Online Desk: The latest accident in Mumbai harbour between an under-trial Indian Navy speedboat and a private passenger ferry in which 14 people, including four women, two children and a naval officer died, is one of a continuing series of collisions and mishaps which the force that prides itself on its professionalism and seamanship, has endured over nearly two decades.
Since 2005, some 27 major and minor Indian Navy surface combatants like corvettes, frigates, destroyers and torpedo recovery vessels, as well as two submarines, have been involved in serious accidents, in which scores of officers, sailors and civilians have died.
Furthermore, these disasters had also negatively impinged on the Navy’s higher command structure, as one such incident led to the resignation in February 2014 of the Indian Navy’s Chief of Staff, Admiral D.K. Joshi, following a fire aboard the INS Sindhuratna, a Russian Type EKM877 diesel-electric ‘Kilo’-class submarine, whilst routine trials were being conducted off the Mumbai coast.
Two officers had died in the accident, resulting in Admiral Joshi, unusually, accepting ‘moral responsibility’ for the spate of recent accidents involving Navy platforms, and quitting his post some 17 months before his tenure ended. Six months earlier, in August 2013, an explosion abroad INS Sindhurakshak, a similar Kilo-class boat berthed in Mumbai harbour, had ripped through the area, killing 18 Navy personnel, including three officers. The wrecked submarine was eventually salvaged at great cost, but eventually scrapped, further depreciating the Navy’s already insufficient number of underwater platforms.
The Indian Navy’s recurring accident rate even prompted the Press Information Bureau (PIB) in December 2014 to detail 24 small and major accidents involving assorted naval platforms over a three-year period, January 2011 onwards.
And, thereafter in 2017, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) revealed that the absence of a central structure in the Navy to deal with its platform safety issues had resulted in 38 minor and major accidents between 2007 and 2016, in which 33 naval personnel, including officers, had died.
