The arrested captain of the Solong – the container ship involved in the crash in the North Sea – is a Russian national, the vessel’s owner has said.
The rest of the crew were Russian and Filipino nationals, according to German shipping company Ernst Russ.
It comes after police said a man had been arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter in connection with Monday’s collision.
Humberside Police said a 59-year-old is in custody to allow enquiries to take place, and officers are talking to those involved to find out what happened.
The force added investigators have started a criminal probe into the cause of the collision between the US-registered Stena Immaculate and the Portuguese-flagged Solong about 13 miles off the coast of East Yorkshire on Monday, and are working with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
The tanker was carrying Jet-A1 fuel for the US Navy as part of a United States government programme designed to supply American armed forces with fuel when required, a military spokesman told Reuters.
On Monday, maritime security sources told Reuters there was no indication of any malicious activity or other actors involved in the incident and UK authorities have also said they have so far found no evidence of foul play in the crash.
Humberside detectives are working with the UK’s Marine Accident Investigation Branch, and it’s been reported that authorities from the US and Portugal will lead the investigation into what happened.
The Stena Immaculate, operated by US firm Crowley, was stationary and at anchor while waiting for a berth to become available at the Port of Killingholme, on the River Humber, when it was struck by the smaller Solong, causing huge fires and explosions – the smoke from which was visible from space.
The Solong had been sailing from Grangemouth in Scotland to Rotterdam in the Netherlands at the time. It was initially feared it was carrying sodium cyanide but the German owner Ernst Russ said four containers on the vessel had previously been carrying the chemical.
Image: Pic: AP/Dan Kitwood/Pool
Image: The Solong after the collision.
Pic: AP/Dan Kitwood/Pool
One missing, presumed dead
One person remains missing and is presumed dead.
In the immediate aftermath of the collision, dozens of people were forced to abandon the vessels as they caught fire.
Coastguard rescued 36 people after the alarm was raised at 9.48am on Monday, with ambulances lining up at a nearby port as emergency services readied their response.
All 23 people on board the oil tanker Stena Immaculate were accounted for, but one of the 14 crew members of the Solong is still missing.
A search for them was called off Monday evening.
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It has emerged that the Solong failed steering-related safety checks last year.
Port state control (PSC) inspection documents from July last year show how officials warned that the ship’s “emergency steering position communications/compass reading” was “not readable”.
It was among 10 issues highlighted during an inspection by Irish officials.
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2:08
How did ships collide in the North Sea?
Other issues included the alarms being “inadequate”, survival craft not being properly maintained and fire doors “not as required”.
Another inspection, this time in Scotland in October 2024, found two issues with the Solong.
One of these was related to lifebuoys, warning they were “not properly marked”.
PSC inspections, which are carried out around the world, aim to verify that a vessel’s condition and equipment meet international regulations.
Environmental impact not as severe as initially feared
The Stena Immaculate had been carrying 220,000 barrels of jet fuel in 16 segregated cargo tanks – at least one of which “was ruptured” during the collision, shipping company Crowley said.
But it added that the jet fuel spill was having a “limited” impact.
The potential environmental impact seems to be less severe than initially feared.
Most of the spilt jet fuel has evaporated or burned off, Crowley said in an X post. There seems to have been no loss of engine fuel from either vessel and both are expected to remain afloat despite a gaping hole in the side of the Stena Immaculate and earlier fears the Solong would sink.
There are no visible flames on either ship, and the Solong, which was drifting, has now been secured by tugs.
The chief executive for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA), Virginia McVea, said on Wednesday morning: “There have been no further reports of pollution to the sea from either vessel beyond what was observed during the initial incident. HM Coastguard’s counter pollution and salvage team has a comprehensive counter pollution response in place should it be required. Salvors also have equipment and personnel ready to respond to any pollution.
“The overarching objective is to protect the public and the environment to the best of our ability, during this ongoing incident response.
“This morning’s assessment shows the fires on board the [Solong] have greatly reduced in their extent and intensity.
“The Stena Immaculate remains at anchor, with safety tugs in position should they be required. There are no visible flames on board and an on-board assessment may be carried out later today.
“Salvors will only board the vessels when it is safe to do so. Only then will it be possible to carry out comprehensive damage assessments.”
Four more arrests have been made by French police investigating the Louvre museum heist.
Two men and two women from the Parisregion were detained on Tuesday, prosecutor Laure Beccuau said.
Ms Beccuau’s statement did not say what role the quartet are suspected of having played in the robbery. The two men are aged 38 and 39, and the two women are aged 31 and 40.
They are being interrogated by police, who can hold them for questioning for 96 hours.
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2:36
Louvre: How ‘heist of the century’ unfolded
The latest arrests come after investigating magistrates filed preliminary charges against three men and one woman who were arrested last month.
The haul – which included a diamond and emerald necklace Napoleon gave to Empress Marie-Louise, jewels linked to 19th-century Queens Marie-Amelie and Hortense, and Empress Eugenie’s pearl and diamond tiara – has not been recovered.
The heist was pulled off in mere minutes last month – and took place while the Louvre was open to visitors, raising doubts over the credibility of the world’s most-visited museum as a guardian for its priceless works.
On Sunday 19 October, two men used a stolen furniture lift to access the second floor Galerie d’Apollon.
They then cracked open display cases with angle grinders before escaping with their loot and fleeing on the back of two scooters driven by accomplices.
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0:35
Moment thieves escape Louvre in jewel heist
The Paris prosecutor previously said the robbery appeared to be the work of small-time criminals rather than professional gangsters.
Speaking shortly after the heist, art detective Arthur Brand told Sky News that detectives faced a “race against time” to recover the stolen treasure.
“These crown jewels are so famous, you just cannot sell them,” Mr Brand said. “The only thing they can do is melt the silver and gold down, dismantle the diamonds, try to cut them. That’s the way they will probably disappear forever.
“They [the police] have a week. If they catch the thieves, the stuff might still be there. If it takes longer, the loot is probably gone and dismantled. It’s a race against time.”
Washington woke up this morning to a flurry of developments on Ukraine.
It was the middle of the night in DC when a tweet dropped from Ukraine’s national security advisor, Rustem Umerov.
He said that the US and Ukraine had reached a “common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.”
He added that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would travel to America “at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal with President Trump”.
By sunrise in Washington, a US official was using similar but not identical language to frame progress.
The official, speaking anonymously to US media, said that Ukraine had “agreed” to Trump’s peace proposal “with some minor details to be worked out”.
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In parallel, it’s emerged that talks have been taking place in Abu Dhabi. The Americans claim to have met both Russian and Ukrainian officials there, though the Russians have not confirmed attendance.
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8:13
Peace deal ‘agreement’: What we know
“I have nothing to say. We are following the media reports,” Dmitry Peskov, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, told Russian state media.
Trump is due to travel to his Florida resort Mar-a-Lago tonight, where he will remain until Sunday.
We know the plan has been changed from its original form, but it’s clear that Zelenskyy wants to be seen to agree to something quickly – that would go down well with President Trump.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), a controversial US and Israeli-backed aid distribution group, has said it will permanently cease operations.
Set up as an alternative to United Nations aid programmes in May, GHF’s executive director John Acree said on Monday that it “succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans”.
The foundation had already closed down aid distribution sites after US President Donald Trump’s ceasefire plan was agreed by Hamasand Israelin October.
The GHF which began operations in Gazaafter an Israeli blockade of food deliveries, lasting nearly three months, was criticised by Palestinians, aid workers and health officials who said it forced people to risk their lives to reach the sites.
Image: File pic: Reuters
According to witnesses and videos posted to social media, Israeli soldiers repeatedly opened fire at the sites, killing hundreds. The IDF denied this, saying it only fired warning shots as a crowd-control measure or if its troops were in danger.
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2:54
Gaza deaths increase when aid sites open
MSF – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said in a report in August that the GHF sites “morphed into a laboratory of cruelty,” and described scenes there as “orchestrated killing”.
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‘We are proud,’ says GHF director
Mr Acree said in a statement through the GHF’s website that “from the outset, GHF’s goal was to meet an urgent need” and to hand over a successful aid operation to “the broader international community”.
The GHF would hand over its work to the US-led Civil-Military Coordination Center in Israel overseeing the Gaza ceasefire.
“We are winding down our operations as we have succeeded in our mission of showing there’s a better way to deliver aid to Gazans,” Mr Acree said.
Image: File pic: Reuters
The GHF director added: “At a critical juncture, we are proud to have been the only aid operation that reliably and safely provided free meals directly to Palestinian people in Gaza, at scale and without diversion.
“From our very first day of operations, our mission was singular: feed civilians in desperate need. We built a new model that worked, saved lives, and restored dignity to civilians in Gaza.”
According to the GHF website, the group distributed more than three million food boxes, totalling 187 million meals, and supplied 1.1 million packs of Ready-to-Use Supplementary Food (RUSF) for malnourished children.
In a statement, Hamas welcomed the closure of GHF and accused it of being a project that “engineered starvation” in partnership with Israel.
A Hamas spokesperson said: “Since its entry into the Gaza Strip, this foundation was part of the occupation’s security system, which adopted distribution mechanisms entirely disconnected from humanitarian principles, and created dangerous and degrading conditions for the dignity of the starving Palestinian people during their attempts to obtain a piece of bread, resulting in the killing and injury of thousands, through sniper operations and deliberate killing.”
They also called on international legal bodies to hold “this foundation and its officers accountable for their crimes against our people”.
US state department deputy spokesperson Tommy Piggot also said on X that the aid group “shared valuable lessons learned with us and our partners”.
“GHF’s model, in which Hamas could no longer loot and profit from stealing aid, played a huge role in getting Hamas to the table and achieving a ceasefire,” he added.