Ship captain charged over North Sea collision
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Holly Phillips
BBC News

**1 day ago**

The captain of a cargo ship that collided with an oil tanker in the North Sea has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter.

Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, Russia, has been remanded in police custody to appear at Hull Magistrates' Court on Saturday, Humberside Police said.

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, has been named as the crew member of the Solong who is missing and presumed dead, the Crown Prosecution Service said.

Frank Ferguson, head of the Crown Prosecution Service Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division, said: "We have authorised Humberside Police to charge a Russian national in relation to a collision involving two vessels in the North Sea off the east coast of England."

Mr Ferguson added: "The Crown Prosecution Service reminds all concerned that criminal proceedings against this defendant are now active and that he has the right to a fair trial.

"It is extremely important that there should be no reporting, commentary or sharing of information online which could in any way prejudice these proceedings."

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.

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

Chief coastguard Paddy O'Callaghan said "only small periodic pockets of fire" on Solong remained, which were "not causing undue concern."

He added regular 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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