News Beat
Captain of Solong in court over Stena Immaculate collision
Vladimir Motin, 59, from Primorsky, St Petersburg, was on duty on March 10, 2025, when the Solong, a 130-metre container ship, collided with the US-registered oil tanker Stena Immaculate near the Humber Estuary.
The incident led to the death of 38-year-old crewman Mark Angelo Pernia.
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Opening his Old Bailey trial on Tuesday, prosecutor Tom Little KC said Motin was responsible for the “entirely avoidable death” of Mr Pernia.
He told jurors: “Ultimately, he would still be alive if it was not for the grossly negligent conduct of the man in the dock, the defendant, and who was the captain of the very vessel upon which the seaman who lost his life was working.
“The captain owed him a duty of care to keep him safe and the defendant, we say, manifestly breached that duty of care and caused his death.
“The risk of death was serious and obvious and negligence was so bad that it was gross.”
Motin was on sole watch duty at the time of the collision, with Mr Little saying the defendant failed to take any action despite being responsible for navigating the vessel.
The Solong, carrying mainly alcoholic spirits and some hazardous substances, had departed Grangemouth in Scotland at 9.05pm on March 9, bound for Rotterdam with a crew of 14.
The Stena Immaculate, a 183-metre oil tanker carrying more than 220,000 barrels of JetA1 aviation fuel, was anchored in the North Sea with a crew of 23; the tanker’s engine had been shut down the previous evening and would have required 30 to 45 minutes to restart.
The collision occurred at 9.47am on March 10 and Mr Little said the tanker would have been visible on the Solong’s radar about 36 minutes before impact.
He told jurors that despite being on an “obvious collision course,” Motin took no action to avoid the crash and at the time of impact, the Solong was travelling at 15.2 knots.
The collision course was obvious when the tanker became visible to the naked eye and, before that, on computer equipment available to the defendant, the court heard.
Mr Little added: “The defendant was responsible for navigating the ship, not only because he was the captain but because he was on sole watch duty at the time and ultimately, he did nothing, absolutely nothing, to avoid the collision.”
Mark Pernia, who was working at the front of the Solong, died in the collision and his body has never been recovered.
Mr Little said CCTV captured a loud bang followed by flames and smoke engulfing both vessels as aviation fuel leaked from the Stena and ignited.
He described Motin as a “highly trained” captain who had a “constellation of information” warning him of the danger, saying: “It is this gross breach of duty to the man he killed, and indeed to his own crew, that led inexorably to a death and to him being on trial before you at the Old Bailey.”
Motin has denied manslaughter and the trial continues.
