Coast Guard led public hearings into the tragic capsizing of the Seacor Power begin Monday at the Courtyard Marriot Hotel in Houma.
About nine civil suits have been filed against Seacor Marine for deaths related to the incident and attorneys in those suits are expected to be in attendance. Legal analyst Tim Meche said their presence could make things interesting but first and foremost this is a fact-finding mission.
“The Coast Guard is fulfilling its role as an investigator of accidents that occur on the ocean, similar to what the NTSB does for airplane crashes,” said Meche. “Primarily the purpose is to determine what happened so that it does not happen again, not to charge someone with a crime, but that could be the result depending on what they find.”
The hearings will be held every weekday at 8 AM from August 2nd until August 13th. The hearings will be streamed live for those who can not attend.
Meche said the last high-profile maritime incident in Louisiana was the BP Oil Spill, which did result in criminal charges being brought.
Meche expects the Coast Guard will remain a neutral arbiter in this case, but given what happened they’ll have to find fault somewhere.
“Ultimately someone will have to be blamed for this,” said Meche.
13 of the Seacor Power’s 19 crew died as a result of the April 13th incident that occurred just ten miles south of Port Fourchon. The vessel reportedly encountered a microburst of extreme weather causing half of it to be submerged under the water.
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