El Gaia Crew Taken Off Disabled Tanker, Two Still Missing

Oman's Maritime Security Center confirmed on Tuesday that it had run a search and rescue operation for the crew of the Panama-flagged product tanker El Gaia, and that two seafarers remain missing. Twenty-three crew were taken off and given medical attention, and the disabled tanker is under tow to an Omani port.

Almost everything else about the casualty is disputed, including when it happened. UK Maritime Trade Operations places it late on 12 September or early on 13 September, logging a distress call followed by reports of a fire in the engine room and an evacuation. The 48,000 dwt tanker, built in 2005 and managed from the UAE, was off the Omani coast when she was hit.

Iran's IRGC Navy said on Monday that the tanker had been attempting to "traverse a restricted zone south of the Strait of Hormuz", described the lane she was using as "hazardous" and "illegal", and said the result was that she struck sea mines. It said the firefighting effort was "unsuccessful, leaving the entire tanker engulfed in flames". The Omani account contradicts that last point directly: the engine-room fire was put out after the attack.

US Central Command published a rebuttal, calling the Iranian version another example of "their lies and intimidation attempts while they try to impede commercial vessels". In CENTCOM's account the ship was struck by an Iranian missile last month and left inoperable, and was attacked a second time while she "sat in the waters of the coast of Oman" — a stationary hull hit by a drone, rather than a moving ship hitting a mine.

India's Ministry of External Affairs condemned the attack on Sunday. Fourteen of the crew are Indian, and one of them is among the missing.

Martin Kelly, Head of Advisory at EOS Risk Group, said he was "dubious at best" of the competing accounts and called the Iranian version "scaremongering", noting that "Iran has fabricated several similar stories over the past month" and describing the pattern as using "misinformation as a non-kinetic fire" against shipping.

The mine claim is contested this sharply because of what it would cost. The United States has said repeatedly that it has cleared the Strait of Hormuz of mines, and has reported strikes intended to stop Iran laying new ones. A confirmed mine inside the strait reprices war-risk cover on every transit; a drone strike on one already-damaged hull sitting off the Omani coast does not.

Underneath the dispute sits a thinner problem: nobody can agree how many ships are making the transit at all. Most appear to be sailing dark, and only a handful of transits can be confirmed from AIS.

This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 17 September 2026.