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A fishing boat collided with an Indian Navy submarine off the Goa coast on Thursday night, with the freak accident sinking the boat and leaving two fishermen missing.
The fishing boat, Marthoma, with 13 men on board, crashed into the submarine-class Scorpene when it was at periscope depth (15-20 feet underwater) around 70 nautical miles north-west of Goa and making transit between two ports, HT has learnt.
The boat may have crashed into the submarine’s conning tower (raised structure on the top of it), people aware of the matter said, asking not to be named.
“Search and rescue efforts were immediately launched by the Indian Navy with six ships and aircraft, and 11 crew have been rescued so far,” the Indian Navy said in a statement, without identifying the submarine involved in the incident.
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Search and rescue efforts are still on for the two missing fishermen, it added. The action is being coordinated by the Mumbai-based Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre. Additional assets, including those from the Coast Guard, have been diverted to the area to augment the efforts, the navy added.
“Such accidents have happened earlier too as sometimes fishing boats don’t display their lights. This, however, does not reduce the crew’s responsibility as there are other sensors to warn the crew of the presence of vessels in the area,” said a maritime affairs expert, who asked not to be named.
The cause of the incident is being investigated, the navy said.
The Kalvari-class (Scorpene) diesel-electric attack submarines have been constructed at the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) in Mumbai with technology transfer from French firm Naval Group. The boats are capable of various missions such as anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, long-range strikes, special operations, and intelligence.
The navy is likely to commission Vagsheer, its sixth and final Kalvari-class submarine under a ₹23,562-crore programme called Project 75, in December.
In September, the navy commissioned a submarine escape training facility, called Vinetra, at INS Satavahana in Visakhapatnam to prepare crews to respond swiftly if a Kalvari-class boat is in distress. The navy has similar facilities to train crews for its Kilo-class and Shishumar-class submarines at INS Satavahana, India’s premier submarine training establishment commissioned in December 1974.
India is in talks with France with build three more such submarines at MDL to strengthen its maritime posture in the vast Indian Ocean region where the challenges include China’s carefully calculated power play for influence and defending the rules-based international order.
The accident comes months after a locally made warship tipped over at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai after a fire broke out on board the vessel in July, and firefighting units pumped huge quantities of water to douse the flames. INS Brahmaputra, a multi-role frigate, suffered extensive damage and is likely to be out of action for several months. It was at the dockyard for a refit. A sailor was killed in the accident.
The warship was brought to the upright position some time ago.