Fire in cables led to INS Sindhuratna mishap: Navy

[nik22]

New Delhi: 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.

The Board of Inquiry (BoI) into the February 26 mishap has found that the fire in INS Sindhuratna was caused due to problems in the cable and not the battery compartment, as was being feared earlier, Navy officials said.

The investigations are still going on into the incident and other two mishaps 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 mishap involving the Sindhuratna taking moral responsibility of the ten mishaps 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.

Fire in cables led to INS Sindhuratna mishap: Navy | NDTV.com

 

[kurup]

We’re sailing in a bomb, said INS Sindhuratna officer hours before death

As an Indian Navy board of inquiry investigates the Feb 26 disaster on board Kilo-class submarine INS Sindhuratna, a shattering twist has surfaced throwing up enormous questions for Navy and government leadership and their culpability. Just 96 hours before the accident, navy officer Lieutenant Manoranjan Kumar, one of two officers who perished on board, had spoken to seniors about how operating the INS Sindhuratna and her sister submarines was like ‘sailing on a bomb’.

A serving Indian Navy officer, one of the last to speak to Lt Manoranjan on shore before he departed on his final voyage, has blown the whistle on that final, disturbing conversation in which the ill-fated young officer is stated to have ruefully accepted his fate as a young officer with no choice but to set out to sea on a submarine that could well be his tomb. The officer, whose identity is being protected for obvious reasons, currently serves at the Western Naval Command, and has written in detail about his chance encounter with Lt Manoranjan on Feb 22 at the Naval Officers’ Mess, an e-mail currently doing the rounds within the Indian Navy.
On condition that his identity be protected, the whistleblower officer has spoken in detail over the phone to Headlines Today about Lt Manoranjan’s disturbing and prophetic conversation on shore before he set sail to test the INS Sindhuratna at sea before re-induction into the operational fleet. His conversation to Headlines Today and his e-mail to seniors in the Indian Navy, make for the most disturbing commentary on the unacceptable dangers being imposed on Indian submariners during peacetime, beyond the inherent risks of the job.

“Just last week, I sat opposite a dashing, flamboyant, square-jawed Lieutenant wearing a Submariner badge alongside a Divers’ badge. Polite conversation done, I asked him about the submarine arm. His reply, typically direct of military youth, ‘We sail on a bomb, Sir’”, the serving officer has told Headlines Today. The officer quotes Lt Manoranjan as having said, “The batteries are so old that despite the ten times effort to maintain, they still produce ten times the gas. The hydrogen burners simply can’t cope.”

More disturbingly, when the officer asked Lt Manoranjan why he hadn’t flagged the issue up the naval chain of command, the young officer is quoted to have said, “Sir, everybody is aware. It’s a point at the Commander’s Conference attended by the entire higher military leadership – navy and civilian,” adding, “Battery pit fires are the order of the day sir.”

As reported first by Headlines Today, it was expired batteries that likely caused the fatal gas leak in the battery pit and emergency response system that entombed Lt Manoranjan and fellow officer Lt Cdr Kapish Muwal into a compartment on board INS Sindhuratna, leading to their deaths from suffocation.

The whistleblower officer, has enunciated his shock and pain too. Speaking over the phone to Headlines Today, he said, “Later on I got a message that it was Lt Manoranjan Kumar who had died. It was a shock to know. Frankly speaking, I was shocked in a sense. Why did I wish him luck? I was shocked to remember the conversation. I felt terribly bad. I didn’t sleep for two days. I had tears in my eyes. I had this conversation. [Lt Manoranjan Kumar] knew that an issue was there. Still he went there and laid down his life for the country. Plus I had the burden of this conversation where he describes, ‘Sir, we are just… anything can happen, anytime’.”

The officer has also told Headlines Today that his anger is shared by several in the navy who cannot, for obvious reasons, step up and speak out. He indicated that his encounter with Lt Manoranjan just four days before a death he had virtually foretold, was simply “too much to keep silent about”.

“Some part of the accountability should be with the people seated at the Command and Naval Headquarters, where they are equally responsible. The ministry of defence is an integrated headquarters, but unfortunately they don’t share the responsibility. I think it is the collective responsibility from the bottom, from the electrical officer who should have said that you can’t sail, to the minister or the headquarters who are responsible for supplying these weapons. I think everybody down the chain is responsible,” the officer said.

Also, as reported, a dramatic warning by the Navy in 2010 to the Defence Ministry on the dangerous state of affairs in the submarine arm, has been almost meticulously ignored for four years now.

While death is always an occupational hazard in military duties, the demise of Lt Manoranjan and his fellow officer has had a particularly grave effect on the naval rank and file.

In a paragraph that should concern the naval and Defence Ministry leadership, the officer says, “It leaves a personal – professional turbulence: personal touch and professional void. Should Lt Manoranjan, like every government official, have followed the ‘laid down procedure’ and evacuated when the alarm must have been sounded or was it laudable that he stayed back in the crammy battery pit to fight? I don’t know. Is our nation capable of proving better? I don’t know. Is the military hierarchy to blame or should the civilian chain also share the responsibility of this decay? I don’t know. Is it the ‘all’s-well’ people within the service or the unsympathetic and uncomprehending fools outside who killed him. I don’t know!… Neither did Manoranjan. We just obey. Should we continue to just obey? I don’t know.”

The officer signs off with a deeply emotional declaration on responsibility: “One thing that Manoranjan knew was that we are sitting on a bomb. Should we keep it that way? And drown each boom with three volleys fired at the cremation ground. I don’t think so. Mostly, the sentiment is that we get paid for it. Arguably, a little less, but offset by a tot of rum to compensate for it. In drinking for Lieutenant Manoranjan tonight, I drink for every Indian Naval Sailor who ventures out into the unknown storm. Whether this tempest be nature’s fury or man-made, I salute Manoranjan. I extend apologies for my part in the collective responsibility of his death.”

We’re sailing in a bomb, said INS Sindhuratna officer hours before death | idrw.org

 

[kurup]

INS Sindhuratna: Tale of an underwater tragedy

The navy announced on Tuesday the fire that killed two officers and injured seven sailors on board the submarine, INS Sindhuratna, on February 26, did not originate from the submarine’s batteries, but probably from cables that caught fire in the sailors’ living section. The navy also clarified the submarine’s batteries were within their specified service life.

Media reports had speculated that expired batteries caused the fire on board the Russian Kilo-class submarine. Calls for the defence minister’s resignation have blamed him for procurement delays that forced submariners to operate with expired batteries.

The navy conclusively denied that on Tuesday.

“The batteries presently installed on Sindhuratna have, till date, completed about 113 cycles against 200 cycles available for exploitation. Further, the life of the batteries is valid by date (stipulated life of four years, by OEM). The batteries which were being exploited by Sindhuratna at the time of incident were therefore operationally in-date,” the navy stated on Tuesday.

Business Standard has learnt INS Sindhuratna was functioning with batteries that belonged to a sister submarine, INS Sindhukesari, undergoing a maintenance refit in the dockyard. Those batteries were cleared to operate till May 2014.

The navy has also announced, based on a “preliminary assessment of damage”, the fire was probably caused by cables that caught fire on the mess deck, located one floor above the “battery pit”, where batteries are stored. This assessment is based on an examination by specialists of the Western Naval Command, after Sindhuratna returned to Mumbai on Thursday, a day after the fire.

“Preliminary inspection of the third compartment, thus, indicates that the fire emanated from the third compartment mess deck (sailor’s accommodation),” says the navy.

Adding: “Preliminary inspection of the battery pit and the batteries therein has been undertaken and no damage observed thus far. Further, there are no signs to indicate any initiation of fire from the battery pit. The batteries appear to be clear of any damage and would now be put through normal checks and maintenance routines prior (to) operationalisation.”

According to senior naval officers who reconstructed the emergency for Business Standard, it began when sailors in the sleeping compartment saw smoke emanating from cables running along the wall, and raised the alarm. Within seconds, the billowing smoke had choked a number of sailors, since the fire was consuming precious oxygen from the submarine’s restricted internal space. Two electrical officers in another compartment, Lieutenant Commander Kapish Muwal and Lieutenant Commander Manoranjan Kumar, rushed to the sailors compartment. After quickly establishing that the battery compartment underneath was in order, they began evacuating the choking sailors.

With the smoke spreading and threatening to consume all the oxygen, which would have killed the entire crew and caused the loss of the submarine, the captain ordered the affected compartment to be sealed, to localise the fire. That was successfully done but a quick head count found the two officers missing.

Repeated attempts were made to open the smoke-filled compartment and rescue the officers if they were still alive but each time the door was opened, the cables reignited. Eventually, the two officers’ bodies were discovered when the compartment was opened in Mumbai. It remains unclear how the cables caught fire. The navy has set up a Board of Inquiry, headed by a two-star admiral, to establish the cause.

Senior officers are deeply concerned a witch-hunt to pin the blame on someone would create a “zero-error syndrome”, where warship captains are reluctant to take the slightest risk.

These officers say the navy operates over 160 ships, typically clocking over 12,000 ship days at sea every year, in various waters and weather.

They point out that, in these demanding conditions, some mishaps are to be expected for reasons varying from force majeure or operational hazard, to material failure, equipment malfunction or human error. “Ships sometimes collide; desks never do,” said a well-regarded admiral tersely.

INS Sindhuratna: Tale of an underwater tragedy | idrw.org

 

[kurup]

Naval inquiry: ‘Human error’ led to INS Sindhuratna fire

INS Sindhuratna, which suffered a mishap after heavy smoke filled one of its compartments, is docked at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai (Photo - PTI)

New Delhi: The preliminary inquiry report on the INS Sindhuratna tragedy stated that a 'human error' led to the fire on the submarine. Reportedly, the probe mentions a deviation from standard operating procedure.

According to media, the report had revealed that fire in some cables led to the smoke in the third compartment. Earlier it was said that the smoke was caused by faulty batteries.

Reportedly, the Naval inquiry stated mishaps are a result of disorganisation.

Two sailors died and seven members of the 94-strong crew were evacuated after inhaling smoke aboard the diesel-powered INS Sindhuratna.

After the mishap, Admiral D K Joshi had resigned as Navy Chief taking ‘moral responsibility’.

In his resignation letter, Joshi said though the government continued to repose faith is his capabilities, it was becoming untenable for him to continue as the head of the maritime force in terms of accountability.

TRAINING QUESTIONED

Defense analysts said submarine crew members in the Indian navy were not getting enough training on one type of vessel before moving to another, increasing risks that minor incidents could have fatal consequences.

"It's a very ominous situation to be in," said Uday Bhaskar, a fellow at Delhi's National Maritime Foundation. "The Indian navy is going through a blighted phase."

Handling a ship comes with experience and young officers weren't getting the time needed on smaller vessels before moving onto bigger ones, said Bharat Karnad, a senior fellow of national security studies at the Centre for Policy Research.

"You're beginning to see a trend and it's not a happy situation," said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, senior fellow at the Observer Research Foundation.

India has been operating submarines for decades, their numbers are dwindling with delays in procurement since the turn of the century, Rajagopalan noted.

Older submarines were being retired without being replaced with new ones, and the top political leadership had washed its hands off the matter, she said.

India's navy has had far fewer accidents than the air force, which has been dogged for years by crashes of Russian-made MiG-21 fighters.

However, most of the country's fleet of more than a dozen submarines is in urgent need of modernization. Efforts to build a domestic arms industry have meanwhile made slow progress, with India still the world's largest weapons importer.

The INS Sindhuratna, a Soviet-built Kilo class vessel, was commissioned in 1988.

:: Bharat-Rakshak.com - Indian Military News Headlines ::