Mumbai: The Indian Navy’s guided missile frigate INS Betwa, which had tipped over while being undocked at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai two-and-a-half months ago, has been returned to its normal position and will be operational by April 2018.
The accident involving the 4,000-tonne, 126-metre frontline warship on December 5 last year had claimed the lives of two personnel and left 15 injured. An assessment of the damage to the ship showed that the mast had hit the ground on the left. It was suspected that the dock block mechanism had malfunctioned during undocking in the cruiser graving dock of the dockyard. The ship was undergoing a refit. “INS Betwa is back on even keel. She is floating like any other warship,” a navy spokesperson said.
The salvage operation was carried out by specialist firm Resolve Marine Group, which was selected through a tendering process. The operation cost about ₹20 crore.
The INS Betwa is a frigate of the Brahmaputra class, built by Garden Reach Ship Builders of Kolkata and commissioned into service in July 2004. Named after the river Betwa, the frigate was indigenously designed and built with the capability to operate at extended ranges, with speeds up to 30 knots. It is one of the Western Naval Command’s key warships, and is armed with Uran anti-ship missiles, Barak 1 surface-to-air missiles and torpedoes.
The ship had run aground in January 2014 and had collided with an unidentified object, which caused a crack in its sonar system. It has also suffered salt water ingress into sensitive equipment.
