Eleven Indian crew hurt as a projectile hits MT On Peace in the Strait of Hormuz

Eleven Indian seafarers were injured on Tuesday, 6 October 2026, when a projectile struck the Panama-flagged tanker MT On Peace as it passed through the Strait of Hormuz off the coast of Oman. The Ministry of External Affairs identified the ship by IMO number 9893204 and said 19 crew were aboard, 17 of them Indian. Twelve crew were hurt in all, 11 of them Indian.

Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal's statement said the wounded were evacuated with the help of the Omani authorities and were receiving treatment in Khasab, the port on the Musandam peninsula that faces the strait. India condemned the attack and said the targeting of commercial shipping, seafarers and civilian infrastructure in the region had to end, and that navigation and commerce through international waterways had to be restored.

The ministry did not name the party that fired. It used the word projectile, which leaves open a missile, a drone, or a shell. That wording matches earlier Indian statements on strikes in the same waterway since fighting involving Iran widened in February. The Wire, tallying Indian casualties in those attacks, put the death toll of Indian seafarers since February at about a dozen, with more than 20 injured before Tuesday's 11 were added. Those are the paper's figures, not a ministry table. They are the scale against which Tuesday's list now sits.

Hormuz is about 33 kilometres wide at its narrowest, between Iran and Oman's Musandam exclave. The traffic separation scheme runs through that gap. A ship hit off the Omani coast is on the southern side of the lane, which is the side masters have preferred when the northern, Iranian-side lane has taken more fire. Khasab sits on that Omani side. It is the nearest hospital with a quay. Treatment there keeps the crew off a long transfer down the coast to Muscat, and it keeps the ship, if it can still steam, inside a port that is not a belligerent harbour.

A Panama flag and an Indian crew is a normal combination on a products or crude tanker. The registry is chosen by the owner. The crew is chosen by the manager. Seventeen Indians on a ship of 19 means the injury list is, for practical purposes, an Indian list. Indian nationals make up a large share of the ratings and a growing share of the officers on the tankers that still take Gulf fixtures. A single hull with 17 Indians is not an outlier. It is why an external-affairs statement, rather than only a shipowner's note, follows a strike in this strait.

What the statement does not give is the owner's name, the cargo, the point of impact, or whether the ship is fit to sail. IMO 9893204 is enough for a marine insurer or a flag-state inspector to pull the vessel record: classification, owner of record, and the last port state control. It is not enough to say whether this was a targeted hit on a named hull or a strike into a traffic lane. Previous incidents in the strait this year have included both, and the ministry has used the same projectile wording for both.

The insurance consequence is immediate even without the owner's name. War-risk underwriters price a transit of Hormuz on the week's incident list. A confirmed hit on a named IMO number, with a double-digit injury count, goes into that list the day it is published. Owners who can wait will wait. Owners on a charter with a laycan date will pay the additional premium or reroute, and a reroute around the Cape adds weeks and a bunker bill that the charter party may not have priced.

Jaiswal's line on restoration of navigation is the policy sentence. The operational sentence is the casualty count: 11 Indians, one other crew member, 17 Indians on board, treatment in Khasab. Families will get the names through the shipping company and the Directorate General of Shipping, not through the condemnation paragraph. Until those names are public, the verified facts are the hull, the flag, the IMO number, the place, and the split of 12 injured. The next public line that would change the story is a claimant, or a note that the ship has sailed from Khasab.