BoI into INS Betwa incident; Navy chief visits naval dockyard

The Navy today ordered a Board of Inquiry (BoI) into the tipping over of guided missile frigate INS Betwa during undocking at Naval Dockyard here that killed two personnel and injured 15 others.
"Rear Admiral Deepak Bali, Flag-Officer Offshore Defence Advisory Group, to head Board of Inquiry in (yesterday's) INS Betwa incident," a Navy spokesperson said this evening.
"Navy chief Admiral Sunil Lanba visited the Naval Dockyard here this morning and was briefed about the incident and situation on ground," the spokesperson said.
Lanba also met the injured sailors at the Naval Hospital INHS Asvini.
"A few specialists are likely to reach Mumbai tomorrow and are likely to complete the initial assessment of the incident within two days," the spokesperson said.

"The Navy will upright the ship and make her operational in the shortest possible time," he said.

Yesterday's incident took place in the "cruiser grounding dock at Naval Dockyard, Mumbai, during undocking evolution wherein it is suspected that dock blocks mechanism failed," navy spokesperson Captain D K Sharma had said earlier.
The 3,850-tonne ship, with a length of 126 metres, tipped over while it was being undocked. The mast of the ship hit the dockyard ground, he had said.
It was docked for repairs and while being returned to the water -- a process that involves tipping the ship, the system tripped and the entire ship fell sideways. The main mast of the frigate broke.

INS Betwa, a Brahmaputra-class guided missile warship (F-39), slipped on the dock blocks during a refit at about 1350 hours.
The ship had run aground in January 2014 and collided with an unidentified object which led to a crack in its sonar system, and had also seen salt water ingress into sensitive equipment.
Named after the river Betwa, the frigate has been in service for over 12 years. It was indigenously designed and built with the capability to operate at extended ranges, with speeds up to 30 knots.
It is one of the key warships of the Western Naval Command. It is armed with Uran anti-ship missiles, Barak 1 surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes.