Cargo ship hits tanker carrying jet fuel for the US military - March 10th, 2025

[Colin Parkinson]

You’d probably have abandoned to the lifeboats, and let it carry on?

The Cyanide was confirmed to have been removed prior to the collision. The fuel on the BBIED was said to have been rearranged at the last port as well towards the bow.

Cargo gets rearranged to facilite the unloading at the port of calls and to deal with ship stability. You want that fuel as far from the engine and living spaces as possible.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I'll have to dig up the story, but someone looked at it's track history and this was it's standard autopilot course that it had done a lot.

12 knots gives you a lot of time to notice a big, giant ship at anchor, so going with drunken incompetent Russian crew had it on autopilot and didn't bother looking for traffic or ships at anchor in an anchorage area vice malice.

 

[KevinB]

Cargo gets rearranged to facilite the unloading at the port of calls and to deal with ship stability. You want that fuel as far from the engine and living spaces as possible.

Whatever you say Vlad

On a serious note: from my understanding fuel and other dangerous items when lashes on decks are to be be on starboard and port sides, and jettison-ably placed, not lodged up front unable to be accessed, with a blast directing angled wall forward. It’s like the fuel was placed in a manner to try to make it a shaped charge.

 

[KevinB]

I'll have to dig up the story, but someone looked at it's track history and this was it's standard autopilot course that it had done a lot.

12 knots gives you a lot of time to notice a big, giant ship at anchor, so going with drunken incompetent Russian crew had it on autopilot and didn't bother looking for traffic or ships at anchor in an anchorage area vice malice.

There is some reports now that some of the crew had left the ship significantly before the incident occurred.

Given the UK IC and LE are handling it, I suspect a tad bit more going on than simply a Exxon Valdez type incident.

 

[Navy_Pete]

There is some reports now that some of the crew had left the ship significantly before the incident occurred.

Given the UK IC and LE are handling it, I suspect a tad bit more going on than simply a Exxon Valdez type incident.

Ah, right, see the earlier stories now. Was on holiday for a bit and saw this when I came back.

FWIW, things like this always get investigated, especially when it's obviously at least negligent, but there are plenty of single ship collision/allision incidents that make incompetence still pretty believable.

I may be biased from reading a lot of accident reports, but when you realize a cruise ship hit Sardinia because the skipper was drunk and showing off someone falling asleep on the bridge and running into a ship at anchor is pretty feasible. It doesn't happen more often mostly because the ocean is massive.

 

[KevinB]

Ah, right, see the earlier stories now. Was on holiday for a bit and saw this when I came back.

FWIW, things like this always get investigated, especially when it's obviously at least negligent, but there are plenty of single ship collision/allision incidents that make incompetence still pretty believable.

I may be biased from reading a lot of accident reports, but when you realize a cruise ship hit Sardinia because the skipper was drunk and showing off someone falling asleep on the bridge and running into a ship at anchor is pretty feasible. It doesn't happen more often mostly because the ocean is massive.

No disagreement, but the amount of random ‘accidents’ involving drunk or careless smoking Russians and NATO countries is getting way too many to be explained as an accident.

 

[dapaterson]

No disagreement, but the amount of random ‘accidents’ involving drunk or careless smoking Russians and NATO countries is getting way too many to be explained as an accident.

Are you underestimating the baseline level.of Russian drunkenness?

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Are you underestimating the baseline level.of Russian drunkenness?

A fence at Trenton airport as i recall?

 

[GR66]

Sometimes it's just "drunken incompetent Russians" and not " drunken incompetent plotting Russians".

Obviously this Russian wasn't "plotting" otherwise he would have missed the tanker!

 

[Navy_Pete]

No disagreement, but the amount of random ‘accidents’ involving drunk or careless smoking Russians and NATO countries is getting way too many to be explained as an accident.

I guess, but on the other hand, at the moment Trump is actively burning through all US soft power and damaging the US economy, while his cabinet and friends is actively on gutting the military while the Republican controlled congress and Senate stand by, so unless there is some kind of double reversed Russian scheming I don't actually see an upside to them doing anything other than standing by and letting it happen.

Doing things like that might give a few of the kowtowing lickspittles a spine to stand up against the cult of Trump, so would seem counter productive. They are already basically doing all the things Russia would aim to do if they were trying to actively undermine them, so some kind of convoluted scheme makes less sense than a few unrelated incidents of gross incompetence.

There are over 2600 serious marine incidents every year (50+ every week) so this might be less of a pattern than two high profile incidents out of a hundreds during the same time.

Edit: Sorry, here's a link to some data; EMSA: Annual Overview of Marine Casualties and Incidents 2024

 

[KevinB]

I guess, but on the other hand, at the moment Trump is actively burning through all US soft power and damaging the US economy, while his cabinet and friends is actively on gutting the military while the Republican controlled congress and Senate stand by, so unless there is some kind of double reversed Russian scheming I don't actually see an upside to them doing anything other than standing by and letting it happen.

Doing things like that might give a few of the kowtowing lickspittles a spine to stand up against the cult of Trump, so would seem counter productive. They are already basically doing all the things Russia would aim to do if they were trying to actively undermine them, so some kind of convoluted scheme makes less sense than a few unrelated incidents of gross incompetence.

There are over 2600 serious marine incidents every year (50+ every week) so this might be less of a pattern than two high profile incidents out of a hundreds during the same time.

Edit: Sorry, here's a link to some data; EMSA: Annual Overview of Marine Casualties and Incidents 2024

You may be missing Ammunition plant sabotage attempts x5, Armor Vehicle Sabotage x1, Aircraft Bombing attempt X more than 1, GPS and ILS spoofing over multiple times and multiple airports in Europe AND North America, Mass Transit attempted Sabotage and Destruction attempts x2, 32 Deaths in the past 5 years in NATO countries linked to Russia, and let’s not forget the multiple ‘oh I forgot my anchor routines’ of telecommunication cable cutting activities.

I’m probably missing a few on top of that as well.

So no I’m not really going to give Russia the fee pass when it’s questionable at this point.