An oil tanker and cargo ship that collided in the North Sea had no “dedicated lookouts” at the time of the incident, which took place in“patchy” visibility, investigators have said.
A US-chartered oil tanker, the Stena Immaculate, was anchored about 12 miles (19km) off the coast of Yorkshire when it was struck by a container ship, the Solong, on 10 March.
The collision caused a “massive fireball” as aviation fuel destined for the US air force caught fire and an unknown amount leaked into the sea.
A Filipino sailor, Mark Pernia, was said to be on the forecastle of the Solong’s upper deck at the time of the collision. He has not been seen since and is presumed dead.
An interim report by the British government’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB), published on Thursday, found that neither ship had a dedicated lookout on the bridge when they collided in visibility conditions that were reported as “patchy”.
The report said the Solong’s Russian master, Vladimir Motin, was acting as the lone watchkeeper on the bridge of the ship just under three hours before it collided with the Stena Immaculate.
Motin, from St Petersburg, has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter and is due to stand trial in January 2026.
The MAIB said visibility in the area was reported to have varied between 0.25 and 2 nautical miles .
The independent body said its inquiry was continuing and added: “The investigation will encompass the navigation and watchkeeping practices onboard both vessels; manning and fatigue management; the condition and maintenance of the vessels involved; the use of the offshore area as an anchorage for vessels waiting to enter the Humber estuary; and the environmental conditions at the time.”
Salvage operations for both vessels are under way, while experts are continuing to assess the extent of pollution resulting from the incident, which environmentalists feared at the time could be “devastating”.
Thousands of tiny plastic pellets were retrieved from the sea in the days after the collision, with some washing up in melted clumps on the Norfolk coast.
The coastguard said the pellets, made of plastic resin and known as nurdles, were not toxic but posed a danger to wildlife.
