- The Tragedy: On April 13, 2021, the lift boat Seacor Power capsized in the Gulf of Mexico, taking the lives of 13 of the 19 workers on board.
- The Resolution: Lambert Zainey served as Co-Lead Counsel in the ensuing litigation, representing 14 of the 19 people on board. All 19 claims were globally resolved by November 2023.
- The Communication Failure: The NTSB investigation found the crew never received a severe weather warning because the Coast Guard’s New Orleans navigational telex site was non-operational that day.
- The Unimplemented Mandate: None of the workers carried Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs). Despite the NTSB recommending a PLB mandate four separate times after major maritime disasters, the Coast Guard has still not implemented this life-saving requirement.
Five years ago today, a lift boat called the Seacor Power left Port Fourchon, Louisiana, on a routine transit to an offshore work site. Thirteen of the 19 workers on board never came home.
The Seacor Power capsized on April 13, 2021, approximately seven miles south of Port Fourchon after encountering a severe thunderstorm that generated winds exceeding 80 knots. Six people were rescued. Six bodies were recovered. Seven remain missing and are presumed dead.
Our firm had the solemn responsibility of representing 14 of the 19 people on board, including the widow of the captain, David Ledet, who died in the disaster. The legal process that followed was one of the most complex maritime cases we have handled in our firm’s history. By November 2023, every claim had been resolved.
On the fifth anniversary of the capsizing, we want to do two things: remember the men who died, and honestly account for what has and has not changed in maritime safety since that day.
What the Investigations Found
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) determined the probable cause of the capsizing was a loss of stability. This occurred when the vessel was struck by severe thunderstorm winds that exceeded its operational wind speed limits. The crew had begun trying to lower the vessel’s legs to stabilize it when the mate turned the vessel into the wind to slow its speed—and as it turned, it heeled over and capsized.
However, the official investigations revealed that several systemic failures compounded the tragedy:
Following its formal investigation, the Coast Guard’s Marine Board of Investigation issued 27 safety recommendations, four administrative recommendations, three findings of concern, and 16 best practices.
What Has Changed — and What Has Not
This is the most important question five years on. The honest answer is that the picture is mixed.
The NTSB recommended that the Coast Guard modify stability regulations to require greater stability for newly constructed restricted-service lift boats. Whether those regulatory changes have been fully implemented is a matter for the Coast Guard to account for—but the recommendation itself represented a clear recognition that the existing standards were insufficient.
The recommendation for better notification to mariners when navigational telex broadcasting sites go offline addressed a direct failure that contributed to the disaster. If crews cannot receive weather warnings because the system is down and nobody tells them it is down, the entire warning infrastructure fails silently.
The one recommendation that remains unimplemented—and that the NTSB has now made four separate times following four separate maritime disasters—is the requirement for Personal Locator Beacons.
The NTSB chair stated at the time of the Seacor Power report release: “We’ve been waiting five years for the Coast Guard to implement our recommendation on personal locator beacons — a call to action we’re renewing today for the fourth time. Mariners’ safety can’t wait.”
That statement was made in October 2022. We are now in April 2026. None of the people aboard the El Faro, the Scandies Rose, the Emmy Rose, or the Seacor Power had personal locator beacons. Across these four tragedies, 55 people died or were unrecovered.
The personal locator beacon recommendation predates the Seacor Power by years. It was first made after the El Faro sank in 2015. It was made again in 2019, 2020, and 2021. It remains unimplemented today.
This is not an abstraction. It is a failure to act that affects the safety of every worker traveling to offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico right now.
What the Seacor Power Case Meant for the Families
Lambert Zainey was appointed Co-Lead Counsel by U.S. District Judge Jane Triche Milazzo in the Limitation of Liability litigation that followed the capsizing. We represented 14 of the 19 people on board.
The litigation involved Jones Act wrongful death claims, DOHSA claims, and survivor personal injury claims—nearly every legal framework that applies to offshore maritime disasters running simultaneously.
The approach our firm developed—grouping claims by type to resolve them in categories rather than individually—allowed all 19 claims to reach a global resolution by November 2023, approximately two and a half years after the capsizing. For cases of this complexity and magnitude, that timeline was highly significant for the grieving families.
(You can read the full account of how the litigation was resolved at our Seacor Power Case Resolution page. Additionally, Hugh “Skip” Lambert’s radio interviews from April 2021—conducted while the search for missing crew members was still ongoing—remain some of the clearest explanations of how lift boats work, why this disaster happened, and what families should know about their legal rights).
If You Work on a Lift Boat or Have a Family Member Who Does
The Seacor Power disaster and the litigation that followed clarified several things that every offshore worker and their family should understand:
- The company—not the captain alone—is responsible for the decision to dispatch a vessel in dangerous conditions. Captains face real, intense pressure from management to meet schedules regardless of weather.
- The legal frameworks that protect you are complex. The companies involved will have elite legal defense teams working from the exact moment an accident occurs to limit their liability.
- The time to find an attorney is not after the Coast Guard hearing. It is immediately after the incident.
If you work on a lift boat or vessel in the Gulf of Mexico and have questions about your legal rights, contact Lambert Zainey for a free, confidential consultation. For more information about these specific vessels, see our Lift Boat Accidents page.
Today, we remember Captain David Ledet and the twelve other workers who did not come home from the Gulf of Mexico on April 13, 2021. We remember the families who trusted us with their cases during their darkest hours. And we remain committed to fighting for the safety of the workers and families who depend on us today.
