A chief officer remained missing on Friday, 9 October, after the Indonesian-flag general cargo ship Khatulistiwa 8 collided with a barge and sank off Tuban, East Java, on Wednesday night, 7 October. Splash247’s Friday note is the English industry read. The Star, via Bernama and Antara, carried the same rescue count the same day. Kompas, writing from Tuban on Thursday evening, and the Surabaya Port Health Quarantine Centre (BBKK Surabaya) note dated 8 October are the local and official health primaries. Seventeen of eighteen people on board were taken off. The ship’s master was among the survivors. Search and rescue for the missing officer was still running on the English pickup. Port authorities are investigating. This is a Java Sea collision-and-sinking file, not a Hormuz kinetic reprint and not a rewrite of the dedicated September Virgo Transport 8 ferry casualty.
KSOP Kelas III Tanjung Pakis, the port authority with the working local account, said the Indonesia-flag ship, gross tonnage 1,245, left the PT Semen Indonesia (SIG) special terminal at Tuban about 17:30 Western Indonesia Time bound for Sampit, Central Kalimantan. About four hours later the agency and the ship’s agent received a report that the cargo ship had been in collision with a barge, the bow had been torn, and water was entering. The 18 people on board abandoned the ship. Tugs TB Amazon and TB Multi were tasked. TB Amazon recovered 17 people, including the master, about 23:07 and landed them at the SIG Tuban special terminal. One officer, named by Kompas as Mayan Petter Saba, chief officer of Khatulistiwa 8, was not among them.
What the local accounts established, and what they did not
The working facts are short and operational. Kompas, citing KSOP coordinator Bobby Mulya Kusuma and Polresta Tuban spokesman Iptu Muhammad Iksan, said the cargo was about 1,850 tonnes of Semen Gresik cement in polysling bags. The first danger report reached the ship’s agent about 21:37 from the chief engineer: a heavy leak after the barge impact. That report went through Vessel Traffic Service Surabaya and on marine VHF channel 16. Kusuma’s Thursday line is the damage description operators should keep: the bow was torn, water entered, and the ship sank. Iksan put the event around 22:00 and confirmed on Thursday that the missing crew member was still being searched for. Do not invent a barge name, a barge flag, a barge owner, or a finding on which hull failed to give way. None of the English or local primaries used here named the other ship.
Kompas printed a position “about 9 to 12 miles” off the SIG Tuban special port. The published degree-minute string in that report is internally inconsistent, so hold the range and the reference point, not a fabricated latitude and longitude. BBKK Surabaya, working from the same KSOP Kelas III Tanjung Pakis report, did not add a wreck position. It did add the health outcome that Splash used on Friday: all 17 survivors were examined at the SIG Tuban jetty building by the quarantine team with RS SIG Tuban. Fifteen were assessed as uninjured. Two had minor injuries. Ambulances from both services stood by. That is a completed first medical screen, not a closed accident investigation.
The missing officer, and the ships that answered
Eighteen people were on board, 16 men and two women on Kompas’s count. Seventeen came off on TB Amazon. The missing man is the chief officer. Splash and BBKK Surabaya both leave him unnamed; Kompas names Mayan Petter Saba. Keep that name attached to the local police and KSOP account, not to a flag-state casualty circular, which has not appeared on the English primaries. The Star, quoting PT Pertamina Trans Kontinental operations director Yudi Wibisono via Antara, said two company-operated tugs already on standby nearby were also sent after the distress and that the 17 were handed to port authorities and company personnel at the Semen Indonesia jetty. BBKK Surabaya lists the wider coordination set: KSOP Tanjung Pakis, BASARNAS, Polairud, Port Operation Semen Indonesia Tuban, the ship’s agent PT EKS, Polsek Jenu, and RS SIG Tuban. Treat that list as the SAR and landing picture, not as a finding on liability.
Open registers list Khatulistiwa 8 as IMO 8625715, MMSI 525024116, call sign YHIS, an Indonesia-flag general cargo ship of about 58 by 12 metres, about 1,245 gross tonnes and about 1,265 tonnes deadweight, built in 1985, with earlier names including Karya 15, Cengkeh 04, Kaiei Maru and Kaiko Maru. Those are particulars colour. They are not a class survey and not a stability booklet. A 40-year-old short-sea cement carrier with a torn bow in a night collision is a foundering problem, not a deep-sea salvage problem. The cargo is bagged cement, not bulk oil. No official pollution volume was published. That omission is not a completed environmental finding. Bagged cement on the seabed is still a wreck-marking and fishermen-hazard problem for KSOP and the local VTS.
What this is not
Do not fold Wednesday night into the dedicated 6 October Bulgarian EEZ drone file on Alfa Watan and Able, the dedicated 5 October Royad Mammadov sinking, or the dedicated 4 October Ålesund three-ship collision. Those are Black Sea kinetic and Norwegian coastal files. Khatulistiwa 8 is a domestic Indonesia-flag cargo ship on a Tuban–Sampit cement voyage. Do not fold it into Friday’s Indonesian police naming of four suspects on KM Virgo Transport 8, the 13 September Java Sea ferry that sank with 243 people on board. Virgo remains its own criminal and SAR file. Thursday’s and Friday’s Khatulistiwa notes do not assign a Shipping Law article, do not name the barge, and do not close the search.
Do not treat The Star’s Friday 13:46 MYT pickup as the accident clock. The collision and abandonment sit on Wednesday evening, 7 October, local time. Friday is the English-language industry date. Splash is explicit that port authorities are investigating a 7 October collision. Do not invent a KNKT (NTSC) opening, a detention of the barge, a drug or alcohol finding, or a decision to raise the wreck. None of those appeared on the primaries used. Do not invent a crew-nationality split beyond Kompas’s 16-men / two-women count.
Operational implications
A torn-bow flooding and a missing chief officer on a short-sea cement run is a different night order from a deep-sea collision with all hands accounted for. Masters leaving Indonesian special terminals after dark still need a written lookout, a working AIS and VHF watch, and a passage plan that treats barge and tug traffic on the north Java coast as a close-quarters risk, not as background. The first report here came from the chief engineer to the agent, then VTS Surabaya and channel 16. That is the sequence a DPA should want in the master’s night orders: hull damage, water ingress, abandon-ship decision, and an early VTS call, not a wait for the ship to lose buoyancy before anyone ashore is told.
Managers who recognise Khatulistiwa 8 as theirs, or who operate similar Indonesia-flag short-sea bulk and bagged-cement tonnage out of SIG Tuban, Gresik or other north-Java special terminals, should assume KSOP, the flag, class if any, and P&I will ask for the master’s report, the VDR or equivalent, the last position before impact, the cargo manifest, the abandon-ship time, the muster against the 18-person list, and why the chief officer was not recovered. The two minor injuries are a medical-follow-up item, not a closed fitness finding. The missing officer is a SAR item first and a casualty-notification item second. Charterers and cargo interests on Tuban–Kalimantan cement should treat the wreck position, once KSOP marks it, as a navigation warning for the next ships on that berth, not as a completed cargo-loss survey.
The tug response is the other operator lesson. KSOP tasked ships already in the area. PTK said its nearest tugs went as well. A special-terminal departure at 17:30 that is in the water by 21:37 is still inside the harbour-tug and standby-tug envelope. Ships on the same coast should know which tugs are on notice and which VTS they will actually raise at night. Do not brief Wednesday as a reason to drop that envelope on the next cement voyage because 17 people came ashore.
What Operators Should Note
- Log a named Wednesday-night sinking, not a Friday accident. Khatulistiwa 8, Indonesia-flag, GT 1,245 on the KSOP account, IMO 8625715 on open registers, left SIG Tuban about 17:30 WIB on 7 October for Sampit with about 1,850 tonnes of bagged Gresik cement, collided with an unnamed barge, tore the bow, flooded and sank. Splash, 9 October, is the English read of that KSOP/BBKK file.
- Treat the missing chief officer as the open item. Eighteen on board, 17 recovered by TB Amazon about 23:07 and landed at the SIG Tuban jetty. Kompas names Mayan Petter Saba, Mualim I. Search was still running on Thursday and on Friday’s English pickup. Do not close the file as “all saved.”
- Keep the medical screen separate from the investigation. BBKK Surabaya with RS SIG Tuban: 15 uninjured, two minor injuries, ambulances stood by. That is not a KNKT finding, not a detention order, and not a pollution volume.
- Do not name the barge. No English or local primary used here identified the other hull, its flag, or its owner. Kusuma’s damage line is bow torn, water in, ship sank. Hold that. Do not invent COLREGs fault.
- Hold the 9-to-12-mile Tuban range, not a homemade fix. Kompas’s printed DMS string is not internally consistent. Brief VTS Surabaya, channel 16, and a wreck that will need marking once KSOP publishes a position. Bagged cement is still a fishermen and passing-traffic hazard.
- Keep this off the Virgo Transport 8 desk and off the Black Sea desk. Friday’s four-suspect naming on the September ferry is a separate Java Sea criminal file. Alfa Watan, Able, Royad Mammadov and Ålesund remain their own casualties. CSO, master, flag and P&I own Khatulistiwa 8 until the chief officer is found or declared, or until KSOP or KNKT publishes a cause.
Regulas Shipping will keep lining the KSOP Tanjung Pakis and BBKK Surabaya accounts on Khatulistiwa 8 against Friday’s English pickup so operators can treat the Tuban cement-ship sinking as an open SAR and collision file, not as a closed short-sea incident or a reason to thin the night lookout on the north Java coast.
