Oil Tanker on fire after collision with cargo ship (East Yorkshire Coast)

If you read an earlier paragraph in the live feed it makes more sense (but is extremely poorly phrased).

The reporter was speaking to them in the local Asda, where they were buying new clothes because they had to leave all their clothes onboard when they abandoned ship.
Lol...very good, I didn't pick up that he was speaking to them after the fact in Asda !
 
The more lurid websites are going with a potential hacking angle here.

I have absolutely no expertise in shipping but would have thought it extremely unlikely.

Or is there some way it could potentially be done?

Possibility of GPS/AIS error involved I guess with or without sinister intentions. It would seem rather contrived it was intentional but in the current circumstances not entirely improbable. (There was 3 instances of such in the North Sea the end of last year which were suspected targetted events, one affected a civilian aircraft, with likely the Russians behind it).

With the current global situation there has been numerous effects on GPS not just constrained to the Ukraine region.
 
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I'm guessing this sort of thing happens so rarely that there is no collision detection systems ?, if so you'd assume some loud claxon would go off on the bridge ?
 
I'm guessing this sort of thing happens so rarely that there is no collision detection systems ?,

Probably the other way around, there is an arsenal of different collision detection systems for maritime safety, which is why it happens so rarely.
 
I'm guessing this sort of thing happens so rarely that there is no collision detection systems ?, if so you'd assume some loud claxon would go off on the bridge ?

Any larger ship should have multiple detection systems, albeit a ship at anchor can't exactly react and get underway very quickly but they should have had warnings as well a long time before the collision and made attempts to alert the other ship.

EDIT: Some very basic numbers but they probably wouldn't have realised (first possible indication) the other ship was on a collision course until it was within about 9 miles of them (that assumes no other factors such as weather conditions and other ship movements) - the cargo ship was covering approx. 5-6 miles in the time it would have taken the tanker to react and move sufficiently to avoid collision.
 
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Any larger ship should have multiple detection systems, albeit a ship at anchor can't exactly react and get underway very quickly but they should have had warnings as well a long time before the collision and made attempts to alert the other ship.

EDIT: Some very basic numbers but they probably wouldn't have realised (first possible indication) the other ship was on a collision course until it was within about 9 miles of them (that assumes no other factors such as weather conditions and other ship movements) - the cargo ship was covering approx. 5-6 miles in the time it would have taken the tanker to react and move sufficiently to avoid collision.
Assuming this wasn't a deliberate thing, I was thinking about the ship that was actually moving, and whether they would have had a warning that there was a ship on their intended course. Evn if someone nodded off, surely it would wake them up. Know nothing about sailing but they'd hardly leave the bridge completely unmanned ??
 
Assuming this wasn't a deliberate thing, I was thinking about the ship that was actually moving, and whether they would have had a warning that there was a ship on their intended course. Evn if someone nodded off, surely it would wake them up. Know nothing about sailing but they'd hardly leave the bridge completely unmanned ??
They're not legally meant to have it unmanned at any time whilst the ship is in motion, and they're IIRC meant to keep an eye on what's in front of them for small ships/boats etc.
From what I remember there are all sorts of rules about things like manning and even the layout and design of the ship and bridge so that certain bridge positions can see clearly ahead without moving from their station.

What they're legally meant to do, what they're meant to do for insurance purposes and what they actually do can be very different things.
If they've only got a small crew it wouldn't surprise me at all at some point the bridge was not manned because someone needed the loo or fell asleep (or even suddenly ill if they'd only got one person on the bridge), but AFAIK on a ship that size there should have been all sorts of alarms and warnings going off, and it would be extremely silly for them to not have it fully manned given where they were (there are things you have a good chance of getting away with in the open ocean, but trying them in busy waters is insanely stupid).
 
Ooooo this is getting juicy. Speaking with some of our captains and they're all very suspicious of the route taken by the Solong.
 
Possibility of GPS/AIS error involved I guess with or without sinister intentions. It would seem rather contrived it was intentional but in the current circumstances not entirely improbable. (There was 3 instances of such in the North Sea the end of last year which were suspected targetted events, one affected a civilian aircraft, with likely the Russians behind it).

With the current global situation there has been numerous effects on GPS not just constrained to the Ukraine region.

GPS spoofing/jamming is increasingly common is my line of work (aviation), but there are some fairly simple mitigation measures against it (we simply turn off our GPS receivers if we encounter it or expect to encounter it)

But I don't know how it would work in shipping - even if you could somehow alter the displayed/programmed track (I'm assuming ships have autopilot) there would have to be a number of other failure points to actually lead to a collision (Watch keeping etc).

So probably unlikely then.
 
Ooooo this is getting juicy. Speaking with some of our captains and they're all very suspicious of the route taken by the Solong.

Not an area I know much about but doesn't seem to be anything that untoward aside from some minor deviation around the anchorage compared to other ships using a similar route.
 
Not an area I know much about but doesn't seem to be anything that untoward aside from some minor deviation around the anchorage compared to other ships using a similar route.

Known anchor point so should have slowed when approaching as likelihood of navigational hazards. Should have has extra watch due to this as well.
 
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