California captain sentenced for boat fire that killed 34

U.S. District Judge George H. Wu on Thursday sentenced former ship captain Jerry Nehl Boylan to four years in prison for his role in a boat fire that killed 34 people, according to the Justice Department. A jury last year convicted Nehl of one charge of neglect or misconduct of a ship officer, also called seaman’s manslaughter. He had pleaded not guilty.

What happened, exactly? Capt. Boylan took his 75-foot wood-and-fiberglass vessel, the P/V Conception, out with 33 passengers and six crew members for a Labor Day weekend dive trip in 2019, according to the Justice Department. During the early morning of Sept. 2, 2019, a fire broke out on board while the boat was near Santa Cruz, according to the indictment against him. All the passengers and one crew member were trapped down in a bunkroom below deck and died in the fire, while Boylan and the five other crew members managed to escape.

What exactly did he do wrong? The indictment alleged that Boylan failed to post a night watch or roving patrol, conduct fire drills, and train his crew sufficiently. During the fire, he did not use a fire extinguisher or a fire ax—both stored near his station—to fight the fire or rescue those trapped below decks. He also failed to use the public address system to alert passengers to the fire. The Justice Department also found that Boylan was the first crew member to leave the vessel. He ordered the other five crew members to leave the boat only after he did, even though he knew his conduct would threaten the lives of those left on board, according to the Justice Department’s statement.

Dig deeper: Read Lynde Langdon’s report in The Sift about the fire and Travis Kircher’s report about him initially going to trial.