Capsized: the Bourbon Dolphin
Four missing as support tug capsizes
Ten crew members were rescued but four were unaccounted for after a supply vessel capsized in the UK North Sea today.
The Bourbon Dolphin, a Norway-based anchor-handling tug supply (AHTS) vessel, capsized with 14 crew on board 75 miles (120 kilometres) west of Scotland's Shetland Islands at about 5pm local time, a British coast guard spokeswoman said.
Three nearby vessels offered help, and two coast guard helicopters and an RAF Nimrod aircraft were scrambled, the BBC reported.
The vessel was reported to have capsized near the semi-submersible drilling rig Transocean Rather on the Rosebank field in the UK North Sea.
Some of the missing were feared trapped inside the overturned vessel.
Mark Clark, a spokesman for the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency appealed for any vessels equipped with dive support crews or diving equipment to get to the scene as soon as possible.
"We're still searching and of course the difficult situation for everybody is if they are still strapped inside the hull. And therefore we need to get to them as quickly as possible," he told the BBC.
Search and rescue operations were being co-ordinated by the Shetland coast guard station.
Weather conditions in the vicinity of the accident were reported to be good.
The vessel is owned by French marine services group Bourbon Offshore and operated by the company's Norwegian unit from the port of Fosnavaag.
AHTS vessels perform a range of tasks including anchor handling and towing and subsea support work.