A Russian ship captain who killed a crewman when his container ship crashed into an American oil tanker in the North Sea has been jailed for six years.
Vladimir Motin, 59, had been on sole watch of the Portuguese cargo ship, Solong, when it smashed into the anchored tanker, Stena Immaculate, on March 10 last year.
The collision caused a deadly fireball which killed Filipino man Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, who had been working at the bow of the American tanker.
He died instantly, though his body was never recovered.
Dramatic CCTV footage captured the moment both ships were consumed in a massive blaze ignited by leaking fuel from the Stena Immaculate.
Motin, from St Petersburg, was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence by a jury at the Old Bailey on Monday after eight hours of deliberation.
Jailing Motin for six years, Mr Justice Andrew Baker told him: ‘You were a serious accident waiting to happen.’
Motin had shown a ‘blatant disregard for the very high risk of death’ and fallen prey to his own complacency and arrogance, the judge said.
Mr Pernia was described by colleagues as a friend and had appeared ‘quietly confident, at ease, a man upon whom one might depend’, the court heard.
Vladimir Motin, 59, was found guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence
Filipino father of two Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, (pictured) was killed in the fireball after crews from Solong could not get to him due to the flames. His body has never been recovered
The ships burst into a fireball on collision as the Stena Immaculate was laden with aviation fuel which caught alight (pictured March 10)
He had a five-year-old child at the time of the collision, but he never met his second child, who was born two months after his death.
His death was ‘wholly avoidable’ and the blame lay squarely on the defendant, the judge said.
Other members of the Solong and Stena Immaculate crew could have died and the crash caused ‘huge’ destruction of the cargo, he added.
During the trial, Motin claimed he pressed the wrong button when he tried to switch off autopilot and steer away from the tanker in the minutes before the crash.
The prosecution asserted the defendant had failed to keep a proper watch, raise the alarm or summon assistance.
As Motin returned to court to be sentenced, Mr Justice Andrew Baker rejected Motin’s account of what happened as ‘highly implausible’.
He ruled that Motin failed to keep a proper lookout, which amounted to a ‘wholesale failure of his duty’ for an extended period of time.
The judge said Motin’s account was ‘extremely problematic’, ‘improbable’, ‘extremely implausible’ and ‘even worse’ than the prosecution’s version of events.
A huge gouge was carved out of the Stena Immaculate on collision with Solong off the Yorkshire coast while it was anchored near the Humber Estuary
American crew members were heard shouting: ‘Holy s***… what just hit us… a container ship… this is no drill, this is no drill, fire fire fire, we have had a collision’
The basic facts of the collision ‘suggest a ship unaware of the ship ahead’ and that was the ‘most likely’ explanation, he said.
The judge suggested Motin had led jurors on a ‘merry dance’ in his evidence, which was an ‘exercise in inventive distraction’.
‘His claim to be confused was a lie that unravelled when tested at trial,’ he added.
Motin’s explanation that he did not initiate a crash stop for fear of hitting the accommodation block of the Stena Immaculate was ‘desperate stuff’, Mr Justice Baker said.
The Solong was travelling to Rotterdam, The Netherlands, and had left Grangemouth in Scotland at 9.05pm on March 9, the day before the fatal crash.
The 130 metre cargo ship had a crew of 14 and was carrying alcoholic spirits and some hazardous substances, including empty but unclean sodium cyanide containers. It weighed 7,852 gross tonnes.
The Stena Immaculate, 183.2 metre long, had a crew of 23 and was transporting more than 220,000 barrels of JetA1 high-grade aviation fuel from Greece to the UK.
Motin was found responsible for multiple failures leading up to the tragic crash and then lied about what took place on the bridge, it was alleged.
The American vessel was visible on the Solong’s radar for 36 minutes before impact, yet Motin did nothing to steer away from the collision course, the prosecution said.
He failed to summon help, slow down, sound the alarm to alert crews of both ships, or instigate a crash stop as a last resort, the prosecution said.
