Captain guilty of North Sea tanker crash death

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

Vladimir Motin was the only person on watch duty on the Solong when it hit US tanker Stena Immaculate off the East Yorkshire coast on 10 March 2025, leaving Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, a crew member on the Solong, missing presumed dead.

A trial at the Old Bailey in London heard Motin did not keep a proper lookout and did not use all available means to determine the risk of a collision, or leave enough time to take evasive action.

Motin, 59, from St Petersburg, Russia, is due to be sentenced on Thursday.

After deliberating for more than eight hours, the jury returned a unanimous guilty verdict.

Motin appeared emotionless as it was read out and was remanded back into custody.

Prosecutor Tom Little KC told jurors Pernia's wife had been about seven months pregnant at the time of his death.

He said she lived in a remote area in the Philippines and would need to make arrangements to travel somewhere with good internet access so that she could watch sentencing proceedings.

Guidance: Contains language which some may find offensive

The Stena Immaculate, with a crew of 23, was transporting more than 220,000 barrels of aviation fuel from Greece to the UK.

The Solong, with a 14-strong crew, was carrying mainly alcoholic spirits and some hazardous substances, including empty but unclean sodium cyanide containers.

With both ships laden with flammable cargo, the danger in the event of a collision was obvious, the court was told.

Prosecutors said Motin was responsible for multiple failures in the lead-up to the tragedy and then lied about what took place on the bridge.

The court heard the tanker was visible on the Solong's radar display for 36 minutes before impact, yet Motin failed to steer away from the collision course, sound the alarm, summon help or initiate a crash stop.

CCTV footage capturing the moment of impact was also shown in court.

The crew on the Stena Immaculate reacted, saying: "Holy shit... what just hit us... a container ship... this is no drill, this is no drill, fire fire fire, we have had a collision."

In contrast, the court heard there had been a lengthy silence from the bridge of the Solong before Motin was heard to react.

Motin and the remaining Solong crew abandoned ship and were brought ashore in Grimsby where the defendant messaged his wife, saying he would be "guilty".

However, he denied he had been asleep, or had left his post.

Defence barristers previously told the trial there was "no doubt" Motin was at fault for the collision, but claimed his actions did not amount to gross negligence manslaughter.

Prosecutor Julia Faure-Walker said Motin had lied about what happened to "get back to his wife" in Russia.

Faure-Walker told jurors Motin had a "lax attitude" and "thought he knew better than anyone else".

"Whether in isolation or combination, the defendant's failures were so exceptionally bad they amount to gross negligence," she added.

Faure-Walker said it was also "inconceivable" an experienced mariner such as Motin was "unable to press a button" to switch from autopilot to manual steering, adding there were no mechanical or electronic difficulties on the Solong.

"The only thing that was not working on 10th March 2025 was the man in the dock," she added.

Following the conclusion of the case, Det Ch Supt Craig Nicholson, of Humberside Police, described the incident as a "senseless tragedy".

"It's a miracle that there weren't more fatalities or serious injuries," he said.

"This could have been a huge environmental catastrophe."

Michael Gregory, from the Crown Prosecution Service, said the "entirely avoidable" death of a member of Motin's crew was caused by "truly, exceptionally bad negligence".

"Mark Pernia was just going about his day-to-day work. It is with great sadness for his family that his body has never been found," he added.

Gregory described Motin as an experienced vessel master, but said his actions on this occasion "fell gravely below the standards expected".

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