North Sea collision ship captain appears in court

The captain of a cargo ship that collided with an oil tanker in the North Sea has appeared in court charged with gross negligence manslaughter over the death of a crew member.

The Portuguese-flagged Solong and US-registered tanker Stena Immaculate crashed off the East Yorkshire coast at about 10:00 GMT on Monday.

Filipino national Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, was named as the crew member of the Solong who was missing and presumed dead, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky in St Petersburg, Russia, spoke through a translator to confirm his name, age and address and was remanded in custody to appear at the Central Criminal Court in London on 14 April.

No application for bail was made.

Mr Motin was arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter on Monday evening, hours after the collision.

Humberside Police said he had been charged on Friday evening.

The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is trying to establish the cause of the crash.

It said initial inquiries found the Solong was travelling from Grangemouth to Rotterdam and had often sailed the same route.

"At 09:47 GMT it struck the Stena Immaculate that was at anchor off the entrance to the River Humber," the MAIB said.

On Friday, Stena Bulk said salvage experts from SMIT Salvage had successfully boarded Stena Immaculate to conduct a thorough assessment. The vessel was carrying 220,000 barrels of aviation fuel.

The Stena Immaculate is still at anchor at the point where the collision happened, which is about 12 miles off the East Yorkshire coast, near Withernsea.

The MAIB said the salvage process was "necessarily methodical, comprehensive and ongoing" and would "require time to complete fully".

Chief coastguard Paddy OCallaghan said that aerial surveillance flights continued to monitor the vessels and confirmed "there continues to be no cause for concern from pollution" from either ship.

All 23 crew on board Stena Immaculate were Americans who are currently in Grimsby and are likely to be repatriated in due course, the BBC understands.

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