PALFLOT-2

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One dead in tanker fire

One crew member, the chief engineer, died in a fire aboard the "Optimaflot 2" in the Caspian Sea and was adrift in Turkmenistan’s territorial waters 800 kilometers from Russia’s nearest port, Astrakhan, on Apr 23, 2016, at 9.35 a.m. The tanker's crew consisted of 10 Russian nationals and one Kazakh national. The other ten crew members have been evacuated onto the "Optimaflot 2". The tanker was filled with ballast water. The Russian Emergency ministry was readying a Be-200 amphibious firefighting aircraft in Rostov in order to try to put the fire out remotely, without people getting onboard. The Emergency Ministry of Azerbaijan was preparing to dispatch a pair of helicopters and a speedboat to the tanker in distress. Helicopters of the Ministry's Aviation brigade, the Azerbaijani EMERCOM’s fireboat "Vikhr-5" of the State Fire Protection Service and other ships were dispatched to the vessel too the aft of which was well alight and the superstructure gutted. Currently the helicopters Mi-17-1B, KA-32 as well as the "Caspian Voyager", "Caspian Protechtor", "İslay" and "Jura" owned by the Caspian Shipping Company were involved in the fire fighting. After the fire was out around 5 p.m. Moscow time, the Coastguard intended to tow the vessel to Baku. The shipowner sent the "Valery Kolychev" to take on board the crew and deliver them to Astrakhan where they were expected to arrive in about two days. The Astrakhan transport investigation department of the Southern Investigative Department of Transport of the Russian Federation Investigative Committee carried out the pre-investigation checks on the cause of the fire. Report with photo and video: https://www.rt.com/news/340696-russian-tanker-fire-caspian/