Federal investigators say they are unable to determine what ignited a fire on a diving boat that killed 34 people off the California coast.
The captain and four crew members asleep on the vessel's upper deck survived the fire. The sixth, a 26-year-old deckhand named Allie Kurtz, was sleeping below deck and perished with the boat's 33 passengers.
Truth Aquatics preemptively filed a federal lawsuit under a pre-Civil War maritime law that shields boat owners from monetary damages in a disaster at sea. Ryan Sims, a cook on the boat who broke his leg trying to escape the flames, claimed in a separate lawsuit that the boat was unseaworthy and operated in an unsafe manner.
Coast Guard records show the Conception passed its two most recent inspections with no safety violations.
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