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Probe to Determine Whether Charges Will Be Filed in Boat Fire

Associated Press

   LOS ANGELES - The captain and crew who leapt from a burning dive boat
   off Southern California saved themselves as 34 people perished below
   deck.
   Whether their escape from the Conception before dawn Monday was the
   only viable option, an act of cowardice or even a crime has yet to be
   determined. But there are lawsproviding for punishment ofa ship's
   master who shirks his duty to safely evacuate passengers.
   The responsibilities of master and crew are broadly defined, said
   professor Martin J. Davies, the maritime law director at Tulane
   University. With passengers, their duty istakereasonable carein all
   circumstances.
   If thecaptain made no attempt to save passengers trapped in a burning
   boat,that would be a violation of his duty. But it wouldn't necessarily
   be wrong if crewmembersdecided there was nothing they could do to help
   the passengers in the berth and abandoned ship to seek help from a boat
   nearby.
   "The notion of the captain always goes down with the ship is consistent
   with that only because the captain is expected to stay there and do
   something if that's going to help," Davies said. "The idea that the
   captain is actually supposed to die along with everyone else is not any
   kind of a legal requirement."

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