Oman Conducts SAR as US and Iran Argue Over Circumstances of Tanker Attack
The Omani Maritime Security Center confirmed on Tuesday, September 15, that it has undertaken a search and rescue effort for the crew of a Panama-flagged product tanker, while saying that two seafarers are missing. Iran is asserting the tanker struck a mine in the Strait of Hormuz, while US Central Command claims a stationary, previously disabled ship was attacked for a second time and hit by a drone.
The product tanker El Gaia was off the Omani coast when it was struck, but there is even disagreement over the timing of the attack. UK Maritime Trade Operations is timing it either to late on September 12 or early on September 13, saying there was a distress call followed by reports of a fire in the engine room and an evacuation. Built in 2005, the 48,000-dwt product tanker was registered in Panama and managed from the UAE.
The Omanis reported the incident on Tuesday and did not indicate when they evacuated the crew. They said 23 crewmembers had been taken from the vessel and received medical attention. The report said two crewmembers remained missing and that the disabled vessel was being towed to an Omani port.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs condemned the attack on Sunday. It said there were 14 Indian crewmembers, and one was missing.
Iran’s IRGC Navy issued a statement on Monday claiming the tanker had been attempting to “traverse a restricted zone south of the Strait of Hormuz.” The IRGC Navy called the maritime lane the vessel was using “hazardous“ and "illegal" and said the result was that the vessel struck sea mines.
Oman and UKMTO report an engine room fire after the vessel was struck (Omani Maritime Security Center)
It claimed the firefighting efforts were “unsuccessful, leaving the entire tanker engulfed in flames.” The Omanis, however, said the fire in the engine room had been extinguished after the attack.
CENTCOM issued another of its so-called Fact Checks, refuting the Iranian account and calling it another example of “their lies and intimidation attempts while they try to impede commercial vessels in the strait.” In CENTCOM’s version of the events, the El Gaia was struck by an Iranian missile last month and rendered inoperable. It claimed the ship was attacked a second time while it “sat in the waters of the coast of Oman.”
Martin Kelly, Head of Advisory at EOS Risk Group, described the events, saying he was “dubious at best” of the accounts and calling Iran’s version “scaremongering.” He writes, “Iran has fabricated several similar stories over the past month. Iran's kinetic activities are not sufficient to stop shipping from transiting via the Omani route …. Iran is using misinformation as a non-kinetic fire to achieve the same effect, that is, attempting to deter shipping from transiting the Strait of Hormuz via Oman, by scaremongering shipping into believing mines are present.”
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The United States has asserted on several occasions that it cleared all the mines from the Strait of Hormuz. It recently reported attacks it said were to stop Iran’s efforts to release new mines into the waterway.
Observers cannot agree on how many ships are actually making the transit while the US asserts the waterway is open and vessels are sailing with U.S. protection. Most vessels appear to be making the transit “dark,” leading to reports that only a few vessel transits can be confirmed from AIS transmissions.
