No, the captain of the container ship that hit the bridge in Baltimore wasn’t Ukrainian

Officials briefed on the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse say there’s no credible evidence the container ship’s collision with the bridge’s support column was a terrorist attack or an intentional act. 

But that hasn’t stopped social media users from questioning who was in charge of the ship when the incident happened.

"You won’t believe who is the captain of the ship that collapsed the bridge in Baltimore," an X user wrote March 26 in a post that contained punctuation errors. "The captain of the container ship Dali, who demolished the bridge today. Francis Scott, is a Ukrainian."

The post included a screenshot of a website showing information about a 52-year-old man whose name began with the letters "Se." The rest of the name is obscured. Ukraine was listed as the unknown person’s citizenship and nationality. The information also said the man had "experience on container ships."

(Screenshot from X.)

But claims that this anonymous Ukrainian was in charge of the container ship that hit the bridge March 26 are inaccurate. 

That container ship was a Signaporean-flagged vessel called Dali that is managed by Synergy Marine Group. The ship was leaving Baltimore and heading to Colombo, Sri Lanka, with a 22-person crew, according to Synergy Marine Group. 

Singapore’s Maritime Port Authority, which is investigating the collision, also said there were 22 crew members on board the Dali. 

The captain’s identity has not been released, but we found no evidence to support claims that he was from Ukraine. The Dali’s crew was from India. 

"I can confirm, all 22 crew members onboard the ship were Indian nationals," said Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Synergy Marine Group. 

The company also confirmed that although a minor injury had been reported, all members of the crew were safe as of March 27.

False claims about the captain’s nationality stemmed from information people found on the website BalticShipping.com. 

The image shared in the X post was a screenshot from the website. People who searched for information about the Dali on BalticShipping.com appeared to have scrutinized the previous "seafarers" who’d worked on the vessel. One of those previous crew members was Ukrainian.

Shayan Sardarizadeh, a BBC journalist, said in a March 26 X post that "online records show a Ukrainian man was the Dali’s captain from March to July 2016." 

We were unable to independently verify this, because the Ukrainian man’s information no longer appears under the "worked on" tab on Dali’s BalticShipping.com page. 

The change prompted some commenters to write that "they deleted that the ship was operated by a Ukrainian" and claim that they could "smell a cover-up."

But other commenters rebutted the claims: To all the people commenting about a Ukrainian captain, one wrote, "when his profile was available on (the) web page, you could download his CV where you’d see that his last contract on Dali was way back in 2016." 

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St. Pete Beach's local version of Amendment 4 resulted in "seemingly endless lawsuits (that) decimated the city's legal budget and forced the city to raise the property tax rate."

Sardarizadeh, who covers disinformation, said this false narrative had been pushed by "pro-Kremlin influencers." The person who made the post on X that we’re fact-checking describes himself as "a Russian internet communicator, blogger." 

At the time of the collision with the bridge, the ship was also being directed by local pilots. There were two pilots, according to news reports — one with more than 10 years of experience and an apprentice who’d started his training in February. Their nationality is unknown. 

Wilson explained that pilots are local experts who know the area and harbor and guide commercial ships in and out. 

"The Pilot is the chief person, duly qualified, to navigate ships into or out of a harbor or through certain difficult waters," reads the Association of Maryland Pilots’ website. "The Pilot’s familiarity with the water that is being traversed allows the ship to be safely navigated to its port." 

Foreign-flagged ships like the Dali are required to have local pilots to guide them in and out of U.S. ports, The Washington Post reported.

We reached out to the Association of Maryland Pilots and the American Pilots’ Association but received no response.

An X post claimed the captain of the container ship Dali that hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge check "is a Ukrainian."

The ship had a crew of 22 Indian nationals, according to a spokesperson for the company that manages the vessel. Two local pilots, one with 10 years of experience and a new apprentice, were also helping direct the ship out of the port when it collided with the bridge. 

We found no evidence the captain on board that night was Ukrainian, so we rate these claims False.

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