Captain Jerry Boylan’s appeal of his conviction in the deaths of 34 souls aboard the Conception on September 2, 2019, was turned down on March 3 as a federal appeals court affirmed his four-year sentence. In their ruling, the three judges were explicit in describing Boylan’s negligence that led to the lethal fire aboard the ship that Labor Day Weekend.
The Conception was a charter boat owned by Truth Aquatics, working out of Santa Barbara Harbor since 1981. Boylan was a ship’s captain with more than three decades of experience, but his shipmates had crewed for between two years and just over a month. The 33 passengers were headed for the Channel Islands on a holiday dive trip, which for two of the family groups was also a birthday celebration. After a night dive with video equipment and underwater lights, the ship anchored off Santa Cruz Island overnight, the passengers and crew member Alexandra Kurtz bunking below decks, Boylan and four crew up in the wheelhouse. One hand who’d been working late, awakened to a noise in the middle of the night and saw the glow of fire.
“As his untrained crew scrambled around the vessel in vain to stop the fire, Boylan remained in the wheelhouse,” the opinion describes. “He managed to call the Coast Guard, but never used the public address system to warn the thirty-four people below deck about the fire or instruct them how to escape through the emergency hatch. He never passed the fire axe or extinguisher to the crew, nor made any personal effort to reach the crew and passengers below. Other than a ‘five-second little huddle up,’ Boylan never instructed his crew to use the fire suppression equipment on board. Instead, he ordered his crew to abandon ship, and jumped overboard.”…