18 Indian Navy Men Feared Dead After Submarine Explosion

Reuters Navy chief Admiral D.K. Joshi, left, talking to Defense Minister A.K. Antony, second from left, as divers standing on the INS Sindhurakshak submarine prepare to dive into the waters during a rescue operation in Mumbai, Maharashtra, on Wednesday.

MUMBAIâ€" Eighteen crew members remain trapped inside the sunken submarine docked in Mumbai despite Indian Navy divers’ efforts to reach the vessel after it caught fire and exploded.

Now that more than 36 hours have passed since the INS Sindhurakshak sank early on Wednesday, hopes of finding the 15 sailors and three officers alive are quickly fading.

“We have not found any of the 18 personnel who were trapped inside the vessel as of yet,” Commander P.V.S. Satish, an Indian Navy spokesman, said by telephone on Thursday. “The rescue operation is ongoing, and there are divers on the site. They will continue to search.”

The diesel-powered armed submarine caught on fire early Wednesday and sank in the naval dockyard in Mumbai. The heat of the two-hour fire caused the interiors of the submarine to melt, hindering access to some of the vessel’s compartments.

The explosion has also allowed seawater to seep into the submarine, which is partially submerged in the shallow waters. The navy is using heavy-duty pumps to remove the water from the submarine so that it can be raised to the surface.

Many fear that the crew on board the submarine could not have survived the intensity of the explosion, which would be considered one of the biggest naval disasters in recent Indian history.

“Eighteen brave sailors are feared to have lost their lives,” said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his Independence Day speech on Thursday. “We pay homage to the brave hearts we have lost.”

At a news conference on Wednesday, Adm. D.K. Joshi, India’s naval chief, said that the chances that any of the missing crewmen had survived were remote and that there had been no communication with the missing crew since the explosion.

The navy has formed a board of inquiry to look into the possible causes for the explosion. The inquiry, which is expected to be completed in four weeks, will look into whether there was an operational or equipment failure on the 16-year-old Russian-made submarine. Admiral Joshi said on Wednesday that while the board of inquiry will also look into the possibility of sabotage, there are no indicators to support this theory.

“Given the timing of the incident, the fire might have escalated because of late detection,” Cmdr. S.S. Parmar, research fellow at the Institute of Defense Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, said in a telephone interview. “There are some compartments that are not manned at night, and chances are that by the time the duty staff detected the cause of the fire, it was impossible to diffuse.”

He added that a submarine is typically a compact space where various high-pressure cylinders are placed in close proximity, and even a small electric spark could cause great damage depending on its location.

The INS Sindhurakshak previously had an accident in 2010, caused by a faulty battery valve that leaked hydrogen. The resulting explosion killed one sailor and injured two others. The submarine returned to India in January after a 2.5-year refit and overhaul in Russia.

While Russia remains one of India’s primary defense partners, the sinking of the INS Sindhurakshak has raised questions about the condition of the submarine. The company that built the submarine, United Shipbuilding Corporation, has defended the quality of its vessels. “There have been no claims or technical complaints,” a United Shipbuilding spokesman, Alexei Kravchenko, told Russian state television.

An unidentified representative of the Russian ship repair company Zvyozdochka, which serviced the submarine, said that according to members of their warranty group, the INS Sindhurakshak was functioning properly and had no technical faults at the time of the incident.

The sinking of the INS Sindhurakshak will further strain India’s submarine fleet, which had 14 submarines before the accident and only nine operational at any given point.

“This accident is a tragic loss both in terms of the casualties suffered, and it is a reduction in the operational fleet of the Indian Navy as she was a refitted operational submarine,” said retired Vice Adm. Pradeep Kaushiva, now director of the National Maritime Foundation. “The submarine will be out of operational activity for some time now â€" for how long is yet to be decided once the wreckage is properly assessed.”

The lack of ready submarines has been compounded by delays in the induction of the Scorpene submarines. India’s ambitious project to build six French Scorpene submarines was approved in September 2005, but the first submarines are not expected to be ready before 2015, and even this deadline may not be met.

“The issue is that new submarines have not been inducted in some time now,” said Vice Admiral Kaushiva. “The budget for induction of new submarines is there and the general approvals have been given. However, the specific approvals and execution have been delayed.”