Article Posted on : - Aug 14, 2013

INS Sindhurakshak (S63). Image: Wikimedia/Brian Burnell

MUMBAI (PTI): An explosion followed by a major fire gutted an Indian Navy's diesel-electric submarine at a dockyard in Mumbai late Wednesday night, killing 18 naval personnel, including three officers, on board.

The explosion took place on board INS Sindhurakshak, a Kilo class submarine of the Indian Navy, shortly after midnight.

The fate of 18 persons on board the submarine was intially unknow. The Navy later confirmed their death.

The Navy has ordered a board of inquiry to probe the explosion and subsequent fire on board the submarine, a defence spokesperson said.

Fire tenders from the Naval dockyard as well as the Mumbai Fire Brigade were immediately pressed into action, he said.

However, due to the explosion, the submarine has submerged at the dock with only a portion visible above the surface, a defence statement said.

Navy Chief Admiral D K Joshi was on his way to Mumbai.

The submarine had returned after a major upgrade programme in Russia 3-4 months ago and is armed with a potent weapons package including the anti-ship Club missiles.

INS Sindhurakshak was not on active duty at the time of the accident, Navy sources said.

The incident has come at a time when the Navy is facing a situation of depleting submarine fleet.

In 2010, a fire mishap took place on the INS Sindhurakshak, leaving a sailor dead and two others injured.

That mishap was caused by an explosion in its battery compartment.

India had bought the 2,300-tonne submarine from Russia as part of an early 1980s deal and commissioned it in 1997. It is the ninth of the 10 Sindhughosh class diesel-electric powered vessels that the Navy has in its 16-vessel submarine fleet.

In the last few years, there have been several mishaps involving naval vessels. In 2008, another vessel of the Kilo class, INS Sindhughosh, had collided with a merchant vessel off Mumbai coast while participating in a naval exercise.

In 2011, a surface warship, INS Vindhyagiri, caught fire when it collided with a merchant vessel near the Mumbai harbour while returning from a picnic with families of group of officers deployed on board.

On its way back, it hit another ship leaving the harbour.

Nobody was injured but the warship was virtually ruined.