Fire in cables led to INS Sindhuratna mishap: Navy

INS Sindhuratna was caused due to problems in the cable and not the battery compartment, as was being feared earlier, Navy officials said here.

The investigations are still going on into the incident and other two accidents involving the Kilo class submarines of the Navy in the last seven months, they said.

The battery pit has been found to be fully safe and the fire took place in the compartment above it, Navy officials said.

Former Navy chief Admiral DK Joshi resigned after the accident involving the Sindhuratna taking moral responsibility of the ten accidents involving maritime force's assets.

The Sindhuratna is one of the navy's fleet of nine Kilo class submarines. A tenth submarine, the INS Sindhurakshak exploded and sank in the naval dockyard on August 14, 2013 killing 18 crewmen on board. The Sindhuratna was moored nearby and suffered minor fire damage when the Sindhurakshak exploded.

The board of inquiry (BoI) into the February 26 accident has found that the fire in

The fire in submarine INS Sindhuratna, which resulted in the death of two officers and severely affected seven other sailors last week, was caused due to problems in the cables of the vessel.

Revealed: Delay in changing submarine batteries could have caused INS Sindhuratna tragedy

Red tape has crippled the blue water capabilities of the Indian Navyand the nation is now paying in blood for it.
 

A shortage of submarine batteries after the Ministry of Defence (MoD) objected to the acquisition process may well be the starting point of the series of unfortunate events that resulted in the INS Sindhuratna mishap early on Wednesday.
 

Sources say that the batteries on the INS Sindhuratna were not changed during its refit that ended in December 2013.

 

The facts that are now surfacing from the depths of the Arabian Sea point to running the ill-fated submarine on ageing batteries as the likeliest reason for the explosion that claimed the lives of two officers and injured seven sailors earlier this week.
 

The INS Sindhuratna is a diesel-electric vessel, and runs on battery power while submerged. That power is provided by 240 lead acid batteries that weigh about 800kg each.
 

These batteries tend to release flammable hydrogen gas, especially when they are being charged, and submarines have safety systems to address emergencies arising out of this. Old batteries are even worse.
 

The high level probe ordered by the Navy under Flag Officer (Submarines) Rear Admiral S.V. Bokhare will go into various aspects of the accident. It will be centered on finding the cause of explosion in the battery compartment that triggered the release of toxic gases.

The INS Sindhuratna was powered by Russian batteries during the early years of its life in the Indian Navy. Later, the Navy began procuring batteries from an established Indian vendor, Mumbai-based Standard Batteries Limited, later bought out by Exide.

 

 The Navy has bought batteries from Standard for a long time, and the two have had a smooth working relationship. Somewhere down the line, however, the battery purchase process was hit by objections raised by HILIFE Batteries, a Hyderabad-based competitor.

 

HILIFE took the Indian Navy to court, saying its products were superior and cheaper, and that it had been considered good enough to supply batteries for a DRDO submarine project. The MoD also intervened to end the "single vendor situation", a situation that is avoided in acquisition.

 

As the web of litigation grew, battery purchases were hit, sources say, adding that the INS Sindhuratna mishap was waiting to happen.

 

The Iranian Navy operates Kilo-class submarines of the same manufacturing batch as India's (see box) and uses Indian batteries that it replaces regularly. There has been no major mishap reported from Iran's Kilos, and that only points another finger at the old batteries on the INS Sindhuratna.
 

The fact that the Navy is operating Kilo-class submarines for close to 30 years now, much beyond their lifespan, is also a reflection of the breakdown of perspective planning in the MoD.

As per the 30-year perspective plan for submarines, the Navy should have 24 new submarines by 2022. In fact, 12 submarines should have been inducted by 2012 if the plan had remained on track. It is tragic, say old submariners, that the MoD was well aware of the problem and did nothing.
 

 The submarine fleet is centered on 10 Russian Kilo class and four German HDW type 209 submarines. Nuclear-powered INS Chakra was acquired two years ago, the only addition in the last three decades.
 

 The government has been told several times about the teething problems in the construction of six French Scorpene submarines which has delayed the entire acquisition programme. All the six Scorpenes are now expected to be inducted only by 2021.

 

Kilo-class submarines of Soviet design are among the most silent-and proportionately deadly-vessels of their kind. The Sindhuratna, commissioned into the Indian Navy in 1988, had undergone an extensive refit from May through December last year, and was being put through the second, submerged phase of trials that would certify it as operationally fit when disaster struck.
 

The accidents involving two Kilo-class submarines within a span of six months are now likely to speed up the plan for construction of a new line of underwater vessels.

 Iranian Kilo subs running perfectly on Indian batteries
 

The Iranian Navy operates three Kilo class submarines - Tareq, Noor and Yunesh - which are of the same vintage and type as the ones in the Indian Navy.

 

However, Iran is yet to face any serious accident. In fact, the Iranian Navy even routes its batteries from the same Indian vendor, Standard Batteries Limited.

 The sinking of INS Sindhurakshak in August last year and the accident on board the INS Sindhuratna on Wednesday has brought focus on the Russian-made submarines.

 A probe will indicate whether the fire in INS Sindhuratna was caused because of poor maintenance and inferior quality of spares, or because of some other fault.

 

Crossed the Bar and Resting on Their Oars - Two sailors found dead in Indian submarine accident

Two Indian naval officers were found dead Thursday after they went missing in a submarine fire off Mumbai’s coast, the latest in a string of accidents that have forced the navy’s chief to quit.

Seven other crew members were airlifted to hospital with breathing problems after smoke began to fill the vessel’s living quarters on Wednesday, an accident that comes only six months after another deadly submarine disaster in Mumbai.

“The two officers who were earlier declared missing have been located in the (submarine) compartment and after examination by Medical Officers both the officers were declared dead,” said an emailed statement from the defence ministry.

Admiral DK Joshi, the chief of naval staff, announced Wednesday night he was standing down to take “moral responsibility” for the accident on board the Russian-built INS Sindhuratna during exercises. 

Last August, 18 sailors were killed when the fully-armed submarine INS Sindhurakshak exploded in flames and sank in a military shipyard in Mumbai.

That disaster was thought to be the Indian Navy’s worst since the sinking of a frigate by a Pakistani submarine during a war with its neighbour in 1971. Various other naval accidents reported in recent months included a submarine running aground in Mumbai’s harbour, fires on a minesweeping vessel and an aircraft carrier, and a collision between a frigate and a fishing boat. The Indian navy has 14 submarines, but only between seven and nine are operational at any one time because of regular repair and refitting. Defence experts say the navy has an ageing fleet and has struggled with delays in the acquisition of new submarines and poor servicing.

Defence Minister AK Antony told reporters on Thursday that outgoing chief Joshi was “pretty much disturbed about the whole development”.

“He requested me to take his resignation with immediate effects,” Antony said.

While a full inquiry is expected to determine the exact cause of the latest accident, the navy said it appeared to have been due to sparks in a sleeping cabin.

According to the Press Trust of India (PTI) news agency, smoke filled a compartment and triggered emergency measures, such as the closure of hatches which isolate sections of the submarine. The missing pair “might have been left in the cabin or at some other place as various cabins and compartments are isolated as part of the emergency measures”, PTI quoted an unnamed navy officer as saying on Wednesday.
The stricken submarine docked in Mumbai on Thursday morning, allowing the navy to ventilate the vessel and step up their search for the missing pair.

INS Sindhuratna is a kilo-class submarine which normally operates with a crew of 53 and can sail on its own for 45 days, the navy’s website says.

The submarine had only been handed back to the navy in December after undergoing a major refit, according to local reports.

It had been undergoing trials off the Mumbai coast as part of a clearance process for full operations when the incident occurred. 

Russia is still the biggest military supplier to India, but relations have been strained by major delays and cost overruns with a refurbished aircraft carrier, the INS Vikramaditya.

India - Navy Chief quits over spate of submarine mishaps

India’s navy chief, Admiral D.K. Joshi resigned as chief of the Indian navy, owning “moral responsibility for the accidents and incidents during the past few months”, the Defence Ministry said on Wednesday. Admiral Joshi is the first Indian military commander to have resigned since General Kodandera Subayya Thimmaiah in 1959 -- and the only to have his resignation accepted by the government.

 

The naval chief's resignation came hours after a fire on board the newly-refitted Sindhuratna claimed the lives of two naval officers and injured seven -- the third in a series of submarine accidents, including an explosion on the Sindhurakshak which exploded and sank in Mumbai’s naval dockyard in August, 2013, killing 18 crew. Last month, the Sindhughosh ran ground on its way to Mumbai harbour, though without loss of life.

 

Experts that the resignation also came against concerns within the navy on the capabilities of its fleet, and “It is highly principled of the Admiral to offer his resignation”, said Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, a prominent naval analyst and former officer “but I suspect the real reasons have to do with frustration over successive governments failing to modernise the submarine fleet”.

 

Dangerous fleet

 

Five of, of India’s thirteen conventionally-powered submarines, naval sources have told The Hindu, have exceeded their design life. The INS Sindhughosh, Sindhudhaj, the Sindhuraj, Sindhuvir and ill-fated Sindhuratna, all Russian-manufactured Kilo-class submarines, were all inducted between 1986 and 1988. The most recent of the Kilo-class fleet, the Sindhushastra, was puchased in 2000, preceded by the Sindhurakshak in 1997, and the Sindhuvijay was inducted in 1991.

 

The Sindhurakshak had suffered an earlier fire accident in 2010, which claimed the life of a sailor.

 

“In an ideal world”, a senior submarine commander said, “you’d want to keep a submarine in active service for no more than two decades or so. The navy has refitted its submarines to keep them running, but age obviously increases the risks of material failures significantly”.

 

The Navy has long complained of delays in submarine fleet modernisation, at a time when regional navies, notably China, are dramatically expanding their fleets. India also does not have a full-fledged submarine rescue vessel.

 

Vice Admiral Robin Dhowan will take over as Acting Naval Chief till a regular Chief is appointed.

Smoke on INS Sindhuratna; 2 Navy officers missing

The incident happened off the Mumbai coast on the kilo-class submarine while it was on a routine training exercise.

Minor smoke was detected on Indian Navy Submarine Sindhuratna on Wednesday in the early morning hours. Five sailors have sustained minor injuries, Navy sources said.

News agency PTI says two officials were unaccounted for. "They might have been left in the cabin or at some other place as various cabins and compartments are isolated as part of the emergency measures," said a Navy officer to PTI.

The incident happened off the Mumbai coast around 150 Nautical miles on the kilo class submarine while it was on its routine training exercise.

The exact cause and the origin of the fire is yet to be ascertained. Sources claim that there is no grave damage caused to the submarine. As soon as the crew raised an alarm , a Navy helicopter and a Fast Attack craft were sent by the Navy.

"The smoke was detected around 6 am on the submarine by the crew. As soon as the Navy Operation Centre learnt about the mishap, Navy helicopters and a Fast Attack aircraft were pressed into service. The men who inhaled smoke because of the enclosed compartments were airlifted to INS base Ashwini and are recuperating at the Navy hospital ," Navy spokesperson told The Hindu.

"The submarine is afloat and no damage has been reported. The Navy crew is on board and the damage is being ascertained," the spokesperson added.

According to sources, the kilo class submarine was carrying no ammunition since it was still in testing mode and was yet to be placed under operation. Another submarine will also be pressed into service to render assistance , sources said.

Following the incident the submarine will be tested for its sea worthiness.

This is the third incident concerning a kiloclass submarine in the recent past. Last year 18 crew members died after a major fire broke out on INS Sindhurakshak.