At least five personnel of the Indian Navy were injured in a mishap
involving kilo-class submarine INS Sindhuratna off the coast of Mumbai,
reports said on Wednesday.
"The mishap occurred on the submarine during a routine training exercise," navy PRO Rahul Sinha told CNN-IBN.
Sinha added the fire on vessel was immediately brought under control and said there has been no grave damage to the submarine.
"An inquiry has been ordered into the submarine mishap," he said.
Sinha said the cause of the fire can be ascertained only after a complete inquiry.
The sailors, who became unconscious due to suffocation, have been airlifted to a hospital, the PRO told the news channel.
The INS Sindhuratna was sea-testing after a refit and was around 50 km off the Mumbai coast, news channel NDTV said.
A kilo-class is the Nato reporting name for a naval diesel-electric submarine that is made in Russia. The boats are mainly intended for anti-shipping and anti-submarine operations in relatively shallow waters.
The navy is grappling with an accident-prone tag — seven accidents have been reported since the INS Sindhurakshak blew up and sank at a Mumbai harbour last August, killing all 18 men on board.
The 2,300-tonne fully-armed boat sank at a Mumbai harbour on August 14, 2013, barely seven months after it was overhauled at the Zvezdochka shipyard, part of the Unified Shipbuilding Corporation.
The upgrade was carried out at a cost of more than Rs. 815 crore.
The Russian-origin warship is still nose-down in water, with the navy recently awarding a Rs. 240-crore contract to a US firm for salvaging the warship.
The Russian shipyard that upgraded the submarine under a 2010 contract had claimed it had installed advanced weapons and systems to enhance the boat's combat capability.
The mid-life upgrade on the warship - the ninth in a series of 10 kilo-class undersea killers bought from Russia - was intended to increase the life of the vessel by at least 10 years.
The submarine underwent an overhaul there for nearly 18 months. A modern Club-S missile system was installed on the submarine along with more than 10 foreign and Indian systems. The Russian shipyard has modernised five conventional Indian Navy submarines since 1997.
"The mishap occurred on the submarine during a routine training exercise," navy PRO Rahul Sinha told CNN-IBN.Sinha added the fire on vessel was immediately brought under control and said there has been no grave damage to the submarine.
"An inquiry has been ordered into the submarine mishap," he said.
Sinha said the cause of the fire can be ascertained only after a complete inquiry.
The sailors, who became unconscious due to suffocation, have been airlifted to a hospital, the PRO told the news channel.
The INS Sindhuratna was sea-testing after a refit and was around 50 km off the Mumbai coast, news channel NDTV said.
A kilo-class is the Nato reporting name for a naval diesel-electric submarine that is made in Russia. The boats are mainly intended for anti-shipping and anti-submarine operations in relatively shallow waters.
The navy is grappling with an accident-prone tag — seven accidents have been reported since the INS Sindhurakshak blew up and sank at a Mumbai harbour last August, killing all 18 men on board.
The 2,300-tonne fully-armed boat sank at a Mumbai harbour on August 14, 2013, barely seven months after it was overhauled at the Zvezdochka shipyard, part of the Unified Shipbuilding Corporation.
The upgrade was carried out at a cost of more than Rs. 815 crore.
The Russian-origin warship is still nose-down in water, with the navy recently awarding a Rs. 240-crore contract to a US firm for salvaging the warship.
The Russian shipyard that upgraded the submarine under a 2010 contract had claimed it had installed advanced weapons and systems to enhance the boat's combat capability.
The mid-life upgrade on the warship - the ninth in a series of 10 kilo-class undersea killers bought from Russia - was intended to increase the life of the vessel by at least 10 years.
The submarine underwent an overhaul there for nearly 18 months. A modern Club-S missile system was installed on the submarine along with more than 10 foreign and Indian systems. The Russian shipyard has modernised five conventional Indian Navy submarines since 1997.
