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, captain of the Solong, did not enter a plea and was remanded in custody by Hull magistrates to appear before the Central Criminal Court in London on April 14.

Mr Motin stood in the glass-front dock at Hull Magistrates' Court for the 35-minute hearing.

He spoke through a translator to confirm his name, age and address, and that he understood the charges.

The court heard how all 23 people on the tanker were rescued along with 13 of 14 crew members from the Solong but that Mr Pernia could not be located.

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

The force 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 O'Callaghan 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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