A U.S. Navy reconnaissance plane joined the hunt Sunday for 32 sailors after an Iranian tanker collided with a Chinese freighter off China’s eastern coast, catching fire and spilling oil into the sea.
The crew — 30 Iranians and two Bangladeshis — on the tanker Sanchi was traveling from Iran to South Korea when it crashed into the Hong Kong-registered freighter CF Crystal in East China Sea, 160 miles off the coast of Shanghai, China’s Ministry of Transport said. All 32 people on the Sanchi were missing as of Sunday, but the 21 crew members of the Crystal — carrying grain brought from the United States — were rescued.
“We have no information on their fate,” an official in Iran’s Oil Ministry told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. “We cannot say all of them have died, because rescue teams are there and providing services.”
The U.S. sent a P-8A aircraft which searched nearly 3,600 square nautical miles — but did not find any of the missing crew, the Navy reported. (FOX NEWS)
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