The quick thinking that averted oil catastrophe in the North Sea

Such was the force of the impact that Stena Immaculate was shunted almost 200 metres, as both ships burst into flames and explosions were reported. The tangled ships, a mix of grinding metal and fires and floods, span through the sea as their crews called for help.

“For the man in the coastguard control room, the mayday call would have been a major shock,” said Matthew Schanck, chairman of the Maritime Search and Rescue Council. “By definition, we don’t have major incidents often.

“But fair play to him, it was said with such professionalism. It was clear and you couldn’t hear any panic in his voice. It will probably be the only time in his career that he’ll deal with an incident of that size … I was very impressed with the delivery.”

Although one Solong crew member died, and was identified as Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, from the Philippines, those responding did not let a tragic crash become a catastrophe.

Having initially looked like it could become Britain’s biggest environmental disaster in a generation, the speed of the rescue, the work of tugboats and salvage companies and advances in ship design all contributed to the small miracle at sea.

‘A scene from hell’

The coastguard scrambled a helicopter, a fixed-wing aircraft, four lifeboats and as many as 21 tugs and firefighting vessels to help.

“You can only imagine what was going through the minds of the crews hearing that message and knowing they needed to respond,” Schanck said. “These guys train a lot but there are still so many unknowns about the danger you are heading towards.”

The container ship’s Russian captain has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter. Vladimir Motin, 59, of Primorsky, St Petersburg, will appear at Hull magistrates’ court on Saturday, Humberside police said.

Thankfully, bobbing in the water were orange lifeboats. In them were 36 crew members from the two ships. As the initial rescue efforts began, Humber’s port authority asked tugboats that serve the ports and harbours for assistance. Mike Paterson, UK managing director of Svitzer, a tugboat operator, said: “We initially sent four of our vessels, which are basically used for towing, salvage and firefighting. So those went out and assisted. Two of them did the firefighting and two of them [helped] the search and rescue.”

As the scale of the incident became apparent, Svitzer sent another three tugs to the rescue, while salvage companies in the Netherlands were contracted to help. Specialist firefighting ships and pollution control vessels were also drafted in from as far away as Norway and Germany to help control the scene.

Cyanide fear

Stena Immaculate, the US-flagged tanker, was carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel. Initial reports by Lloyd’s List, the shipping journal, suggested that the Solong was carrying 15 huge containers of highly toxic sodium cyanide.

Geoff Edmond, an oil spill veteran, feared the worst as he raced with wildlife groups to prepare for any influx of oiled birds along the East Yorkshire coast.

“It’s been pretty exhausting,” said Edmond, who has worked for 33 years in environmental disaster recoveries after being shocked as a schoolboy by Torrey Canyon, the UK’s worst oil spill, in 1967.

Since Monday he has spent long days preparing with the Yorkshire Marine Nature Partnership — environmental groups, councils, government agencies and more — in the event of a huge ecological fallot.

Beachhead collection points were considered, where people would have triaged birds before transferring survivors to an RSPCA centre in East Winch, Norfolk. There, they would have been washed of oil by specialists, taking up to two hours per bird.

Edmond is relieved the operation was not needed. He recalls the horrific experience of the Sea Empress oil spill off the Welsh coast in 1996, when thousands of birds died. “You never get over it. I can remember it clear as a bell,” he said.

Seal pups in peril

Disaster was averted on several fronts. Experts believe much of the jet fuel burnt off, some evaporated and more was broken up by waves in the windy conditions. Dirty, heavy bunker fuel, which powers the vessels, appears not to have leaked, a small miracle for wildlife and the environment.

“We understood the potential for a catastrophic impact if oil had hit the shoreline,” said Martin Slater, deputy chief executive of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust. He formed a “critical incident” team, which told the public to avoid Spurn Point, a nearby nature reserve, and readied three facilities along the shore with water and electricity that could serve as bases for clean-up operations.

The trust was ready to call on its 800-plus volunteers. “We could have mobilised a nature army to come and help,” Slater said.

Lessons learnt

Mercifully, no oiled birds arrived at the shore — and Torrey Canyon is one reason why.

The disastrous spill from the supertanker, between the Isles of Scilly and Land’s End, triggered international meetings, rules and conventions to tame pollution from ships.

The result is a big fall in oil tanker spills, from 543 incidents spilling between 7 and 700 tonnes in the 1970s to 45 in the 2010s. Double hulls, which helped the Stena Immaculate to stay afloat despite a bow-shaped gash from the Solong, were introduced in the 1990s as a requirement for oil tankers.

“The short answer is double-hulled vessels [reduced spills]. There were too many accidents, and society was viewing these as being unacceptable,” said Paul Leonard, a consultant who worked on the Sea Empress disaster and the Prestige oil tanker spill off Spain and Portugal in 2002. An alphabet soup of expert groups — ITOPF, AMPERA and more — have also improved responses to incidents.

Advances in shipping and the introduction of a “collision bulkhead” have reduced the risk of catastrophe when ships collide head-on. This watertight partition towards the bow is designed to prevent flooding of the cargo hold or the engine room in case of a collision.

Experts believe it changed the fortunes of the Solong. Early on Tuesday ministers believed the Solong would sink, but by late afternoon rope lines had been attached, the fire diminished, and the response teams concluded that it would stay afloat.

“The response was basically textbook,” Schanck said. “The speed at which the windfarm boats got to the vessels and the work of the tugs can’t be faulted. The incident was controlled so well. There will be a lot of people breathing a sigh of relief this weekend.”