Container ship hits tanker carrying US military jet fuel off UK coast

The UK coastguard ended the search for a missing crew member after a cargo ship ran into a US-military charted tanker carrying jet fuel in the North Sea on Monday.

HM Coastguard rescued 36 crew members from the Stena Immaculate tanker and Solong container vessel, with one taken to hospital.

One crew member of the Solong remains unaccounted for, after an extensive search for the missing crew member sadly they have not been found and the search has ended,” said Matthew Atkinson, Divisional Commander for HM Coastguard.

Images showed a huge plume of thick, black smoke and flames rising from the scene about 16km (10 miles) off the east England coast, sparking concerns of “multiple toxic hazards”.

The Stena Immaculate tanker was “anchored off the North Sea coast near Hull … [and] was struck by the container ship Solong”, the Stena’s US-based operators Crowley said in a statement.