One crew member missing after cargo ship hits tanker off England's coast, sparking huge fire

A cargo ship hit a tanker carrying jet fuel for the American military off the coast of eastern England on Monday, setting both vessels on fire, sending fuel pouring into the North Sea and prompting a rescue operation that is still searching for a missing crew member.

The collision triggered a major operation involving lifeboats, coast guard aircraft and commercial vessels. One crew member from the container ship Solong is still missing, according to the ship's owner.

"Both vessels have sustained significant damage in the impact of the collision and the subsequent fire," Solong's  Hamburg-based owner, Ernst Russ, said in a statement. "Thirteen of the 14 Solong crew members have been brought safely shore. Efforts to locate the missing crew member are ongoing."

Local lawmaker Graham Stuart had earlier stated that all 37 crew members from both ships were accounted for, with one crew member having been hospitalized following the collision.

Stuart said he was concerned "about the potential ecological impact" of a spill from the crash, the cause of which is being investigated by the Marine Accident Investigation Branch.

The U.S.-flagged chemical and oil products tanker MV Stena Immaculate was at anchor near the port of Grimsby on Monday morning after sailing from Greece, according to ship-tracking site VesselFinder. The cargo vessel, Portugal-flagged container ship Solong, was sailing from Grangemouth in Scotland, to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

U.S.-based Crowley Ship Management, which operates the Stena Immaculate, said the tanker "sustained a ruptured cargo tank containing Jet-A1 fuel" when struck by the container ship, triggering a fire and "multiple explosions onboard," with fuel released into the sea.

It said the crew abandoned the vessel following the explosions and that all Crowley mariners on the tanker were safe and accounted for.

Stena Immaculate was operating as part of the U.S. government's Tanker Security Program, a group of commercial vessels that can be contracted to carry fuel for the military when needed.

A U.S. military spokesperson told Reuters on Monday it had been on a  short-term charter to the U.S. navy's Military Sealift Command.

The alarm was raised at 9:48 a.m. GMT, according to Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency. The Humber coast guard made a radio broadcast, asking for vessels with firefighting equipment and those that could help with search and rescue to head to the scene off the coast of Hull, about 250 kilometres north of London.

The Royal National Lifeboat Institution said there "were reports that a number of people had abandoned the vessels following a collision and there were fires on both ships." Three lifeboats were working on search and rescue at the scene, alongside the coast guard, it said.

Video footage aired by the BBC and apparently filmed from a nearby vessel showed thick, black smoke pouring from both ships.

'Massive fireball'

Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Grimsby East, said he had been told there was "a massive fireball" following the collision.

"It's too far out for us to see — about 10 miles — but we have seen the vessels bringing them in," he said. "They must have sent a mayday out. Luckily, there was a crew transfer vessel out there already. Since then, there has been a flotilla of ambulances to pick up anyone they can find."

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer's office said details of the collision and its cause "are still becoming clear."

Abdul Khalique, head of the Maritime Centre at Liverpool John Moores University, said it appeared the crew of the cargo ship had not been "maintaining a proper lookout by radar" as required by international maritime regulations.

Eddie Dempsey, general secretary of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, has called for a "swift investigation" into the collision.

"Our thoughts are with all the seafarers working on both vessels and their families," he said in a statement. "A collision on the open seas is a deeply troubling incident and the resulting fire has international attention."

Environmental concerns

Greenpeace U.K. said it was "too early to assess the extent of any environmental damage" from the collision, which took place in a busy fishing ground and close to major seabird colonies.

Scientists said the environmental impact of jet fuel might be less severe than with a spill of heavier crude oil.

"Whilst the images look worrying, from the perspective of the impact to the aquatic environment it's less of a concern than if this had been crude oil because most of the jet fuel will evaporate very quickly," said Mark Hartl of the Centre for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh.

Mark Sephton, a professor of organic geochemistry at Imperial College London, explained that jet fuel disintegrates more quickly than crude oil.

"In the end, it all depends on the rate of introduction of fuel and the rate of destruction by bacteria," he said. "Let's hope the latter wins out."