Families of Key Bridge victims seek to hold Dali owner accountable for their losses

Before he went to work March 25 as part of a night crew filling potholes on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez stopped by his wife’s food truck for dinner.

Maria del Carmen Castellón will never forget his visit that evening, a few brief moments that became her last memory of him, she told reporters Tuesday. Luna gave her a kiss. She caught a glimpse of his phone when he climbed into his truck. The background was a picture of the couple smiling. She said seeing it made her happy.

Hours later, in the early morning of March 26, a massive cargo ship smashed into one of the bridge’s critical support columns, collapsing the whole span and sending Luna and six of his coworkers plunging into the frigid Patapsco River below. He and five others died and it took more than a month for authorities to recover all of their bodies from the tangled mess of steel and concrete that lay in the water.

“Those final memories will be marked forever in my memory, in my heart,” Castellón said through a Spanish interpreter at a news conference at CASA in East Baltimore.

Castellón and the families of Jose Minor Lopez and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, both of whom died in the bridge collapse, said at a news conference Tuesday that they will sue the Singaporean companies that owned and operated the 984-foot container ship named Dali to hold those businesses accountable.

“We hope that no one else has to suffer a tragedy like we have, and justice means preventing future tragedies,” Castellón said. “Real justice would have meant that my husband never died and he would be here with me continuing a life of joy and laughter. Real justice means that no son has to miss their father, no wife has to navigate this world alone and no grandchild has to know their grandfather through a distant picture.”

Grace Ocean Private Ltd., the owner of the Dali, and Synergy Marine Pte Ltd., which manages the cargo ship, asked a federal judge in Baltimore’s U.S. District Court to largely absolve them of liability for the crash , citing a 19th-century federal law that limits liability for maritime disasters to the salvage value of the ship plus the revenue it stood to make from its cargo. They estimated that value at $43.7 million.

Those companies also hired a lobbying firm to fight against proposed changes in Congress to the Limitation of Liability Act of 1851, under which they seek protection.

“We ask for justice today not only for the families, their parents, their fathers, their brothers, their sons, but the memory of these men who believed in the promise of a better life,” Gustavo Torres, CASA’s executive director, said at a news conference. “We ask for justice because no corporation, no amount of lobbying, no legal loophole should ever be able to erase the value of a human life.”

He accused Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine of attempting to “wash their hands of responsibility” in the deadly collapse.

“Grace Ocean has chosen the path of impunity over the path of justice,” Torres added. “Driven by profit and self-interest, their actions seek to erase the accountability they owe to these families, to these men whose lives were stolen. But we will not let that happen.”

Darrell Wilson, a spokesman for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, said in an email the companies anticipated claims filed by the families.

“The owner and manager will have no further comment on the merits of any claim at this time,” Wilson said.

Matthew Wessler, of the firm Gupta Wessler LLP, is representing the families of Luna, Lopez and Cabrera in their lawsuit, which has to be filed by a claims deadline of Sept. 24. Unlike claims that have been filed so far on behalf of businesses or the City of Baltimore, Wessler said, their lawsuit will be a personal injury complaint.

“Those personal injuries are a direct result of actions we believe were taken negligently by the ship,” Wessler said.

Wessler added that the families’ claim would mirror others brought so far in the sense that it will accuse Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine of negligence, alleging they allowed an unseaworthy vessel to sail. Like the other claims, it will focus on the Dali losing power twice roughly 10 hours before it left the Port of Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal.

The Dali lost power twice again a short way into a doomed voyage for Sri Lanka, rendering the more than 100,000-ton vessel mostly adrift as it approached the Key Bridge.

Federal investigators with the National Transportation Safety Board determined that the in-port blackouts, or total power losses, led crew members to switch breakers for the ship’s electrical power system. The replacement breakers tripped shortly after it departed, causing the first of two complete power losses aboard within about half a mile of the bridge.

More recently, investigators have narrowed their probe to an electrical component about the diameter of a soda can . The NTSB brought in representatives from the ship’s Korean manufacturer, Hyundai, to analyze the device, identifying a loose cable connection related to the component in the process.

Castellón and the families of Lopez and Cabrera walked to the podium among dozens of Latino immigrants wearing yellow construction vests to symbolize their support for the fallen workers.

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“We are all with you, today, tomorrow and always,” they chanted together in Spanish and in English.

Torres and Castellón said they hoped to also secure better worker protections for immigrants in honor of the men who died on the bridge. They advocated to eliminate language barriers on job sites and for the administration of President Joe Biden to immediately give immigrants temporary protective status so that they can work legally in America.

“Justice means additional OSHA protections and improved work through standards and training,” said Torres, referring to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration by its acronym. “Imagine every worker is safe on the job site.”

Castellón said her husband labored as a welder under extremely hot and cold conditions detrimental to his health. The hard work, she said, caused him to get surgery on his hands in December.

“He wore his pain with dignity and continued to work,” Castellón said.

Despite the challenges of the coronavirus pandemic, Castellón said, Luna helped his wife of seven years — and partner of 14 — open a food truck, Pupuseria Y Antojitos Carmencita Luna. Before he switched to the night shift, Luna helped her with the food truck when he finished working for the day.

“Days before the tragedy, he surprised me by taking me to a place that we were trying to rent to start a restaurant,” she recalled. “While we looked in the windows of the place we wanted to rent to start a restaurant, we imagined a future where he had a job where he did not have to suffer the labors and dangerous work. Those moments were filled with laughter and love, and plans about what our life could be.”

Castellón said she will “forever pursue” her dream of opening a restaurant in honor of her late husband. A father of five and grandfather, Luna was 49.

It was one of her husband’s sons who broke the “news I would not wish on anyone” to her on March 26, opening a “wound” in her heart “that will never heal.”

“In that moment, I wish I had wings so that I could fly down and be the one to save my husband,” Castellón said.