For several tense hours on Sunday morning, a 28-year-old chemical tanker sat listing in the Bay of Bengal with 9,000 metric tonnes of palm oil in its tanks and 23 crew members watching the sea creep closer to the rail. By Monday evening the same ship was under tow toward Paradip, its list arrested, a thin sheen on the water already gone, and every person on board accounted for.
The Belize-flagged MT Seagull 9 (IMO 9175092) sent a distress call around 7:30 a.m. on 27 September while roughly 37 nautical miles east-southeast of Paradip. Its main engine had failed. Seawater was pouring into ballast tanks through damaged pipelines. The vessel began to tilt. A capsize would have put lives and a large cargo of vegetable oil into one of India’s busiest coastal approaches — weeks after another merchant ship, MV Ocean Winner, went down in the same waters.
Averting a major disaster at sea!
Following a critical distress call from MT Seagull 9 off #Paradip, #ICGS Vishwast launched a swift & decisive operation to rescue the unstable chemical tanker carrying 9,000 MT palm oil & 23 crew members.
Braving high-risk conditions, the… pic.twitter.com/3F1h4d1Yid
— Indian Coast Guard (@IndiaCoastGuard) September 28, 2026
ICGS Vishwast reached the scene and put a specialist damage-control team aboard the unstable tanker. Working in conditions the Coast Guard later described as high-risk, the team deployed submersible pumps, de-flooded the ballast tanks, blanked two fractured seawater lines and contained a third. Crew and rescuers also carried out concurrent cargo-transfer work to restore stability. A pollution-control vessel and a second offshore patrol vessel were diverted to the area; a Dornier aircraft flying from Bhubaneswar confirmed that a minor palm-oil sheen spotted on Sunday had fully dissipated by Monday.
Paradip Port Authority tug Dolphin then took the tanker in tow toward the port anchorage. Technical teams from Vishwast are helping with engine repairs. Coast Guard units remain on scene.
The operation was unglamorous, technical and fast — the kind of work that rarely makes headlines unless it fails. This time it did not. A listing ship, a flooded ballast system and a cargo that could have fouled the coast were turned back into a controllable salvage. The 23 crew are safe. The oil stayed mostly in the tanks. The sentinels stayed on watch.
