A captain jumped off his boat when it caught fire; 34 died. Was that neglect? Jurors to decide.

Captain Jerry Boylan did everything he could to save 34 people who died in a horrific boat fire, and prosecutors charging him with neglect have the wrong man, defense attorneys told a jury in federal court in Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Meanwhile prosecutors told jurors that Boylan could have prevented the deaths on the boat — named the Conception — had he followed clear Coast Guard rules requiring him to keep a night patrol to prevent such disasters and to train his crew on how to respond to a fire. Boylan was also the first person to jump ship and didn't do enough to try to fight the fire, they argued.

The opening statements marked the second day of Boylan's two-week trial in what family members of the victims view as a long overdue step toward accountability four years after their loved died on the Conception in waters off Santa Barbara.

"No one has been held accountable for the deaths of 34 people," said Kathleen McIlvain, whose 44-year-old son Charles was among those killed. "There were very strict safety standards that were not followed and that's why 34 people perished."

Here's what you need to know about the trial:

Conception fire:Why 34 people killed in California boat fire won't be called 'victims' in captain's trial

Why prosecutors say Jerry Boylan is guilty of neglect

Prosecutors blamed Boylan's actions leading up to and during the blaze that killed one of his crew members and all 33 of his passengers, who were different groups of families and friends on a scuba-diving holiday. They ranged in age from 16 to 62, and included a hair dresser, a Hollywood visual-effects designer, an Apple executive, and two teenage girls who did everything together.

Boylan failed his duties as captain by not assigning a crew member to patrol the boat at night while everyone else slept, prosecutors said. He also failed to train his largely inexperienced crew on how to respond to a fire or even show them where the firefighting equipment on the boat was.

The equipment included two "fire stations" that had 50-foot hoses that can pump an unlimited amount of seawater on a blaze, they said.

"Soon after he woke up during the fire, defendant jumped overboard into the ocean. He was the first person to jump off that boat," said lead prosecutor Matthew O'Brien. "Defendant also instructed his crew members to jump overboard rather than fight the fire ... The 34 people who were killed didn't have a chance to jump overboard."

O'Brien said that just before jumping ship, Boylan used precious seconds to call the Coast Guard rather than trying to fight flames when he knew help was more than an hour away given the boat's remote location near Santa Cruz Island.

He said the FBI recovered a 24-second video from phone found in a dead passenger's coat pocket at the bottom of the ocean. The video shows the increasingly distressed passengers trapped below deck, with fire blocking both a staircase and an escape hatch.

"The 34 people below deck were reacting to the smoke filling the dark, cramped bunkroom," O'Brien told jurors as victim family members cried and tried to comfort each other. "Some of them were putting on shoes to try to escape. One of them used a fire extinguisher to try to fight the fire. And some of them huddled together low to the floor where there was less smoke."

He added that "they were starting to panic."

"Passengers didn't know it but their captain had already jumped overboard," he said. "The video was the last time any of them would be seen alive."

The video was taken at 3:17 a.m. while Boylan's distress call to the Coast Guard was at 3:14 a.m., O'Brien said. The coast guard arrived around 4:30 a.m.

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What are Jerry Boylan's defense attorneys arguing?

Boylan's defense attorneys painted a different picture for jurors. They acknowledge that Boylan did jump off the ship but said that's because flames were 15-feet high and the wheelhouse where he was calling the Coast Guard from became overrun with smoke.

Only after he jumped off the ship did Boylan realize the magnitude of the disaster, defense attorney Georgina Wakefield said.

"Jerry resurfaces from the ocean and he cries, 'Oh my God, all those people,'" she told jurors. "For the first time he can see what is happening on the main deck, that this entire structure is engulfed in flames. There is no way in and there is no way out."

That's when Wakefield said Boylan told the crew members on deck to jump. Soon after she said that Boylan, his second captain and a deckhand re-boarded the boat in the back but that all the fire equipment was inaccessible because of the flames.

None of them were wearing any protective gear, some were even shoeless and shirtless, equipment on the boat was about to blow, and two crew members were in the water, including one who had a broken leg, she said.

"And so they make heart-wrenching decision to get into the life raft at the back to the boat to rescue the two crew members in the ocean and to hope that somehow, somewhere, some way, people made it out alive," Wakefield said.

As for the lack of a night patrol or crew training about what to do in a fire, she said Boylan ran the ship in the way that boat owner Glen Fritzler had taught him: instead of a roving patrol, one crew member would sleep below deck, and no time or money was dedicated to training, she said.

Fritzler did not return a message for comment left by USA TODAY at his Santa Barbara home.

"Jerry didn't want any of this to happen," Wakefield said. "He cared about the people who lost their lives. One of the people in the bunk room was Kristy Finstad, someone he had known since she was a little girl. He did not want her to die. He didn't want anyone to die."

Family members of the Conception fire weigh in

Following closing statements, prosecutors began questioning their first witness, the case's lead investigator with the FBI, and played a series of videos showing the Conception in tact.

One of the videos showed Allie Kurtz, a 26-year-old crew member who died alongside the 33 passengers. In the video, she cheerfully models a life vest. Moments after it played, her father shook with sobs in the courtroom as other victim family members consoled him.

"We're here to stand up for our family members," said Maggie Strom, whose husband Ted was among the victims of the fire. "We'll just hope for some justice and that he gets held accountable for the laws that he broke."

Amanda Lee Myers is a trending reporter and editor with USA TODAY. She covers news and human interest stories.