British police officers are responding to an ongoing incident on board an oil tanker off the Isle of Wight, an island in the English Channel.
Hampshire police force said Sunday that its officers were “aware and dealing” with an incident “on board a vessel which is situated south of the Isle of Wight.”
According to PA Media, the vessel in question is the Liberian-registered Nave Andromeda crude oil tanker.
Details of the incident remain unconfirmed. However the British PA news agency has cited reports of an attempted hijacking by stowaways.
Local lawmaker Bob Seely suggested the vessel may now be controlled by stowaways, during an interview with Sky News on Sunday.
“Isle of Wight Radio are reporting — and they’ve got very good contacts in the Coastguard — that 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,” Seely said.
Two coastguard helicopters were sighted circling around the vessel, according to Isle of Wight Radio, which also reported that a three-mile exclusion zone has been placed around the area south of Sandown, on the east coast of the island.
According to marine traffic data, the tanker departed from Lagos, Nigeria on October 6 and was due to dock in Southampton — on the south coast of England — at 10:30am local time (6:30aET) Sunday morning.
Instead the vessel has made several zig-zags just off the Isle of Wight within a few hours.
