The mishap-struck warship INS Betwa will be salvaged and re-inducted into the Indian Navy as per the original deadline of 2018. International and Indian salvers are now examining the 4,000-tonne missile frigate and will give their report in the next two days.
The ship had tipped over in Mumbai dock on Monday leading to the death of two sailors and injury of 14 others. Incidentally, it is the first accident of its kind in the world when a warship tilted in dock while about to float.
Giving the information here on Tuesday about the salvage amongst apprehensions that the ship may be written off due to difficulties involved in setting the vessel upright and damage incurred, Navy spokesperson Captain DK Sharma said, “We are going to salvage and make it ready. The ship will be battle ready in the same time frame in which the ongoing refit was to be completed.”
The `600-crore frigate, commissioned into the Navy in 2004, was dry docked in Cruiser Craving Docks, Mumbai in April this year for a two-year medium refit and scheduled to be seaworthy in 2018. The mishap occurred when INS Betwa was ready to go out for sea trials on Monday and slipped over dock blocks. The ship’s foremast, the tallest projection on the deck, crashed on the ground alongside and the ship is now tilted at 90 degrees.
International and Indian salvers were now assessing the ways to make the ship upright thereby enabling the Naval engineers to examine the extent of damage.
Navy chief Admiral Sunil lanba took stock of the situation in Mumbai, officials said adding a Board of Inquiry headed by Rear Admiral Deepak Bali, Flag-Officer Offshore Defence Advisory Group, will soon start probe to ascertain the cause of accident and fix responsibility. The Navy is taking it “very seriously,” officials said.
Allaying apprehensions that many sophisticated equipment and guns on the ship were damaged beyond repair, officials said most of the equipment was removed from the frigate when it came for medium refit in April.
“Since the ship will not sail for next two years, most of the sophisticated equipment including sensors and electronic warfare systems are taken off and cannibalised on to other operational ships for continuous use. Once the refitted ship is ready for sailing, the equipment is re-installed,” they said.
At present, 25 per cent of the frigate is submerged in water, they added.
Malfunction of dock block system or error in calculating weight distribution besides mistake in releasing water in the dock to let the ship float could be reasons for the accident, they said.
Explaining the system of taking the ship to sea from the dry dock after refit, they said water is released through heavy duty pumps into the dock to let the ship float. Till then, the ship is resting on blocks built according to the length of the surface and weight of the ship. The blocks are made of 80 per cent steel and rest is soft wood so the ship can literally “sit” on them without damaging its hull.
Since the mishap took place when water was getting released into the dock and the frigate was nearly floating, the enquiry will also look into the possibility of wrong calculation of weight distribution on the ship. The ship obviously could not stabilize after floating thereby indicating that there was mismatch in distribution balance, officials said. The ship tipped on its side as there was mismatch in the centre of gravity and centre of buoyancy, they added.