Posts
The
curious case of the tankers
14
June, 2019
by
Nat South for The Saker Blog
I
have taken the opportunity to look at the recent incident involving
two outbound tankers in the Gulf of Oman. I have got some questions
or two, (or three) about certain parts of the incident, from a
civilian mariner’s perspective mostly.
There
are various conflating aspects to the event, and questions need to be
asked, yet journalists do not seemingly wish to ask the awkward but
necessary questions these days
.
Background
The
two tankers identified as the ‘Front Altair’, a Marshall Islands
flagged vessel and the ‘Kokuka Courageous’, a Panama-flagged
vessel.
Both
tankers were outbound (south east) of the Strait of Hormuz. Both
suffered from explosion on the starboard side, (the side facing
international waters). Past AIS tracks of both vessels shown here.
The U.S. Navy reported receiving distress messages at 06:12am and
07:00am.
We’ve captured the activity of the vessels that raced to the area to help the crew of #FrontAltair & #Kokuka Courageous.
Watch the vessels #Hyundai Dubai, #Etwo, #CoastalAce & #NAJI10 in this past track video. #MarineTraffic #GulfOfOman #OOTT #tankers #rescue #Iran
113 people are talking about this
The activity
of the vessels was captured in this past AIS track video. It shows
the vessels that went to the tankers, to help the crew of
the tankers. The assisting vessels are: Hyundai Dubai, tug
‘E-Two’, the Coastal Ace & ‘Naji 10’.
Contradictions
and questions
The
US military released
a video claiming
to show an Iranian naval boat removing an unexploded limpet mine from
the hull of the ‘Kokuka Courageous’ in an apparent attempt to
recover evidence of its participation. I will comment more about the
video later on, but we have already the ludicrous situation where the
information provided by the US contradicts the statement made by the
Japanese ship management company, who did not believe the ship was
damaged by a mine, but by flying
objects.
The president of Kokuka Sangyo Marine, (shipowners), Yutaka Katada,
said “there is no possibility of mine attack as the attack is well
above the waterline.”
Questions,
questions: then there is the question of timing of an attack of a
Japanese owned tanker at a time when the Japanese PM was in Iran for
talks.
To
add to the confusion, there were reports that the Dutch crew of the
‘Coastal Ace’ who first noted a suspicious object on the hull of
the tanker. This then morphed into reports that the USS Bainbridge
seeing a suspect device, as
shown in the timeline provided by the US Navy.
Regarding
the other tanker, ‘Front Altair’, the ‘Hyundai Dubai’ was the
first ship on scene who responded to the distress message and rescued
the crew. Subsequently, it seems the master of this vessel gave a
report on VHF: video
& audio (unconfirmed).
The
audio is rather telling & factual (it is a Russian speaker
apparently), as he relays information from the ‘Front Altair’,
‘torpedo attack” is mentioned. (I am assuming is it is pan, pan
or urgency message; it is not a distress message).
The
U.S. by releasing a grainy black & white video segment, accused
Iran of removing a mine from the other tanker, ‘Kokuka Courageous’,
as apparent evidence of its involvement in the attacks of the two
tankers. The video raises more questions than provides answers.
If
both the civilian crew of the ‘Coastal Ace’ and the ‘USS
Bainbridge’ both saw the ‘mine’, late morning, then why leave
the important evidence in place on the hull of the tanker for several
hours? For the Iranians to pick it up later?
“USS
Bainbridge (DDG 96) was operating in the vicinity and provided
immediate assistance to the M/V Kokuka Courageous.”
Immediate?
Note that assistance didn’t extend to making safe a suspicious
device ‘immediately’.
“At 11:05
a.m. local time USS Bainbridge approaches the Dutch tug Coastal
Ace, which had rescued the crew of twenty-one sailors from the M/T
Kokuka Courageous who had abandoned their ship after discovering a
probable unexploded limpet mine on their hull following an initial
explosion.”
“At 4:10
p.m. local time an IRGC Gashti Class patrol boat approached the
M/T Kokuka Courageous and was observed and recorded removing the
unexploded limpet mine from the M/T Kokuka Courageous.”
Timings
put in bold for emphasis by author.
The
poor quality of the video, apparently taken from a P-8 US navy
aircraft, is astounding, given that it took place at 16:00, on a
sunlit day. Compare the quality and availability of the metrics
between what happened during the encounter between the ‘Admiral
Vinogradov’ and the ‘USS Chancellorsville, last week:
I
know that optical quality is downgraded for security reasons, but
this is beyond a joke in the days of HD and high-quality images on
mobile phones.
Not
exactly covert, to retrieve a ‘mine’ right under the noses of the
US Navy? Especially when you can see in the video people on the
Iranian boat looking towards a ship (?) and quite possibly the US
aircraft as well. Anyway, does it take 10 people all crowded on the
bow to remove a ‘mine’? Unusual EOD method there.
Does
it occur to anyone that it might be a person releasing something so
that the boat can leave the tanker’s side, a mooring line
attachment, a magnetic device? There is no proof to suggest it was a
limpet mine removed from the tanker.
The
other thing that really bugs me as someone with maritime experience,
is the fact that the US Navy was quite relaxed about a fully loaded
tanker with methanol with an apparent explosive device attached to
the hull amidships.
I
personally wouldn’t be calm, due to the implication of having a
toxic, polluting and highly flammable cargo, possibly seconds from
being ignited. I’d be getting an EOD team over quickly to ID it, to
make it safe and hand it over as a crucial piece of evidence. Yet, I
cannot ascertain that any of that actually happened while the USS
Bainbridge was in the vicinity of the tanker. I guess it was better
to wait a few hours and let the Iranians do it. Surreal.
Instead,
it seems that the US Navy stood by idly for hours, watched and let
the Iranians approach the tanker, so as to gather ‘evidence’.
Another
thing, this PowerPoint from the US is rather remarkable:
I guess
using a telephoto lens wasn’t appropriate, to get a close-up of the
darned ‘mine’ thing. Again, compare this with the US naval person
on the ‘USS Chancellorsville’, merrily snapping away at the
‘Admiral Vinogradov’.
“Breaking:
The US Navy has confirmed that there has been a reported attack on US
tankers in the Gulf of Oman.” Posted by SkyNews at 12:37 am 13 June
Credibility
has gone down the drain, as the tweet is still live as I write this a
day later.
I
know it seems little silly observations, but some of these
observations could have been made by journalists when presented with
official statements. Yet the most obvious question is:
“Why
would Iran attack two tankers near to the Strait of Hormuz, in the
vicinity of US naval forces”? Some comments provided by this
Military Times article. I’ll leave that for others to comment and
analyze.
I’ll
add more in the comments section.
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