Russian captain of a cargo vessel involved in North Sea collision appears in UK court

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LONDON (AP) — The Russian captain of a cargo ship that collided with a U.S. tanker earlier this week appeared in a U.K. court Saturday where he was remanded in custody over the death of a crew member, who is missing and presumed dead.

Vladimir Motin, the master of the Portugal-flagged cargo vessel Solong, appeared in Hull Magistrates’ Court after being charged with “gross negligence manslaughter.”

No pleas were entered and Motin will appear next at the Central Criminal Court, better known as the Old Bailey, on April 14.

Motin, 59, is from Primorsky, St. Petersburg. He was arrested in northeast England on Tuesday, a day after the collision with the MV Stena Immaculate, a tanker transporting jet fuel for the U.S. military in the North Sea.

The Crown Prosecution Service has named the crew member presumed to have died in the collision as 38-year-old Filipino national Mark Angelo Pernia.

Shipping company Ernst Russ, which owns the Solong, has said previously that the ship’s 14 crew were a mix of Russian and Filipino nationals.

U.K. authorities have said there is nothing so far to indicate that it’s connected to national security.

The U.K. Marine Accident Investigation Branch is also involved in investigating what caused the Solong, bound from Grangemouth, Scotland, to Rotterdam, Netherlands, to hit the stationary tanker, which was anchored about 10 miles (16 kilometers) off the English coast.

The investigation is being led by the U.S. and Portugal, the countries where the vessels are flagged.

Port inspection documents show the Solong failed steering-related safety checks in Ireland in July. Another inspection in Scotland in October found two other deficiencies.

Investigations about the collision are ongoing.