NEW DELHI:
Guided missile frigate INS Betwa
, which had tipped over at the
Mumbai naval dockyard
on December 6, killing two sailors and injuring 14 others, has been salvaged to its upright position. The Navy says the damaged warship will be made operational once again by April 2018.
“INS Betwa is back on even keel, and floating like any other warship,” said a Navy officer on Tuesday. The Navy had earlier inked a Rs 20 crore contract with an international salvage firm, Resolve Marine Group, to upright the 3,850-tonne frigate, as was reported by TOI.
The Navy has also completed its board of inquiry (BoI) headed by a Rear Admiral into the unprecedented mishap, during which the Brahmaputra-class frigate “slipped from her dock blocks”, tilted and then crashed flat on her left (port) side while being undocked during a maintenance refit.
With the main naval dry dock at Mumbai blocked by
INS Betwa, the Navy wants the frigate to be salvaged and made battle-ready to re-join the fleet as soon as possible. Commissioned in July 2004, INS Betwa had begun the two-year medium maintenance refit at the dockyard in April last year.
The mishap apparently occurred due to miscalculation of the “load distribution equilibrium” required in the complex and delicate undocking procedure, leaving the frigate heavily damaged with at least 25% flooding in its compartments.
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