Update 001, same day: fire on board. Local authorities on scene. Crew being taken off.

JMIC Update 096, 13 September: name withheld. Tanker. Distress at 122330 UTC. Management later confirmed a severe fire. Vessel remained on fire and fully loaded. Regional threat SEVERE.

Oman Maritime Security Centre, 15 September, via Oman Observer: Panama tanker ELGAIA, engine-room fire after an earlier targeting. Position 103 nm north-east of Musandam. Royal Navy of Oman took off 23. Search for two missing. Tow toward an Omani port. Oman does not name the weapon or the shooter.

India MEA, 13 September, via Times of India: MT El Gaia off Oman. Fourteen Indian crew. Thirteen rescued. Search for one missing Indian. Those two head-counts — Oman 23 plus two missing, India 14 of whom one missing — are not merged.

gCaptain, 15 September: IRGC said El Gaia hit a naval mine while trying the strait. CENTCOM rejected that and said Iran hit the tanker twice — a missile last month that left her inoperable, then a drone at the weekend while she sat off Oman. Those are claims. They sit next to each other. They are not a finding.

Ship & Bunker: Iranian media named a Qeshm container near Hengam with a dead seafarer. Vanguard named a Panama tanker in distress. The same piece says it is unclear those two reports are one ship. They stay two reports.

UKMTO Warning 135-26, 15 September for 2040 UTC on the 14th: another unnamed vessel, unknown projectile, no reported damage. That paper is not El Gaia. Do not merge it.

VesselFinder: EL GAIA IMO 9325336, Panama. AIS stale in the Arabian Sea. That fix is not the Musandam tow.

What the photograph shows

Oman MSC still, via Maritime Executive: product-tanker stern at dusk. EL GAIA and PANAMA painted on the house. Smoke and flame aft. An orange boat in the water astern.

Established

• UKMTO 134-26 / Update 001: projectile, Hormuz, then fire and evacuation.
• Oman MSC: ELGAIA, Panama, 103 nm NE Musandam, 23 off, two missing, tow.
• India MEA: MT El Gaia, 13 of 14 Indians off.
• UKMTO 135-26 is a second, unnamed, later paper.

Not established

• Mine or missile or drone as the official cause.
• That the Qeshm container and El Gaia are the same hull.
• One crew list.
• IMO in the UKMTO or Oman product (VF only).