The Wall Street Journal reported that the distress call came from vessel Zoya 1, a crude carrier, which did not appear to be loaded, and the vessel is owned by Ullib Shipping Inc which has offices in Singapore. The ship has a crew of 16 Indians and Pakistanis aboard for more than a year due to an ownership dispute.
The Abu Dhabi Federal Transport Authority said, "teams of rescue and emergency response at ports started providing the necessary help once they received the distress call and rescued the tanker's crew."
The Federal Transport Authority confirmed the tanker is "not loaded with any oil shipments and early reports attribute the incident to an accident during maintenance operations."