Article Posted on : - Oct 26, 2012

NEW DELHI (PTI): For the first time, navies of India and the US are carrying out joint drill to save sailors stuck in submarines during mid-sea mishaps off the coast of Mumbai in an exercise codenamed INDIAEX 2012.

The three-week-long exercise between the two countries started on October 19 and is scheduled to get over by November 13 in which cooperation between the US submarine rescue system and Indian submarines is being demonstrated, Navy officials said here.

Four Indian submarines are taking part in the exercise with the US Navy's Undersea Rescue Command to practice rescue scenarios using the Submarine Rescue Diving and Recompression System, they said.

These vessels can be used to rescue sailors stuck in submarines such as the Russian nuclear powered submarine Kursk, which lost all its personnel when it sank in the Barents Sea in 2000.

Under the drill, the US equipment will be tagged with Indian submarines for transferring personnel from the simulated distressed under-water vessel to the rescue vessel.

This is the first exercise of its kind between the two sides which have so far been practicing joint operations under the UN mandate in the Malabar series of joint drills.

India, which operates more than 10 submarines of various kinds, is also planning to acquire submarine rescue vessels but efforts in this direction have not been successful so far.