The captain of the Solong cargo ship who was arrested after a collision with a US-flagged oil tanker off the coast of England is a Russian national, the ship’s owner has confirmed.
The unnamed captain was in custody on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter following his arrest late on March 1o.
“We have arrested a 59-year-old man on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in connection with the collision,” local police said in a statement.
On March 13, a judge had granted detectives an extra 36 hours to question the captain, the police said and on March 14 added they had been granted a further 24 hours.
“Additional time has been imperative to the investigation due to the complexities of the incident,” detectives said.
The Solong, a Portuguese-flagged container ship, crashed at close to full speed on March 10 into the Stena Immaculate, an anchored tanker that was carrying US military jet fuel.
The collision caused huge fires and explosions and spilled jet fuel into the sea. The tanker remains at anchor with a gaping hole in its side, while the badly burnt container ship has been stabilised after early fears it could sink.
Ernst Russ, the German company that owns the Solong, confirmed the captain was a Russian national. The other 13 crew, one of whom is missing and presumed dead, are Russians and Filipinos.
The news of the arrest came as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the aftermath of the collision had been “reasonably contained”, as fears of an environmental disaster eased and focus turned to finding out how the incident happened.
“At the moment the situation is reasonably contained,” Starmer said on March 13. “In terms of the cause of it, that’s yet to be determined. There’s a process in place … but we have to get the bottom of it.”
Initial concerns of an environmental disaster have subsided, he said, with preliminary assessments showing the jet fuel had mostly burned off and there was no sign of other leaks from either ship.
The Solong had crashed with no obvious explanation into the larger Stena Immaculate, officials said.
Blazes and explosions charred the Solong and left the Immaculate with a gaping hole but owner Stena Bulk said most of its jet fuel cargo remained intact.
The Immaculate, which is managed by the US logistics firm Crowley, was part of a fleet of 10 tankers involved in a US Government programme to supply its military with fuel, CNN reported on March 12.
The Department of Defence’s Tanker Security Programme, Crowley said, “ensures a commercial fleet can readily transport liquid fuel supplies in times of need”, according to the news outlet.
Stena Bulk CEO Erik Hanell said only two of the vessel’s 18 fuel tanks had leaked, or about 10 per cent of the cargo.
“We will have a much clearer picture in the next 24-48 hours on the whole salvage operation,” he told Reuters.
The West’s ties with Russia are under heavy strain over the war in Ukraine and worries about sabotage of power cables, telecom links and gas pipelines have grown since a string of outages in the Baltic following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
All 36 other crew members from the vessels survived the incident and were brought to shore.
Britain’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) said in a separate statement it would lead the safety investigation, seeking to establish the cause of the incident and how to prevent similar crashes happening again.
The MAIB said it would inspect both vessels and retrieve Voyage Data Recorders once it was safe to do so. Its inquiries would include looking at the “fatigue management” of crews, navigational practices and weather conditions.
Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the nearby Port of Grimsby East, had expressed disbelief that such a crash could have happened, given the sophistication of modern shipping technology.
“It seems a mystery, really, because all the vessels now have very highly sophisticated technical equipment to plot courses and to look at any obstacles or anything they’ve got to avoid,” Boyers told CNN on March 10.
“How did that vessel [Solong] continue ploughing into the berth vessel? There must have been some warning signs.
“They must have been able to detect it on the radar,” he said.
