Two Seafarers Missing After Drone Strike on Tanker Off Oman

Drone operators struck product tanker MT Petro Dolphin at Sohar Anchorage, Oman on October 11, setting off a search-and-rescue operation that continued through Sunday. Nine of the tanker's twelve crew were recovered. Two Indian seafarers were still missing.

MT Petro Dolphin is a 4,000-dwt Nicaragua-flagged tanker, UAE-owned, with a crew of eleven Indian nationals and one Bangladeshi seafarer. An unmanned aerial vehicle struck the hull at around 11:30 AM local time while the tanker sat at anchor in Sohar Roads, and UK Maritime Trade Operations issued a warning to merchant traffic in the Gulf of Oman shortly after. Arab News, citing UKMTIS, confirmed the attack was in the vicinity of Sohar Anchorage, in the approaches to the Strait of Hormuz.

Two missing seafarers had not been found by Sunday morning, Maritime Executive reported. The search continued.

Petro Dolphin is among a string of small tankers struck near Hormuz in recent days. The Panama-flagged MT On Peace was hit in the Strait of Hormuz itself a week before, injuring twelve of its nineteen crew. gCaptain reported Sunday that five more strikes had been confirmed in the same stretch of water in recent days. The wave of UAV attacks has not been confined to Hormuz: drone strikes sank ABLE in Bulgaria's Black Sea EEZ in early October, with eighteen crew evacuated.

No group claimed the Petro Dolphin attack as of Sunday.