they can … have a comfortable stay but also have it in an area that’s protected and limits spread of the pathogen,” Dr. Michael Wadman, the medical director of the National Quarantine Unit, said at a Friday news conference. 

The biocontainment unit, by contrast, is a patient-care space where people are able to receive medical treatment, Dr. Angela Hewlett, medical director of the biocontainment unit, told reporters Monday.

She emphasized that the facility — which has a 10-bed capacity — operates independently from the quarantine unit and has its own dedicated air-handling system. “We don’t share [it] with any of the rest of the facility,” she said, noting that the unit uses rooftop HEPA filtration and is designed “very differently” from what most people typically imagine in a hospital setting.

One of the rooms in the Nebraska Biocontainment Unit.

Nebraska Medicine

hide caption

toggle caption

Nebraska Medicine

Advertisement

Nebraska Gov. Jim Pillen, speaking at Monday’s news conference, welcomed the recently arrived patients, who are among nearly 150 people from 23 different countries who were aboard the MV Hondius when the illness most commonly transmitted to humans through contact with infected rodents broke out. As of Monday, the World Health Organization has reported at least nine cases of hantavirus, including three deaths.

“We’re glad that you’re here,” Pillen said. “We’re going to ensure that you have the best world-class care possible.”

Pillen also sought to reassure Nebraskans that the facilities are safe and secure: “We’re working diligently to ensure no one leaves the security in an unsecured way at an inappropriate time,” he said. “No one poses a risk to public health, just walking out the front door of the streets of Omaha.”

The hantavirus outbreak on the cruise ship has been identified as the Andes strain of the illness, one that can be spread, though rarely, from person-to-person, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It can cause severe respiratory disease, with early flu-like symptoms.

“The Andes variant of this virus does not spread easily, and it requires prolonged, close contact with someone who is already symptomatic,” according to Adm. Brian Christine, the assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, who spoke at Monday’s news conference. “Even so, we have taken this situation very seriously from the very start.”

“The risk of hantavirus to the general public remains very, very low,” he said.

The full quarantine period for hantavirus is 42 days, Christine said, but he added that the patients would be allowed to go home if they remained asymptomatic.

“Right now, the passengers that are all in the assessment phase — they’re going to be here for at least a few days while we do assessments and the coordination on what happens next,” he said, adding that they had the option to remain in the quarantine facility for the full period, for “the safest and most effective option for them.”