Captain of the ship that hit Baltimore bridge misidentified as Ukrainian national

What is the claim?

The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, U.S., collapsed on March 26 after the Maersk container ship ‘Dali’ collided with one of the bridge towers. Following this, multiple posts surfaced on social media platforms claiming that the ship's captain was a Ukrainian national, insinuating that the collision was ‘intentional’ and not an accident. 

One such post (archived here) circulating on X (formerly Twitter) included a screenshot from a website called ‘balticshipping.com’ that listed information about two seafarers of the ship and highlighted the nationality of the second person in the screenshot. This image was shared with the caption, “The captain of the ship that hit the Francis Scott Key #Bridge in Baltimore is Ukranian. Is he upset with the aid delay? Or just unlucky.” The post had 839,000 views at the time of writing. Archived versions of similar claims can be accessed here and here.

Screenshot of viral posts on social media. (Source: X/Screenshot/Modified by Logically Facts)

However, Logically Facts found that the Ukrainian man being blamed for the bridge collapse worked on the Dali vessel for about five months in 2016 and was not onboard when the ship crashed into the bridge.

How did we find out?

We visited the web address ‘ballisticshipping.com’ mentioned in the viral post and checked the details for the crew on the ship ‘Dali’. Our search revealed that the ship in question is owned by Grace Ocean Ltd and managed by Synergy Marine Group. However, the website did not show any information about the Ukrainian man shown in the viral post. 

We were able to access details about this man on an archived version of the webpage. We could confirm that the viral screenshot showing the Ukranian man is indeed from ‘balticshipping.com’, which shows the unnamed man as one of the two seafarers who worked on the ‘Dali’. The webpage shows a 52-year-old Ukrainian man who had applied for the role of master (also called captain), whose name is partially hidden on the archived version of the website.

The screenshot shows an archived page from 'balticshipping.com'. (Source: Archive Today)

The live page of the website currently lists only one person as a seafarer for the ‘Dali’ container, with the name “Pa*** ****, 32,” whose nationality has been identified as Indian. The Ukrainian man's details are no longer available on the live site. 

We looked into the comment section of the ‘Dali’ container’s live page and found a screenshot of the Ukrainian man's resume. It showed the same IMO number of the ship— 9697428, and the Ukrainian man is listed as ‘Master’ for the container. The data shows that the Ukrainian man worked on the ship from March 19, 2016, to July 27, 2016. According to the details, ‘Dali’ was under the Marshal Island flag then and was managed by Oceanbulk Maritime, a Greek company.

Screenshot shows the resume of the Ukrainian national in question. (Source: balticshipping.com) 

We also found a thread on X posted by the account ‘John Spectator,’ who, according to his bio, is an OSINT (Open source intelligence) analyst. The thread included the complete details of the bridge collapse and a screenshot of the Ukarinian’s resume showing that he worked on the container that crashed into the Baltimore bridge in 2016 for five months.

We also found another post by Italy-based fact-checker David Puente, who detailed in his post how he found the archive version of the ship’s database that shows the Ukrainian man worked on the ship only in 2016. We have reached out to Puente for more details, and response will be added to check if and when we receive it. 

Furthermore, it is essential to note that the Synergy Marine Group has said that the crew on the ship was “all Indian” and had 22 members onboard when it embarked on a 27-day voyage to Colombo, Sri Lanka, under the Singapore flag. Multiple media outlets have also reported that the ship had an Indian crew with two pilots, both U.S. citizens from Baltimore, BBC reported.

Logically Facts has also contacted Synergy Marine Group for clarification and will update the check once we receive their response.

The verdict

The available evidence establishes that the ‘Dali’ container that collided with the Baltimore bridge had an all-Indian crew, and the alleged Ukrainian man being blamed for the accident worked on the ship briefly in 2016. Therefore, we have marked the claim as false.