In December, last year, INS Betwa had tipped over at the Mumbai naval dockyard claiming 2 lives and injuring 14 others.
The guided missile frigate which turned upside down while undocking on December 6, 2016, has been salvaged to its upright position. The damaged warship will be made operational again by April 2018.
A ₹20-crore contract was signed by the Navy with an international salvage firm, Resolve Marine Group, to upright the 3,850-tonne frigate. Since the Navy does not have a crane big enough to lift a ship of Betwa’s size, the Indian arm of US-based Resolve Marine Group was approached.
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The Navy has also completed its board of inquiry (BoI) headed by a Rear Admiral into the unprecedented mishap. An assessment of the damage to the ship showed that the mast had hit the ground on the left. It was suspected that the dock block mechanism had malfunctioned during undocking in the cruiser graving dock of the dockyard. The ship was undergoing a refit.
The mishap apparently occurred due to miscalculation of the “load distribution equilibrium” required in the complex and delicate undocking procedure, leaving the frigate heavily damaged with at least 25% flooding in its compartments.
Prior to this, Betwa ran aground in January 2014 and collided with an unidentified object that led to a crack in its sonar system.
About INS Betwa:
- The INS Betwa is a frigate of the Brahmaputra class, built by Garden Reach Ship Builders of Kolkata and commissioned into service in July 2004.
- It was named after the river Betwa.
- The frigate was indigenously designed and built with the capability to operate at extended ranges, with speeds up to 30 knots.
- It is one of the Western Naval Command’s key warships and is armed with Uran anti-ship missiles, Barak 1 surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes.
- Indian Navy is confident that with in-house expertise and sustained efforts, the ship will be made fully operational by her scheduled date of refit completion i.e. by April 2018.
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