The sinking of yet another naval vessel is a reminder of the state of marine war machinery. In the latest series of the incidents a sailor was killed and another four were reported missing after a Torpedo Recovery Vessel (TRV) sank 30 nautical miles south of Visakhapatnam on Thursday. The mishap took place when the aging 110-tonne TRV A-72, which was commissioned way back in February 1983, was on a routine mission to “recover” practice mines and torpedoes fired by fleet warships off the Vizag coast in the evening. Water suddenly flooded one of her compartments, which finally led to the sinking of the ship. In the ensuing panic and chaos, one sailor was killed, while four others were found to be missing. Twenty-three of the 28 on board, led by Lieutenant Commander Rohan Kulkarni, were rescued in the immediate search-and-rescue mission launched by warships of the Eastern Naval Command. The 23-metre-long A-72 TRV was of the Astravahini-class of auxiliary vessels – whose mission is to recover practice torpedoes fired by warships to ensure they can be used again – was built by the Goa Shipyard in the 1980s. It again highlights the fact that the navy continues to grapple with old and aging vessels since replacements are hard to come by due to political and bureaucratic apathy. It was the string of naval accidents, especially the two serious ones on board submarines INS Sindhurakshak and INS Sindhuratna that killed five officers and 15 sailors, which had led Admiral
D. K Joshi to “own moral responsibility” and resign as the Navy Chief on 26th February. The then UPA Government had appointed Admiral Robin Dhowan as the Chief after a gap of 50 days, superseding Western Naval Command Chief Vice-Admiral Shekhar Sinha, who then had also put in his papers. Though fingers were rightly pointed at the command and control failures within the navy, the politico-bureaucratic combine itself could not escape responsibility for ignoring the navy’s repeated warnings about its aging submarines, all of them well over 20 years old, as well as other operational gaps in their capabilities. Collateral damage is part of defence system but continuing with life threatening ships or aircraft not only cost life but also trained personnel on whom the country spends crores of rupees to get them trained.