JOIN USThe navy’s biggest accident — a massive explosion on board INS Sindhurakshak that killed 18 people — was caused by the leakage of oxygen from a torpedo due to material failure, the Board of Inquiry has said.
The Kilo-class submarine was not fully ready for a voyage even though it was being readied for the same, the report stated.
The Board of Inquiry (BoI), headed by submariner Commodore Deepak Bhist, was instituted by the navy in the wake of the August 2013 accident off Mumbai.
The findings have been released in the public domain for the first time by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG), which came down heavily on the navy as well as the defence ministry for their failure to improve upon the safety features of warships and submarines.
38 since 2007
There were as many as 38 accidents of warships and submarines between 2007-08 and 2015-16. But the Indian Navy still does not have a safety directorate though the idea was first mooted in 2006.
A safety outfit created by the navy in 2014 is yet to receive the government’s approval.
“The oxygen leak was attributed to a material failure of oxygen flasks or its associated pipelines,” the CAG report stated.
The navy told the audit team that even though it carried out stringent acceptance trial for the ships and submarines after a refit, the practice was not followed with INS Sindhurakshak due to the advent of monsoon as the sea state was “beyond the limits laid down in the protocol”.
The navy decided in favour of the submarine’s deployment without the acceptance trial because of the vessel’s “sound material state, satisfactorily completing task-II and accomplishing a torpedo firing”.
The CAG picked up several other flaws in INS Sindhurakshak, including the naval authority’s failure to assess the crew fatigue and holding ammunition nearing life expiry. The laid down “ship operating standards” had not been achieved and the complete work up of the submarine was not conducted, the report stated.