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Report: GPS Jamming Sent Bangladeshi Bulker Aground in Baltic

Meghna Princess
Meghna Princess' AIS trackline shows clear indications of GPS spoofing, including relocation onto land (Pole Star)

Published Mar 6, 2025 4:17 PM by The Maritime Executive

 

According to Bangladeshi media, a bulker ran aground near the Russian port of Ust-Luga in late December and remained on the rocks for weeks, despite appeals to the local authorities for assistance. 

The previously-unreported casualty involved the Bangladeshi-owned and -crewed bulker Meghna Princess, operated by the country's largest shipowner, Meghna Group. On December 29, the Princess went off course due to GPS jamming - a common phenomenon in the Baltic - and struck an underwater rock near Ust-Luga. It damaged its hull and flooded several tank, according to The Business Standard, which drew on reports from the Bangladesh Merchant Marine Officers' Association (BMMOA).

The Princess took on a cargo of fertilizer in St. Petersburg and got under way for Ust-Luga, where she was supposed to top up with an additional 25,000 tonnes of cargo. During a jamming event, the crew went off course at hit a rock, causing hull and propeller damage. According to the BMMOA, the crew appealed to Russian port authorities for aid, but received no response for an extended period - so long that the crew began to run short on food and had to rely on melted snow for drinking water. 

With pressure from ITF, salvage assistance was finally secured. The Princess was afloat and under way again at a slow bell near Ust-Luga on March 6, with a Russian salvage tug nearby, according to AIS data. 

The BMMOA reported that another Meghna Group bulker got into trouble in Venezuela at about the same time. In late January, a diver was struck and killed by the propeller while he was performing a mandatory underwater counternarcotics inspection on the Meghna Prestige. The officer on duty had started the engine because the vessel "began drifting with the wind," the master said, thereby killing the diver. Local courts detained the vessel's master on shore for six weeks pending the completion of an investigation; the crew is low on food and there is a shortage of fresh water aboard, the captain told The Business Standard.