Newscasts - Container ship hits tanker carrying US military jet fuel in North Sea

Ernst Russ AG

11/03/2025 05:03

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Source: 'Reuters - General news videos'

Description: A tanker carrying jet fuel for the U.S. military was hit by a container ship off northeast England on Monday, with the collision igniting a blaze on both vessels, causing multiple explosions and forcing both crews to abandon ship. Ryan Chang reports.

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Video Transcript:

Jet fuel is pouring into the sea off North East England after a tanker carrying fuel for the US military was struck by a container ship Monday. Two maritime security sources said so far there was no sign of malicious activity. Ships with firefighting capabilities, lifeboats, and a helicopter arrived at the scene Monday morning. Britain's coastguard said 36 people were rescued, but one person remained missing. The crash happened off the port city of Hull, at 10:00AM. Shipping industry sources say the waterway was busy with traffic running from the ports along Britain's North East coast to the Netherlands and Germany. The tanker, called the "Stena Immaculate", is operated by US logistics group Crowley. They said the vessel was anchored when it was struck by the Portuguese-flagged cargo ship SOLONG. The crash happened in daylight conditions. Speaking to Reuters, oceanographer Dr. Simon Boxall said it seemed avoidable.

Now, there were reports of fog earlier, but modern ships have anti-collision systems. They have radar and so on. The Stena ship could have done very little about it. It couldn't have moved away because it was at anchor. It wouldn't have had time to respond by the time it got its engines warmed up and everything else. But the SOLONG should have avoided it, and it would be down to incompetence on behalf of SOLONG. There is no reason why, in the 21st century, two ships should collide.

The SOLONG's Hamburg-based owner Ernst Russ said both vessels sustained significant damage from the crash and the subsequent fire. A maritime data provider's report said the SOLONG was carrying containers of alcohol and sodium cyanide, a toxic chemical used mainly in gold mining. A US military spokesperson told Reuters on Monday, the tanker Stena Immaculate had been on a short-term charter to the US Navy's Military Sealift Command. It was part of a US government program designed to supply the armed forces with fuel when required. An insurance specialist said the pollution risk was lower than if the tanker had been carrying crude oil but that would depend on the number of tanks breached and the severity of the fire. A spokesperson for the activist network Greenpeace said any environmental impact would depend on factors including the amount and type of oil carried by the tanker, the fuel carried by both ships, and how much of that, if any, had entered the water.