“Vessel Is Sinking” – Tanker’s Distress Call After US Missile Strike Off Oman

Twenty-four Indian seafarers were rescued from a ship off the coast of Oman Monday after a U.S. strike disabled the tanker they were on, leaving the vessel ablaze and, according to the crew, taking on water.

The vessel was the Palau-flagged product tanker M/T Marivex. The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) said the crew of the vessel refused to comply with directions from U.S. forces and an F/A-18 Super Hornet from the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) dropped a precision munition into the tanker’s engineering and steering spaces in the Gulf of Oman on June 8.

The command said the tanker was unladen and disabled, not sunk, and that it had been travelling through international waters on its way to an Iranian port in defiance of the U.S. blockade. It said no injuries were reported.

The crew had a very different story to tell. A seafarer can be heard begging for help in a distress recording shared with BBC Verify by the Forward Seamen’s Union of India (FSUI). This is motor tanker Marivex, the caller says. “We have fire on board and vessel is sinking.” All 24 crew members were Indian, he said, and a missile had struck the engine room, blowing a hole in the bottom of the ship.

The FSUI said the calls came in at around 1:30 pm India time, a fire broke out on the tanker, confirmed the director at India’s Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways. He did not say why.

Video footage circulating on social media showed smoke pouring from near the stern, by the accommodation block.

All 24 crew were rescued with help from Omani authorities.

The Marivex had a controversial past. Indian officials said the tanker was not Indian-owned and had been blacklisted by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the agency that targets ships carrying sanctioned Iranian and Russian oil. The vessel had attempted to run the blockade four times in recent days, people familiar with the matter said, and had turned away three times previously after U.S. warnings.

CENTCOM called the strike routine enforcement. The command said it has disabled seven ships since the blockade began on April 13, along with 134 ships redirected after complying and 42 humanitarian aid vessels allowed through.

The blockade was the result of the wider confrontation in the Gulf. With the Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas passes, effectively closed by Tehran, Washington has been choking off access to Iran’s ports.

For weeks, U.S. advisories have warned that vessels entering or leaving Iranian ports risk “disabling and destructive fires” if they do not heed military commands.