Subject: Navy's patrol vessel sunk in a collision.
Jawan 4/23/2006 4:04:06 AM
Naval ship sinks off Goa coast
NT News Service
Vasco, April 22: Seventy-three naval crew members were rescued by the naval and Coast Guard rescue teams after a merchant ship collided with ?INS Prahar?, a naval patrol vessel about 20 nautical miles from Mormugao, west off the Goa coast, late last night.
The INS Prahar, a 450-tonne vessel has reportedly sunk in the Arabian Sea following a collision, according to the information given by the public relation officer (PRO), Goa naval area, Commandant Nilkanth Kesari.
?M V Rajiv Gandhi?, a container ship of Shipping Corporation of India collided with INS Prahar, at around 10 p.m, last night. All the survivors from the naval ship were rescued by a search and rescue team.
After the collision was reported, six naval and two Coast Guard vessels including a Dornier aircraft left Goa. Two naval helicopters and merchant vessels have been deployed for search and rescue operation from the Naval Air Station, INS Hansa.
When The Navhind Times contacted Commandant Kesari informed that the exact cause of the incident has not been ascertained and the Indian Navy has set up a board of inquiry to investigate into the matter.
INS Prahar was based in Mumbai and all the 73 survivors have been flown to Mumbai, Commandant Kesari informed. The damage to the merchant carrier was minimal and it has been anchored off the coast, naval sources informed.
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Jawan RE:Navy's patrol vessel sunk in a collision. 4/26/2006 12:51:44 AM
New Delhi, April 25: The Indian navy today disclosed that its patrol vessel, INS Prahar, which sank off the Goa coast on Friday night following a collision with a container ship, was dragged by it for quite sometime after the two vessels got linked with each other. A navy official, preferring anonymity, told UNI that those, who were slapping charges of ?irresponsibility and carelessness? on the navy personnel, were not aware that the container ship, identified as MV Rajiv Gandhi, did not even bother to stop after the collision. ?After great difficulty, a navy officer managed to get on board the container ship even though it was a dark night, and asked its personnel to stop,? the official said. Strongly reacting to the allegations being heaped on the navy personnel, he said MV Rajiv Gandhi ?must not be given a clean chit? for this accident. Yet, navy officials are absolutely amazed as to how the entire patrol vessel sank. ?This appears to be a unique mishap in which the captain of the ship could not save it from sinking.? The official said there were 73 navy personnel on board the ship, and preliminary reports of the incident confirmed that they were brought back to the shore safe and in batches. ?This makes it clear as daylight that the crew members were engaged in saving the ship,? he pointed out. Likening the incident to a ?hit-and-run? case, it was like ?a heavy truck ramming into a bicycle because the patrol vessel, weighing mere 500 tonne, had collided with the container ship that weighed 21,000 tonne.? The official further said that it is universally known that personnel of a merchant ship go to sleep after putting the vessel on autopilot. ?But navy personnel are also aware of it, and they should have exercised greater caution. However, a mishap on the sea is not like a road accident wherein the captain of the ship coming from the opposite direction should go scot-free by saying that he did not have any other alternative.? He said if two vessels were engaged in a collision in the open seas, the onus for it lay on both of them. INS Prahar was returning to Mumbai from Goa after participating in a major naval exercise, when it collided with the container ship at 9.45 p.m. at a distance of 20 nautical miles from the coast. Six naval, two coast guard ships, passing merchant vessels, a Dornier aircraft and two naval helicopters were deployed for search and rescue in the area. The navy has ordered a high-level inquiry into the collision. Navy officials are angry that they have lost a Rs 200-crore ship, which was drafted into its fleet in 1997. But they are also heaving a sigh of relief that that the captain of the patrol vessel who was instrumental in saving all the 73 personnel on board.
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Jawan RE:Navy's patrol vessel sunk in a collision. 4/28/2006 3:33:36 AM
?Prahar bridge unmanned at time of collision? Probe: CO under scanner for dereliction of duty NEW DELHI, APRIL 26: Lt Cdr Yogesh Tripathi, the commanding officer of Naval missile corvette INS Prahar which sank off the Goa coast after a collision with SCI-owned merchant vessel Rajiv Gandhi last Friday, is under the scanner for indiscipline and dereliction of duty. Though investigations by the Board of Inquiry (BoI) ordered by Western Naval Command are still at a preliminary stage, it?s learnt there?s prima facie evidence that there may have been no command on the warship?s bridge at the time of the collision, implying gross violation of set rules. The inquiry into this alleged lapse comes just three months after another Naval officer, Commander Sunil David, was made to relinquish command of stealth frigate INS Trishul which collided with a merchant vessel Ambuja Laxmi outside the Mumbai harbour on December 27 last year. The inquiry into that incident is still not formally over. Officially, the Navy has said that only exhaustive investigations will allow the BoI to draw conclusions into the Prahar?s sinking, as detailed provisions of international rules of the road will need to be invoked to pin-point the cause. For now, the Navy has rejected the SCI?s unofficial opinion that the Naval ship did not follow navigational rules to avoid a collision in open sea. The Navy has also dismissed the idea that its navigational training needs to be revamped, and indicated that such incidents have happened with other Navies as well. Though all 73 personnel on board the warship were rescued, its sinking has caused concern in the Navy. Consider the following: ? The 56 m-long INS Prahar (Veer-class pennant number K98, 22 Sqn) was dragged for over 10 minutes by MV Rajiv Gandhi before the collision was even noticed by the personnel on board the warship. ? There was no recorded malfunction of the ship?s modified Russian Garpun BEL-E surface radar. This is principally why the BoI feels there was absence of command on the bridge. ? One of Prahar?s missile tubes (it is equipped with P-20s and Strela-2Ms) got stuck in the merchant vessel?s hull, which is why it was dragged. ? The merchant ship, moving at about 16 knots switched off its engines only after an officer from Prahar, who first noticed the collision, clambered onto the Rajiv Gandhi, proceeded to the ship?s bridge and informed them of what was happening below. ? Most officers and sailors on Prahar embarked the merchant vessel, while others got into lifeboats after which a search operation was initiated by six Naval vessels, two Coast Guard ships, passing merchant vessels, one Dornier-228 aircraft and two Chetak helicopters.
