US and Iranian navies respond to distress calls from stricken vessels reportedly hit by explosions.
The US Navy’s Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet is assisting two tankers in the Gulf of Oman after receiving distress calls from the vessels amid a “reported attack”.
“US naval forces in the region received two separate distress calls at 6:12am local time and a second one at 7:00am,” the fleet said in a statement issued on Thursday. “US Navy ships are in the area and are rendering assistance.”
The statement came after the United Kingdom’s Maritime Trade Operations, which is run by the British navy, put out an alert earlier on Thursday claiming an unspecified incident had taken place in the area. It did not elaborate further but said it was investigating the incident and
urged “extreme caution” amid heightened United States-Iran tensions.
The Reuters news agency, citing four shipping and trade sources, reported two tankers were evacuated following an unspecified incident. The sources identified the tankers as the Marshal Islands-flagged Front Altair and the Panama-flagged Kokuka Courageous.
A statement by the Kokuka Courageous’ management company, BSM Ship Management (Singapore), said 21 crew members of the vessel abandoned the ship after an incident on board which resulted in damage to its hull starboard side. The vessel was about 70 nautical miles (nearly 130km)
from Fujairah in the United Arab Emirate (UAE) and about 14 nautical miles (26km) from the coast of Iran.
“The Kokuka Courageous remains in the area and is not in any danger of sinking. The cargo of methanol is intact,” the statement said. One crew member was injured during the incident and was receiving medical treatment on another vessel nearby, it added.
Front Altair had been chartered by Taiwan’s state oil refiner CBC Corp and was carrying 75,000 tonnes of naphtha, a petrochemical feedstock, when it was “suspected of being hit by a torpedo” around noon Taiwan time (0400GMT), Wu I-Fang, CPC’s petrochemical business division CEO,
told Reuters. He said all crew members had been rescued.
Norway’s Frontline shipping company, which owns the Front Altair, said its vessel was on fire.
Iranian media reported, without offering any evidence, that there had been an explosion in the area targeting oil tankers. The Islamic Republic News Agency reported that Iranian search and rescue teams had picked up 44 sailors from the vessels and taken them to the port of Jask.
