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Humberside Police on Friday charged Vladimir Motin, captain of one of the vessels involved in Monday’s fatal collision between a container ship and an oil tanker in the North Sea off the East Yorkshire coast, with gross negligence manslaughter.
Motin, 59, from Primorsky, near St Petersburg in Russia, was in charge of the container ship Solong on Monday when it collided with the Stena Immaculate off Withernsea, in East Yorkshire.
In the subsequent explosion, a member of the Solong’s crew went missing and is presumed dead.
Monday’s incident immediately started a fierce fire in the Stena Immaculate’s cargo of 220,000 barrels of jet fuel, which it was carrying on behalf of the US military. More than 30 crew members from the two vessels had to abandon ships into lifeboats and other craft following the incident.
Humberside Police initially arrested Motin on Wednesday.
The Solong was sailing from the port of Grangemouth, on Scotland’s Firth of Forth, to Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. The Stena vessel was at anchor.
The collision was one of the worst such incidents in recent years off the British coast.
“The captain of the Solong vessel, Vladimir Motin, 59 years old, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, Russia, has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter and been remanded in police custody to appear at Hull Magistrates’ Court tomorrow,” a statement on Friday evening said.
Earlier on Friday, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) had said that, while there was still some fire visible on the Solong, it was now largely contained.
“There are now only small periodic pockets of fire on the Solong, which are not causing undue concern,” the agency said.
Initial concerns that the incident might create a significant pollution problem — either because of the Stena Immaculate’s jet fuel or because of chemicals from the Solong’s containers — have so far not proved justified.
The MCA said on Friday: “Regular aerial surveillance flights continue to monitor the vessels and confirm that there continues to be no cause for concern from pollution from either the Stena Immaculate or from the Solong.”
The Solong is owned by German company Ernst Russ, which said on Friday that it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing police investigation.
But it added: “We are fully supporting the crew and assisting the investigation into the incident.”
