Prosecutors are currently pushing for financial compensation for the families of 34 victims who tragically lost their lives in a scuba dive boat fire in 2019, marking the most devastating maritime incident in contemporary U.S. history. A hearing scheduled for Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles will determine the restitution amount. The incident, occurring nearly five years ago on Sept. 2, 2019, off California’s central coast, prompted significant changes to maritime regulations, legislative actions, and numerous ongoing civil litigations.
The captain of the ill-fated vessel, Conception, Jerry Boylan, was convicted last year of a single count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer post a 10-day trial in downtown Los Angeles. The charge, recognized as seaman’s manslaughter, dates back to pre-Civil War times and was crafted to hold ship captains and crew accountable for maritime tragedies. Boylan was ultimately sentenced to four years in prison with an additional three years of supervised release. He is currently out on bond and is required to report to the Bureau of Prisons by August 8, with an ongoing appeal in progress.
The Conception was anchored near Santa Cruz Island, just 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Santa Barbara, when it went up in flames in the early hours of the final day of a three-day voyage before sinking less than 100 feet (30 meters) from the shore. In the disastrous event, 33 passengers and a crew member lost their lives, trapped in a bunkroom below deck. The victims encompassed individuals from various walks of life, including a deckhand, an environmental scientist renowned for Antarctic research, a well-traveled couple, a Singaporean data scientist, and a family consisting of three sisters, their father and his wife.
While the exact cause of the fire remains inconclusive, prosecutors attributed blame to Boylan for neglecting to assign the mandatory night watch and inadequacies in training the crew for firefighting. The absence of the roving watch allowed the fire to spread unnoticed across the 75-foot (23-meter) vessel. Boylan’s defense attorneys sought to shift responsibility to boat owner Glen Fritzler, co-owner of Truth Aquatics Inc., the company operating the Conception along with two other dive boats in the Channel Islands area.
Truth Aquatics filed a lawsuit under a pre-Civil War provision of maritime law three days after the tragic incident, permitting the company to confine its liability to the residual value of the boat, declared a complete loss. This legal tactic, employed by owners of historic ships such as the Titanic, mandates the Fritzlers to demonstrate their lack of wrongdoing. Various lawsuits have been initiated by victims’ families against the Coast Guard, alleging inadequate enforcement of the roving watch mandate.
