The Russian captain of a ship involved in the North Sea crash has appeared in court. Vladimir Motin, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, was remanded into custody after appearing at Hull Magistrates’ Court on Saturday. The 59-year-old has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter. In a glass-front dock for the 35-minute long hearing, Motin heard how the Solong collided with the stationary US-flagged oil tanker, the Stena Immaculate, on Monday, off the coast of Yorkshire. There was no application made for bail and no pleas were entered. Motin, with the help of a translator, only spoke to confirm his name, date of birth and that he did not have an address in the UK. He will appear at the Old Bailey on 14 April.
One member of the Solong crew is lost at sea, thought to be dead. He has been named by the Crown Prosecution Service as 38-year-old Filipino national Mark Angelo Pernia. After the collision, there was an explosion on the forward deck of the Solong, where Mr Pernia was working. His fellow crew members tried to find him before evacuating, but were not able to do so. The crash took place about 13 miles off the Yorkshire coast and saw dozens of people forced to abandon the vessels as they caught fire.
A large search and rescue operation was launched and successfully brought 36 people from both ships back ashore. The Portuguese-flagged Solong had been sailing from Grangemouth, in Scotland, to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, at the time of the collision. It was initially feared to be carrying sodium cyanide, but the German owner Ernst Russ said four containers on the vessel had previously been carrying the chemical. Read more from Sky News: Five charged over mum’s fatal shooting, At least five dead after road collapses, Trump’s fixer waited eight hours to meet Putin.
The Stena Immaculate is still at anchor at the same point where the collision happened. Meanwhile, the Solong drifted south of this location, but both vessels were said to be «stable,» with salvors having boarded to assess the damage. The Stena Immaculate had been carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 segregated tanks – at least one of which was «ruptured» during the collision, US shipping firm Crowley, who operates the ship, said. But it said the jet fuel spill was having a «limited» impact. Most of it had burned off, and there were no signs of further leaks from either ship. Investigations are still ongoing, currently led by the Marine Accident Investigations Branch, to establish the cause of the collision. The coastguard is also continuing to monitor the ships in case they release more pollution.
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