The cargo ship Dali displayed defects that its owner and operator failed to address in the months before the vessel destroyed the Francis Scott Key Bridge, according to a lawsuit filed by the state of Maryland on Tuesday in U.S. District Court, calling the disaster “entirely preventable.”

The state, which owns the fallen bridge, sued Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Pte. Ltd, the Singaporean owner and operator of the ship, respectively, on the final day that claims were permitted to be filed. The state’s claim, like many before it, counters the Dali owners’ attempt to limit their liability in the disaster to $44 million — a small fraction of the economic damage caused by the collapse.

The 984-foot, 100,000-ton Dali lost power March 26, striking one of the Key Bridge’s integral supports and knocking down its main span. Vehicle traffic was stopped ahead of the catastrophe, almost certainly preventing deaths to drivers, but six construction workers — who were already on the bridge, filling potholes — were killed in the tragedy.

Vessel traffic into Baltimore was stalled for months as crews worked to clear wreckage from the Patapsco River, and the city will continue to feel the effects of traffic on its roads until the new bridge, which is expected to cost $1.7 billion, is constructed. Its anticipated opening is October 2028.

The state’s filing says it seeks to hold the Dali’s owner and operator “accountable for their reckless conduct, negligence, mismanagement, and incompetency.”

How much the state is seeking from the Dali’s owner has not been quantified, Attorney General Anthony Brown said Tuesday during a news conference at his office, flanked by Gov. Wes Moore and other state officials. But its filing lists a medley of damages resulting from the calamity: part of the cleanup, the huge price tag of the new bridge, lost toll revenues while the bridge is down, environmental damage to state waters, increased “wear and tear” on local roads, among others.

In response to the state’s filing — and other recent lawsuits — a spokesperson for the Dali’s owner and manager said in a statement, in part, “We do look forward to our day in court to set the record straight.”

Brown said Maryland is seeking to expedite the legal timeline and hopes to soon set up a court schedule and select a trial date.

“We are not interested in delay in this matter,” Brown said. “We are interested in getting to trial sooner rather than later.”

The vast majority of civil litigation gets resolved before actually going to trial, but rarely do the cases involve stakes this large. Damages are expected to number in the billions of dollars, raising potential concerns that the Singaporean companies, if found liable, will not have enough money to pay out all the damages.

“Grace Ocean is a global shipping company and Synergy [Marine] is a global operator and manager of fleets,” Brown said in response to the possibility that the companies might not be able to pay potential damages.

In some ways, the state’s claim mirrors the Department of Justice’s explosive and detailed filing last week. It, too, includes photographs of what it says are makeshift efforts undertaken by crew members to limit vibrations to the transformer, an integral part of the ship’s electrical system. (Vibration problems are a “well-known cause of transformer and electrical failure,” according to the DOJ.)

“The vibration was so severe,” the state’s filing says, “that the crew was forced to improvise remedies in an unsuccessful effort to curb damage to the ship’s electrical transformers and switchboards.”

The state’s lawsuit includes a litany of alleged problems caused by the ship’s owner, from the shoddy fixes to the transformer to the crew not disclosing previous power outages and “falsely” assuring local Maryland pilots that “everything was in good working order,” before the doomed voyage on March 26.

“The ship became a dark missile, gliding through the port until it struck a pier of the Key Bridge with catastrophic force,” Brown said Tuesday.

In the months since the collapse, small businesses, the families of the victims, and government entities — ranging from the City of Baltimore to a Tuesday filing by Baltimore County to the U.S. Department of Justice — have filed a barrage of federal lawsuits.

A local publishing company filed a proposed class action lawsuit early on, arguing that its revenue suffered because local enterprises were not buying advertisements. A local propane distributor argued last month that the bridge collapse has required its drivers to take longer routes, costing them business and that an “example should be made” of the Dali’s owner.

And just Monday, Fornazor International, a New Jersey commodities and feed ingredients exporter that said it had 24 containers of soy product on the Dali, sought more than $120,000 from the ship’s owner.

Also Monday, the city of Baltimore, one of the first to file suit back in April, amended its complaint. Crucially, it added that the “Dali and its anchors caused significant damage to submerged pipes, including a 72-inch diameter water main owned and operated by the City of Baltimore.” The city “was forced to close the water main,” the filing states.

The city’s Department of Public Works told The Baltimore Sun in April that the water main had been inactive and had “not been used for water transmission for several years” before the collapse. But in May, DPW told The Sun that the pipe actually had “operated at a reduced capacity, with minimal water flow,” prior to the disaster.

In maritime law, it is difficult, because of legal precedent, to seek damages unless a party has suffered physical property damage. The city did not own the bridge, for example, but arguing that the Dali damaged a water main — its property — could provide it stronger legal footing.

Tuesday was set to be the final day claimants can file suit against the Dali’s owner in this case, but a motion filed Monday sought to push that back for a certain group. Attorneys acting on “behalf of various cargo interests” asked for the deadline to be postponed to Jan. 24 for “parties with an interest in cargoes shipped aboard.”

They argue that many cargo owners do not yet know whether their property suffered damage.

The federal judge, James K. Bredar, partially granted the motion — while scolding the attorneys for waiting until the eleventh hour to ask for an extension.

Cargo owners knew of their “basic dilemma for months now,” Bredar wrote, and “could have moved for an extension, or at least alerted the Court that such a motion may be forthcoming, at any point in the last five-plus months.”

“Instead, in a staggering display of procrastination, [the parties requesting the delay] chose to sit on this knowledge for months and wait until literally the night before the deadline to ask for an extension,” he wrote.

He granted a brief extension to Oct. 2 and set a hearing for Oct. 1 to discuss the “grossly untimely” last-minute request.