This is yet another incident, in the series of accidents, damaging Naval assets in India.
Two Immediate Support Vessel (ISV) with the Indian Navy suffered damage from a fire during the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday and sunk at the Naval Dockyard, Mumbai.
This is yet another incident, in the series of accidents, damaging Naval assets in India.
The fire broke out on one of the ISV of 81st squadron around 1 am, that was berthed at the Naval Dockyard. "It was raining heavily last night and by the time the fire was noticed, there was some delay to launch fire fighting measures," said a naval officer.
As the size of ISVs are small (a maximum of 25 metres) and are utilised for patrolling in and outside the harbour, there are a maximum of eight of these berthed adjacent to each other. Inside the Naval Dockyard, there's a section of berth is where only these patrol boats are berthed.
Second ISV reported fire, thereafter the first ISV berthed had to be immediately moved away to prevent damage. Meanwhile, attempts were being made to isolate the affected vessel, but by that time the third ISV, too, suffered damage from it's adjoining vessel.
Tugs were deployed to douse fire on both the vessels. "During the fire fighting two boats suffered damage and ingress of water and are submerged in shallow waters inside the Naval Harbour," said a naval spokesperson.
The body of these boats are made from Fibre Reinforced Plastic, thus, any exposure to excessive heat or fire results in the material melting. This is one of the factors why it made the boat to submerge as the fire had damaged the hull. Each of these boats were built and commissioned into the Indian Navy at a cost of around Rs12-15 crore.
There's a possibility of both the boats being damaged beyond repair.
Short circuit is suspected to be the cause of fire. "Efforts are in progress to salvage the boats. Prompt actions by all concerned have ensured that there was no loss of life or damage to other naval assets in harbour. A board of inquiry has been ordered to investigate the incident of fire," read a statement, issued by the Indian Navy.
When sailing, each of the ISVs have an officer and six sailors and armed with light as well as heavy machine guns.
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