Supertanker Set Afire by Iraqi Missile : Crew Abandons Fully Laden Turkish Vessel; Pollution Peril Grave

A fully laden Turkish supertanker was set afire by a missile in an Iraqi air strike today, forcing the crew to abandon ship and posing a massive pollution threat to the Persian Gulf, shipping sources said.

Lloyd’s of London’s Shipping Intelligence Department said the 392,799-ton M. Vatan was the largest ship attacked since the Iran-Iraq war began in September, 1980.

Shipping company executives in Bahrain, Dubai, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia agreed that the incident was “the worst of its kind” since the so-called tanker war broke out between Iraq and Iran at the outset of 1984. They expected the ship to be declared a total loss and its entire cargo also to be lost.

All 33 Turkish crew members were reported rescued.

Reports of the attack came shortly after Iraq announced that its warplanes raided a “very large maritime target” near Iran’s Kharg Island oil terminal.

Yilman Tam, a spokesman for Cerrahogullari T.A.S. Shipping Co., told the Associated Press today in Istanbul, Turkey, that the tanker was under lease to the Iranian government and was carrying oil from Kharg to Sirri Island in the southern gulf when hit by an Exocet missile.

Flames Still Leaping

At the time of the attack, the vessel was carrying about 380,000 tons of Iranian crude and was about 20 miles from the Iranian coast and 115 miles from Kharg Island, said shipping sources, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Salvage tugs at the site reported flames still leaping from the M. Vatan 10 hours later and oil gushing out and catching fire.

“It all looks like one ball of fire and it might explode anytime,” representatives of the Dutch Wijsmuller salvage firm quoted their tugboats as reporting.

A Kuwait-based company executive said government bodies throughout the gulf are being alerted for what “could turn out to be a massive pollution threat to the entire region.”

“The missile hit either a cargo tank or the fuel tank on the starboard side,” a salvage company executive said.

The attack on the Vatan brought to 143 the number of known vessels reported attacked or damaged by Iraqis or Iranians in the Gulf area since the “tanker war” erupted in May, 1981.