British authorities are responding to what appears to be a hijacking attempt just off the Isle of Wight. The Nave Andromeda, a Liberian flagged, Greek owned tanker left Lagos Nigeria a little over two weeks ago and was scheduled to arrive at Southampton today. The Nave Andromeda was commissioned in 2012 and is carrying 42,000 tons of crude oil.
A distress call was made after seven stowaways were discovered on board and they attempted to take control of the vessel.
Hampshire Police confirmed: “We are aware and dealing with an ongoing incident on board a vessel which is situated south of the Isle of Wight.”
Two coastguard helicopters have been scrambled to the scene and were spotted circling the ship on Sunday afternoon, and an exclusion zone was set up in the area south of Sandown.
A Coastguard spokeswoman said: “We are currently assisting Hampshire Constabulary with an incident on board a vessel situated off the Isle of Wight. The search and rescue helicopters from Lee on Solent and Lydd are in attendance.”
A spokeswoman for the Home Office said it is aware of the incident.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman confirmed there was no military involvement in the incident.
Bob Seely, Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight, said the incident would be treated as a “marine counter-terrorism” incident. He told reporters:
“Despite being told not to drop anchor, the skipper has dropped anchor and the ship may be now under the control of stowaways on the ship. I suspect because of the nature of this it will be treated as marine counter-terrorism and the number of people in the UK who do that are very limited and the relevant units will be looking at options no doubt as to what we could be doing.”