“It could have been so much worse.”
Among those who experienced it and the people who supported them immediately afterward, that’s perhaps the most commonly expressed sentiment following the harrowing fire aboard the Seafarers-crewed Stena Immaculate.
By now, the details are known to many around the world. On March 10, the Madeira-flag containership Solong hit the Crowley-operated Stena Immaculate even though the U.S.-flag tanker had been anchored off Britain’s east coast for at least 15 hours. The 461-foot-long Solong apparently didn’t slow from its approximate speed of 16 knots, nor did it change course.
After bravely fighting the resultant fire (the Stena Immaculate, 600 feet in length, was carrying military jet fuel) for around 30 minutes, all 23 mariners from the Crowley vessel successfully launched and boarded their lifeboat, and made it ashore essentially unharmed. Those personnel included SIU members, two apprentices from the union-affiliated Paul Hall Center for Maritime Training and Education, and officers from the Seafarers-affiliated American Maritime Officers (AMO), plus one from the Marine Engineers’ Beneficial Association.
One mariner from the German-managed Solong (Mark Angelo Pernia, a Filipino) is presumed dead. That ship’s master, Russian national Vladimir Motin, is in custody and has been charged with gross negligence manslaughter.
According to news reports, the Solong (which carried a total of 14 mariners) stayed on a direct route for impact with the Stena Immaculate for more than 40 minutes. And it reportedly didn’t stop upon contact, instead spinning the other ship, which caused fuel to encircle the water around the Stena Immaculate. However, again according to media reports, it appears only a single tank aboard the U.S.-flag ship was ruptured.
The Solong also caught fire.
Despite multiple reported explosions on the Stena Immaculate, initial concerns of an environmental disaster quickly waned. Local entities fought the fire, there were no other apparent leaks from either ship, and the remaining jet fuel mostly burned off.
SIU Assistant Vice President Michael Russo deployed from the union’s headquarters building in Maryland and left to join the Stena Immaculate crew the same day the accident occurred. (He traveled with AMO President Willie Barrere). After spending several days with them at a company-furnished hotel in the small port town Grimsby, Russo recalled, “There were four or five Crowley reps there, plus a counselor, and lots of local authorities. Everyone, including from all of the organizations who were there, said it could have been so much worse. It’s pretty remarkable. But they (the mariners) used their training and jumped into action. Everybody pitched in.”
SIU President David Heindel said, “On behalf of the entire union, it’s impossible to overstate our relief that all of the Stena Immaculate mariners are unharmed. It’s equally difficult to fully convey my profound appreciation and respect for how they responded in a life-or-death circumstance. When the stakes couldn’t have been higher, they came through with utmost professionalism. We are all proud and grateful.”
Heindel also thanked Crowley for its quick, thorough response and excellent treatment of the mariners.
In a web post a few days after the accident, the SIU noted, “While we are proud members of the U.S. Merchant Marine – also known as America’s fourth arm of defense – we also are part of the global maritime community, and we mourn the presumed loss of the crew member from the Solong. We also wholeheartedly thank everyone who mobilized to assist the respective crews and who fought the fires on both ships, prominently including personnel from the U.K. Maritime and Coastguard Agency. A number of local pilots and other mariners also assisted the Stena Immaculate crew after they had successfully launched their lifeboat; we deeply appreciate their support.”
Seafarers on the Stena Immaculate during the incident included Bosun Ion Sterie, ABs Carlomagno Surigao, Reginald Macon, David Graham, and Hamdanni Nurdin, QMEDs George Mardones, Jeffrey Nicholson, and Florian Turcios, Steward/Baker Michael Page, Chief Cook Francis Solmirano, SA Ardeccia Hill, Apprentice/STOS Benjamin Brown, and Apprentice/Wiper Kenyatta Mabine.
‘What the [Heck] is he Doing?!’
Jeffery Griffin is still an SIU member, but his first voyage aboard a tanker (the Stena Immaculate, part of the U.S. Tanker Security Program) coincided with his first trip sailing as a third mate.
The experience quickly went from mostly predictable to shocking.
With the vessel anchored near Hull, England, Griffin (who first sailed with the SIU in 2005) happened to glance at his watch, and saw 0947. He briefly weighed whether to continue a procedure known as sniffing the tanks (checking 02 levels), or head off for the upcoming coffee break. He decided to keep working for a bit.
The ship has 16 cargo tanks, eight on each side. Griffin was standing on the number seven starboard tank when he heard a shipmate yell, “What the [heck] is this guy doing?!”
“I poked my head up and was able to see a vessel coming straight at us,” Griffin said. “Straight at me and my tank. All I could see was something big and blue heading toward us. I immediately knew, it’s not going to miss us. It was going fast. I was front and center when it allided between the seven port and six port cargo tanks. There was a great big loud crunching noise. That was followed by a whole lot of fire.”
For Bosun Sterie, those initial moments weren’t nearly as self-explanatory.
“We heard that boom (from the impact) and it was shocking,” he said. “We didn’t know what happened for sure – maybe something with the engine. We felt a vibration and shock, and when I went to the window, I saw the bow of the other ship, and the smoke and the fire. I was surprised at how fast it happened. But I saw black smoke and started yelling, “We’ve been hit! Fire on board! Fire on board!”
Brown had a similarly delayed reaction. He was leaving the bridge, having retrieved a log book, when the impact occurred.
“We were kind of confused at first,” he said. “It wasn’t a huge jolt. I remember looking through the fog and seeing a container (from the other vessel). All the alarms started going off. I could faintly see the white outline of the house of the other ship. And then that first fireball happened. The flames just shot out, and I thought, this is really serious.”
As the fire fighting teams donned the proper gear and began trying to extinguish the blaze, it became known that two officers were trapped on the bow. But, the crew’s “quick reactions laying down foam and fighting the raging flames enabled two officers working forward to return back through thick smoke to the house to join the rest of the crew and continue their fire and emergency duties together prior to abandoning ship,” the AMO reported.
Sterie recalled, “As the fire started to increase, we were thinking, this is a bigger problem than we first realized. We can’t fight it. Then the chief mate got word we were changing from fighting the fire to abandoning ship.”
Griffin had teamed up with three Seafarers. “I won’t say we were close to putting out the fire, but we were doing well,” he said. “We had good pressure. I was about to do a muster when we heard the words, forget the muster, abandon ship.
“We moved in the most organized but urgent way,” he continued. “Nobody was slamming into each other. We did a quick muster at the lifeboat. I had grabbed my phone and nothing else. We got the lifeboat manned; a lot of people were very scared to get in that lifeboat (because of the flames and nearby smoke). The second mate did the fastest head count I’ve ever seen, but he did count everyone.”
Sterie noted, “When we were ready to launch the boat, the wind or maybe the position of the ship changed. All the smoke came toward to the house; we could feel it on our faces. There was so much smoke we couldn’t see the ship that hit us. It was scary because the fire was so close.”
Once the crew had boarded the lifeboat (positioned on the stern, and utilizing a gravitational launch), the bosun jumped in. He then informed one of the officers that the water they were about to enter was on fire.
The lifeboat successfully moved away from the accident scene, approximately a dozen miles from shore, and the crew’s relief was obvious. However, between the fumes and the trauma and the five-foot waves (Griffin noted, “When you’re in a lifeboat, they feel significantly larger”), the crew welcomed the nearly immediate opportunity to board other boats.
Fortunately, the mariners worked with a local service vessel, pilots and fast rescue boats to safely split up and head to shore aboard multiple boats. (The Stena Immaculate mariners took turns jumping into small inflatable boats, then boarding the larger pilot boats.) They made it ashore within an hour or so.
Next Steps
Both Sterie and Griffin expressed profuse appreciation for the prompt and comprehensive support they received from the unions and the company. They also candidly described the sometimes- difficult experience of enduring numerous meetings that inevitably followed such a devastating accident.
“It’s been bananas,” Griffin said. “At least 15 or 20 people met us at the hotel, representing the different government agencies, and company interests. But the response from the SIU was fantastic. Within hours, we had someone here (at the hotel) making sure the crew were okay. We were able to get clothing, have a shower and start feeling normal again.”
Russo mentioned another potentially stressful component of the aftermath. Although media members stayed in a different hotel, they were “camped out daily” near the mariners, and were polite but persistent in trying to secure interviews.
Russo met with the SIU members multiple times each day, and provided a wide range of support. Eventually, they all headed home March 15.
“Our number one goal was to make sure everybody was okay and to get them all home as soon as possible,” he said. “By the end of the week, most of them were in pretty good spirits. Crowley really did a good job, and everyone had great things to say about the captain.
“They’re going to be family for life,” Russo concluded. “They depended on each other and truly embodied the brotherhood and sisterhood of the sea. Everybody said it was all about their training.”
Sterie said he’d already been contemplating retirement, but the accident itself won’t affect his decision. A Seafarer since 2001, he commended the performance of the crew in responding to the fire: “The boys did good.”
Brown thanked not only the unions and Crowley but also many of the local citizens who responded with kindness, both during the lifeboat evacuation and once they were ashore.
“They were all phenomenal,” he said. “I was surprised at how quickly they were able to get us what we needed once we were ashore.”
Brown also commended his shipmates for a “fantastic” response to the emergency. “Everybody did exactly what they were trained to do,” he said. “The captain (Thomas Leaf) and second mate (Peter Skerys) in particular processed all the information so quickly, and formulated a gameplan. They were making life-and-death decisions, but I remember thinking, we’re going to be okay with these guys. They have a plan, and it appears to be a good one.”
Griffin, who said the allision “was gentler than I thought it would be,” added that his “natural instinct is to shrug it off and go to the next job. I’m a little shaken but I’m ready to go back to work. The fire – it happened. The abandoned ship – it happened. We trained for it, we prepared for it, and everybody survived, so we obviously are doing something right.”
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