California boat captain convicted of manslaughter in fire that killed 34 people

The captain of a submarine that caught fire off the coast of Southern California in 2019, killing all 33 passengers and one of six crew members, was found guilty Monday by a federal jury of a crime known as ” manslaughter by sailors’. .”

When the commercial diving vessel, the Conception, caught fire in a port near Santa Cruz Island early in the morning of September 2, 2019, all passengers were sleeping below deck. Prosecutors say the captain, Jerry Nehl Boylan, along with four crew members successfully escaped without attempting to help them.

Mr. Boylan failed in part to perform his duties as a ship’s officer by “failing to perform any life-saving or firefighting activities at the time of the fire, even though he was not injured,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of the United States. California said in a press release The conviction was announced on Monday.

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for February, the release said. Mr. Boylan faces a prison sentence of up to 10 years.

Mr. Boylan had pleaded not guilty, and a public defender representing him, Georgina Wakefield, argued in court Last month it was reported that the owner of the boat was responsible for the accident. She did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Monday.

The National Transportation Safety Board said in 2020 that the lack of a required night patrol aboard the boat, along with a lack of smoke detectors, had delayed the response to the fire and contributed to the high death toll.

The cause of the fire could not be determined, the agency said.