The asphalt tanker that veered into a luxury paddleboat cruise ship Friday on the lower Mississippi River in downtown New Orleans had a history of infractions logged by the U.S. Coast Guard and European shipping regulators over the past two years, records show.
Coast Guard officials dinged the Marshall Islands-flagged vessel, the Atlantic Asphalt, in June for faulty electrical wiring in the ship’s pump room, according to records The Times-Picayune | The Advocate obtained through the military branch. Last year, inspectors found its rescue boats were unprepared to launch swiftly in an emergency.
In 2024, inspectors twice logged breakdowns in the Atlantic Asphalt’s navigation systems. That September, the vessel “experienced loss of communication between the bridge and main engine,” Coast Guard officials in Wilmington, Delaware wrote in an after-action report. Two months earlier, the ship’s automatic pilot system malfunctioned while it approached Baltimore…