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 U.S. military off the coast of eastern England on Monday, setting both vessels ablaze and sending fuel pouring into the North Sea.

All but one of the 37 crew of the two ships were brought safely ashore. One crew member from the cargo ship Solong was missing, the vessel's owner, Ernst Russ, said in a statement.

The ship's owner said "13 of the 14 Solong crew members have been brought safely [to] shore." The owner of the fuel tanker said all 23 of its crew members were safe.

The two ships were still ablaze 12 hours after the collision, the British coast guard said, adding the search for the missing crew member had ended. It confirmed 36 others had been brought ashore, one of whom was hospitalized.

The collision triggered a major operation involving lifeboats, coast guard aircraft and commercial vessels in the foggy North Sea.

The British government said it was assessing "any counter-pollution response which may be required over the coming days." The Marine Accident Investigation Branch was investigating the cause of the collision.

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 when it struck the tanker's side.

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.

The 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 Solong's cargo included sodium cyanide, which can produce harmful gas when combined with water, according to industry publication Lloyd's List Intelligence. It was unclear if there had been a leak.

Britain's Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the alarm was raised at 9:48 a.m. GMT. The Humber coast guard asked vessels with firefighting equipment and those that could help with search and rescue to head to the scene about 250 kilometres north of London.

Video footage aired by British broadcasters 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, and warmer temperatures speed biodegradation.

"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."