Nine crew members who sailed aboard the ill-fated Dali container ship more than 19 months ago are not under arrest. But they aren’t free to leave Baltimore, either.

Their residency — and the release of the ship itself — is part of an apparent deal struck between the U.S. government and the Singaporean companies that own and operate the vessel.

The crew’s senior members, including the captain and the chief engineer, have remained in the Baltimore area since the Dali lost power and smashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, 2024, killing six construction workers.

The National Transportation Safety Board will formally discuss the probable cause of the collapse during a long-awaited meeting scheduled to begin Tuesday morning in Washington, D.C.

Even afterwards, though, the crew has been told to stay in Baltimore indefinitely. A legal filing from attorneys for the Singaporean companies confirmed that the seafarers have remained in the U.S. “from the jurisdiction pursuant to a Security Agreement.”

Security agreements like the one in this case are typically between the U.S. Coast Guard — in concert with other federal agencies like Customs and Border Protection and the Department of Justice — and vessel managers, experts say.

The Dali crew will remain in extended-stay rooms awaiting clarity on a potential criminal case, in which they could serve as witnesses, and a date as to when they can finally return to their homes in India and Sri Lanka.

They have already spent hours giving depositions. Meanwhile, the Dali has been roaming the seas since January, generating revenue for its owner and operator, Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, respectively.

Synergy has declined to make the crew members available for interview. But Josh Messick, director of the Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center, has provided support to the mariners and said they’re homesick and “keenly aware” that people died in the collapse.

Some of the men, who range in age from their 20s to their 50s, were on the Dali for months prior to the collapse and have been away from their families for over two years. A few have been granted permission to temporarily return home, including one for his own wedding.

They’re also missing out on sailing time needed to maintain their mariner licenses, which could jeopardize their ability to return to making a living in the industry.

Messick often drives them to a grocery store, but he said they haven’t been in the mood for other activities recently. Amid investigations, they’ve felt pitted against each other, he said.

“They’re struggling emotionally,” he said.

Melissa Leake, a Coast Guard spokesperson, referred questions to the Department of Justice. Kevin Nash, a DOJ spokesperson, declined to comment.

Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine, did not reply to questions regarding the agreement.

Terms of the agreement are unclear. But, experts say, it likely requires the men remain in the Baltimore area and cooperate with U.S. investigations.

Generally in such arrangements, ship owners and operators agree to pay specific crew members their wages and cover meals and lodging. The seafarers surrender their passports. They voluntarily do so, technically, but could face detention as material witnesses if they choose not to. In exchange, vessel owners get a valuable return from the U.S. government: their ship.

“That’s the leverage the Coast Guard has,” said Sean Pribyl, a Washington-based maritime attorney with the firm Holland & Knight.

The government could hold on to the ship as part of a criminal case. But the Dali, capable of carrying 10,000 containers, was quickly rehabbed in China last year and has been transporting goods all year. This week, it’s scheduled to visit Shanghai.

Roughly speaking, freighters like the Dali can generate at least tens of millions of dollars in profit annually, experts say.

Those riches dwarf the small slice that companies pay their workers. The Dali’s chief engineer, one of the top officers, received about $10,000 a month during his time on the ship, according to a legal filing. Others might make one-quarter as much.

While a security agreement makes economic sense for the vessel’s owner and manager, left in the lurch are the crew members themselves.

Of the 21 crew members aboard the Dali at the time of the collapse, 12 have left Baltimore. Most have returned to the industry, Synergy has said.

The remaining seafarers have been in Baltimore long enough to become nocturnal. Some are sleeping during the day and staying up at night to keep in contact with loved ones across the globe, Messick said.

Attorneys for the chief engineer, Karthikeyan Deenadayalan, described him as being “marooned in Baltimore,” more than 8,000 miles from his home in Chennai, India, as regulators, prosecutors and lawyers “conduct exhaustive investigations.”

In a civil filing last year against the Dali’s owner and operator, the Department of Justice alleged the ship was “jury-rigged” and unseaworthy due to a desire to cut costs. A transcript released this year revealed that the captain, identified in legal filings as Chandrashekar Sabhapathy, seemed to mislead local bay pilots when he told them the Dali was in fine working order, despite the vessel having recently experienced in-port blackouts.

Depositions taken at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront hotel have resulted in more than 2,000 pages of transcripts, almost all redacted, from eight crew members. Now, the crew could be awaiting a criminal trial.

There is no time limit on how long seafarers can be compelled to stay, which some maritime attorneys have lobbied against.

The agreement keeping the crew members in Baltimore is a form of soft power. They could, in theory, push to go home, but they might risk reciprocal action.

“Foreign seafarers face the true ‘Hobson’s Choice,’” attorneys for Grace Ocean and Synergy Marine wrote in a filing this year, “risk the trauma of being arrested and detained as a material witness or stay in a hotel indefinitely on a ‘voluntary’ basis.”

Pribyl, the maritime attorney, said such agreements are intended to be a mechanism of “voluntarily reaching compliance” as opposed to a more “onerous” approach.

Attorneys for Blank Rome, a firm hired by the Dali’s owner, said last year that it was “long overdue” for the Coast Guard to “reimpose a reasonable time limit in Security Agreements, and protect the rights of foreign seafarers who have little to no leverage in these cases.”

Pribyl said he doesn’t know of another country that prevents crew members from returning home for this long. George Chalos, another maritime attorney, noted that even pirates do not hold crews hostage for as long as the U.S. government keeps seafarers here, which he called “super cruel.”

Barbara Shipley, the International Transport Workers’ Federation’s mid-Atlantic representative, spent time with the crew members last week and is planning holiday activities in Baltimore, such as bingo and the gift-swap game white elephant.

“Just do some fun stuff to occupy their minds for a little while,” she said.