Missing Navy men in sunken ship feared drowned
VISAKHAPATNAM: Search for the four Navy personnel, including an officer, who were reported missing after a torpedo recovery vessel (TRV A-72) of Indian Navy sunk off the Vishakhapatnam coast, continued in the Bay of Bengal on Friday.
As their whereabouts were not known even after 24 hours, the officials fear they have drowned. Navy Chief Admiral R K Dhowan, who is on a visit to Seychelles till Sunday, has cut short his visit and is expected to arrive in Visakhapatnam.
The Malkapuram police also registered a case even as senior naval officials did not rule out the possibility of 'poor maintenance' to be the reason for the mishap.
Seven ships of the Eastern fleet, including those with side scanning and bottom profiling abilities, aircrafts, including Dorniers, Boeing P81, Sea King 42C with night vision facilities and Chetak helicopters have been deployed for the search operation which continued since Thursday night to trace the missing personnel.
The vessel sank at 8 pm Thursday while it was on a routine mission to recover practice torpedoes fired by the fleet ships during a routine exercise, the Navy officials said. The auxiliary ship sank to a depth of about 370 m in the Bay of Bengal at about 65 km south of Visakhapatnam.
Naval sources said that preliminary investigations have revealed that the TRV sank due to ingress of sea-water into the steering gear compartment and subsequent rooms.
'Though it is too early to draw any conclusion, preliminary evidence points out that the incident might have occurred due to poor maintenance. This particular ship was built by Goa Shipyard Limited in 1983 and has served the Navy for the last 31 years, calling for better attention,' said a senior Navy officer.
News Posted: 8 November, 2014
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