The China Mail - Russian captain tried to avoid North Sea crash: court

Vladimir Motin, 59, saw the anchored oil tanker the Stena Immaculate three nautical miles away when his ship, Solong, was on autopilot, his lawyers told London's Old Bailey.

Motin, from Saint Petersburg, faces one count of gross negligence manslaughter after Filipino crew member Mark Angelo Pernia, 38, was lost at sea after the boats collided triggering, a huge fire off the eastern UK coast in March.

Defence barrister James Leonard said there was "no doubt there was a serious collision" that "caused the sad death of Mr Pernia".

But he said Motin had attempted to take the Portuguese-flagged Solong out of autopilot and change course manually to avoid crashing into the Stena Immaculate, which had been chartered by the US military.

"That attempt, however, was not successful and the Solong did not change course at all," he said.

"There is no dispute that had he changed course" about one nautical mile away from the anchored oil tanker "there would have been no collision," Leonard said.

- 'One man still missing' -

Prosecutors told the opening of the trial on Monday that Motin had captained the Solong cargo ship for 15 years and was a "highly trained" sailor.

But they charged that he "did nothing to avoid the collision".

"He could, and should, have acted differently" when his ship was on "an obvious collision course" with the tanker, prosecutor Tom Little said on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the jury heard audio recordings from the Solong's bridge control room, accompanied by a visual reconstruction of the ship's trajectory towards the Stena Immaculate.

An hour before the collision, men could be heard speaking calmly in Russian about the differing price of cigarettes. Then a Russian folksong is heard, an apparent phone ring tone which went unanswered.

As the Solong approached the anchored oil tanker, no conversation could be heard in the control room. Less than one mile from the collision, only a cough could be heard.

The sound of the collision's initial impact was so loud jury members winced after being warned to decrease the volume on their listening devices.

Motin's conversation with the UK coastguard was then heard, in which he confirmed there was a fire and dangerous cargo on board.

At 9:58 am, nine minutes after the collision, he is heard saying "one man is still missing" and "go, go, go, abandon ship".

The collision ignited a two-day fire and triggered a massive offshore rescue operation. It caused thousands of barrels of jet fuel to spill from the Stena Immaculate and 16 tonnes of plastic pellets from the Solong.

U.Feng--ThChM