Three naval officers face court-martial for INS Betwa accident at Mumbai in 2016

NEW DELHI: Three senior

Navy officers

are now facing a general court martial (GCM) for their alleged negligence that led to a major accident of frontline warship INS Betwa at the Mumbai naval dockyard, which killed two sailors and injured 14 others, in December 2016.

The GCM against the Captain (equivalent to an Army Colonel) of the 3,850-tonne guided-missile frigate INS Betwa and two Commanders (Lt-Cols), one from the engineering branch and other from the dockyard, began last Friday after the board of inquiry (BoI) found them prima facie guilty.

The

Brahmaputra-class frigate

had “slipped from her dock blocks”, tilted and then crashed flat on her left (port) side while being undocked during a maintenance refit on December 5, 2016. The warship was heavily damaged when it tipped over, with at least 25% flooding in its compartments, in the unprecedented mishap, as was earlier reported by TOI.

INS Betwa, which was commissioned in July 2004, had begun a two-year medium maintenance refit at the dockyard in April 2016. Following the completion of the “underwater repair package”, it was being undocked for further repairs when the accident occurred.

It took a herculean effort to make the frigate – such a warship packed with weapons and sensors would currently cost over Rs 6,000 crore – operational again with the help of international salvage experts.

“The Navy had decided to take strict action against any personnel found guilty of lapses. The three officers indicted by the BoI will have every chance to defend themselves during the court martial or trial, which is being headed by a Commodore,” said an officer.

The Navy has been hit by a string of incidents over the last decade. In February 2014, the then Navy chief Admiral D K Joshi had owned “moral responsibility" and resigned after two serious accidents on board submarines --INS Sindhurakshak and INS Sindhuratna -- killed five officers and 15 sailors.

Reports by the comptroller and auditor general of India, incidentally, have punched several holes into the entire planning and management of refits of warships that take place in the two naval dockyards at Mumbai and Visakhapatnam and three naval ship repair yards at Port Blair, Kochi and Karwar.

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