Navy chief reviews damage to INS Brahmaputra

NEW DELHI: Navy chief Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi on Tuesday visited Mumbai to review the overall state of guided-missile frigate INS Brahmaputra, which suffered extensive damage after tipping over at the naval dockyard, as well as the measures required to get the warship upright and sea-worthy again.

While efforts are being made to find the junior sailor who went missing during the mishap, a Rear Admiral (equivalent to a Major General in Army) will head the board of inquiry into the chain of circumstances and reasons that led to the accident as well as fix responsibility in a time-bound manner.

The incident began with a major blaze on board INS Brahmaputra during a refit on Sunday evening. The warship got flooded in the extensive fire-fighting operations to douse the fire, which led to the vessel first “listing” and then eventually tipping over on Monday afternoon.

“Admiral Tripathi reviewed the damage to the warship. He also met the crew of INS Brahmaputra and talked about the plan being formulated to get their ship operational as early as possible,” an official said.

It will, however, be a tough task to salvage INS Brahmaputra, which has a displacement of 3,850-tonne and is now resting on its port side on the jetty. It had taken almost three months to get another such frigate INS Betwa upright with the help of international salvage experts after she had also keeled over after slipping from her dock blocks at the Mumbai naval dockyard in Dec 2016.

It had taken much more time to then make INS Betwa seaworthy and operational. Another frigate INS Vindhyagiri, which also faced a major fire and flooding after a collision in 2011, however, had to be decommissioned after being salvaged at great cost and effort.

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