Conception captain gets 4 years in prison

The captain of a Southern California dive ship that sank in 2019, killing 34 people, has been sentenced to four years in prison.

Jerry Nehl Boylan, 70, of Santa Barbara , was captain of the Conception, a 75-foot wood and fiberglass ship, according to a release from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Conception sank near Santa Cruz Island on Labor Day in 2019 after catching fire, killing 33 passengers and one crew member.

It was the worst maritime disaster in California in a century and a half.

Though all of the passengers and one crew member died, five other crew members — including Boylan — survived the blaze and sinking.

Boylan abandoned the ship instead of helping rescue passengers once the fire began, and before the fire began, he failed to create a safe environment, prosecutors said. For instance, he did not properly train his crew and passengers on what to do if a fire broke out, and he did not have a night watch in place.

U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada criticized Boylan’s “cowardice and repeated failures” as captain.

“The victims’ families will be forever devastated by this needless tragedy,” he said in the news release. “While today’s sentence cannot fully heal their wounds, we hope that our efforts to hold this defendant criminally accountable brings some measure of healing to the families.”

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