Days after a 34-year-old dockworker was killed when a mooring line on a cargo ship suddenly snapped at the Port of Longview, his widow has filed a $15 million wrongful death lawsuit against the ship’s owner and managing company.
Byron J. Jacobs died Thursday. He worked as a longshoreman for 17 years and earned about $125,000 at the time of his death. He was married and the father of three young children.
His widow, Megan M. Jacobs, filed the lawsuit against SE Harmony Corp., the Taiwan-based owner of the vessel, and Bright Charter Shipping Ltd., which managed and operated the ship, Ansac Splendor. It was filed Sunday in U.S. District Court in Portland.
In June, the ship entered the Columbia River, sailed to the Port of Portland to unload cement and then sailed to Longview to load cargo for export.
Last week, the defendants were repositioning and securing the ship for loading when a spring line broke under tension and struck Jacobs and others at 700 feet per second, killing Jacobs and injuring three others, according to the suit and authorities.
Jacobs was attending the vessel at the berth, according to the suit.
It alleges that the ship’s owner and operators repositioned the ship without checking if the crew was in harm’s way, failed to provide proper and safe lines to shift the vessel and failed to inspect the lines before trying to move the ship.
The owner and operators of the vessel couldn’t be immediately reached for comment.
The accident was reported to the U.S. Coast Guard at 1:46 a.m. Thursday.
Half of the line recoiled toward the dock while the other half flung toward the ship, according to Port of Longview spokeswoman Ashley Helenberg.
Capt. Thomas Griffitts, commanding officer of Marine Safety Unit Portland, said investigators want to “find out what happened so we can prevent similar tragedies at this port and the other ports along the Columbia River.”
