The Hindu : Front Page : Deaths on board INS Jalashwa due to gas leakage, says Navy

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Deaths on board INS Jalashwa due to gas leakage, says Navy

Sandeep Dikshit

Court of inquiry ordered; ship renovation hit by cost and time overruns

— Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam

The INS Jalashwa, newly acquired from the U.S., in Visakhapatnam.

NEW DELHI: The deaths of five Navy personnel on board a refurbished ex-U.S. Navy ship on Friday were caused by inhalation of toxic gas that leaked from a compartment, and not by an explosion or a fire as some reports said.

“Further inputs indicate that the accident was the result of the inadvertent inhalation of H2S [hydrogen sulphide] gas by the repair party carrying out maintenance in one of the compartments of the ship,” said navy spokesperson Nirad Sinha.

The ship, recently bought from the U.S., was engaged in an exercise with other Navy units between Visakhapatanam and Port Blair. A team was trying to trace the source of the leakage when they were overpowered by the fumes.

V.R. Krishna Rao, D.R. Kumar Chaitanya, Ramesh Kumar Nayak, Deepak Shivran and Narendra Yadav died on the spot. Their bodies have been brought to Port Blair from where they will be airlifted to the mainland by the Air Force aircraft. Lt. Cdr. Sweth Gupta, Lt. Ruchir Prasad and naval electrician Yatish Pawar were incapacitated and have been hospitalised.

A court of inquiry has been ordered and it could examine whether the leakage was due to a slip up while the ageing Austin class LPD (landing platform dock) ship was being refurbished in the U.S. The accident could also decelerate moves to buy a second LPD — USS Nashville — from the U.S. The ship’s renovation had been affected by cost and time overruns “because there was more work than anticipated,” a senior U.S. military officer said recently.

He was part of a team that had visited India to “understand” New Delhi’s requirements for military hardware over the next five years.

Second biggest ship

The second biggest ship in the navy’s inventory after the aircraft carrier INS Viraat, the acquisition of INS Jalashwa (earlier USS Trenton) improves the Indian armed forces ability to quickly land a large contingent of troops.

After buying the USS Trenton, India continues to look at the U.S. for military platforms for better troop transportation ability.

The Cabinet Committee on Security recently cleared an Indian Air Force proposal to acquire all-weather 24-hours troop transportation aircraft from the U.S. in a deal estimated at about $1 billion.

Coincidentally, the last serious accident at sea also occurred on an amphibious warfare vessel in the same month two years ago. Five sailors aboard INS Magar were killed in an explosion while dumping expired ammunition in the sea off the coast of Visakhapatanam.

A naval submarine recently had a close shave with a merchant vessel but it returned to the port with no casualties and a damaged antenna.

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