Captain Found Guilty in 2019 ‘Conception’ Fire

The captain of the Southern California dive boat Conception, which burned in September 2019, resulting in the death of 34 people, has been convicted of negligence. “Jerry Nehl Boylan, 69, of Santa Barbara, was found guilty of one count of misconduct or neglect of ship officer — an offense commonly called “seaman’s manslaughter” — a crime punishable by up to 10 years in federal prison,” the United States Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a news release on Monday.

After a 10-day trial and a day of deliberations over evidence presented, the jury found that “Boylan, as captain of the Conception, committed a series of failures — including abandoning his ship instead of rescuing passengers — that resulted in the disaster. Such conduct constituted misconduct, gross negligence, and inattention to his duties and led to the deaths of 34 victims.”

Boylan’s “failures” included not setting a night watch or roving patrol and failing to conduct sufficient fire drills and crew training, along with a list of actions he neglected to take once he’d been alerted to the fire. These included directing the crew, using onboard firefighting equipment, and using the onboard public address system to warn guests and crew of the fire. And lastly, he was the “first crewmember to abandon ship even though 33 passengers and one crewmember were still alive and trapped below deck in the vessel’s bunkroom and in need of assistance to escape.”

Conception was on a three-day scuba diving trip and was overnighting in Platts Harbor at Santa Cruz Island when a fire broke out in the early hours of September 2, 2019. Thirty-three passengers and one crewmember were trapped in the bunkroom, while Boylan and four crew jumped overboard and swam to a nearby vessel.

During the trial, Boylan’s defense had argued the captain learned how to run a boat from Conception‘s owner, Glen Fritzler, who also owns the company Truth Aquatics, and that Fritzler’s boats “did not use an overnight watch,” the L.A. Times reported.

While the court’s verdict brought relief and a flood of emotion from relatives of the dead passengers and one crew, there are outstanding civil lawsuits including against Truth Aquatics, and, AP News reports, against the Coast Guard for “alleged lax enforcement of the roving watch requirement.”

Boylan’s sentencing is scheduled for February 8, 2024, at which time he could receive up to 10 years in a federal prison.