Tanker catches fire in Romania's territorial waters: drone strike version being checked

On the evening of October 14, in the territorial waters of Romania near the port of Sulina, the oil tanker Yara J under the flag of the Comoros caught fire. Romanian authorities are checking whether the fire could have been caused by a drone strike.

According to the Romanian Agency for Maritime Rescue (ARSVOM), the vessel was anchored about 10 nautical miles from Sulina, near the entrance to the Sulina Canal, which is used for navigation to Ukrainian Danube ports.

After receiving a report of the fire, the Maritime Coordination Center dispatched the rescue vessel SAR Apollo to the tanker. However, the crew of Yara J extinguished the fire on their own and reported that help was no longer needed. There are no casualties.

Acting Romanian Defense Minister Radu Miruță confirmed that the drone strike version is being checked but has not been confirmed yet. According to him, military radars did not record a drone moving directly toward the tanker.

At the same time, on the evening of October 14, Romanian military reported the country's airspace being violated by drones near the Black Sea coast. F-16 fighters were scrambled to monitor the aerial targets. No connection has been established between these events and the ship fire.

According to Miruță, the tanker is to head to the port of Constanța, where specialists will inspect the damage and determine the cause of the fire.

The incident occurred against the backdrop of deteriorating safety of civilian navigation in the Black Sea. Since the beginning of October, a series of incidents involving commercial vessels has been recorded near Romania and Bulgaria. Previously, Romanian authorities repeatedly reported violations of their airspace by Russian drones.

Based on materials from: ARSVOM, Radu Miruță, HotNews.ro