Reflections On INS Brahmaputra Fire & Flooding Incident

In a terrible tragedy, INS Brahmaputra, a frontline warship commissioned in April 2000, suffered extensive damage due to a fire accident on Jul 21, 2024. The subsequent firefighting efforts managed to control the fire but the vessel capsized in the afternoon hours of Jul 22. The MoD press release (reproduced below), crafted with many euphemisms, leaves informed observers in little doubt about the future of the magnificent “Raging Rhino”.

“A fire had broken out onboard Indian Naval Ship Brahmaputra, a multi-role Frigate, on the evening of 21 Jul 24 while she was undergoing refit at ND (Mbi), as reported earlier. The fire was brought under control by the ship’s crew with assistance of firefighters from Naval Dockyard, Mumbai {ND (Mbi)} and other ships in harbour, by morning of 22 Jul 24. Further, follow-on actions including sanitisation checks for assessment of residual risk of fire were carried out.

Subsequently, in the afternoon, the ship experienced severe listing to one side (port side). Despite all efforts, the ship could not be brought to the upright position. The ship continued to list further alongside her berth and is presently resting on one side.

All personnel have been accounted for except one junior sailor, for whom the search is in progress. An inquiry has been ordered by the Indian Navy to investigate the matter.”

Omnipresent dangers

Fire and flooding are omnipresent dangers on any warship. All three elements of the ‘fire triangle’ — oxygen, heat and fuel — are always available in abundance aboard ships. Managing these hazards within constrained spaces and enclosed compartments while running a daily exercise routine that includes deliberate forays into harm’s way is achieved safely through a combination of military grade ‘fit-for-purpose’ equipment, sound seamanship & engineering practices, and recurrent training of all onboard. IN ships sail today like never before; clocking thousands of miles in each commission; cumulatively totalling millions of nautical miles each year.

An alarming pattern

“A ship is safe in harbour, but that is not what ships are built for” is a quote often attributed to John A. Shedd, an American author and businessman. So when an aspiring blue water navy loses two warships and one submarine in harbour in thirteen peacetime years, it must be about time we sit up and take notice.

On 30 Jan 2011, INS Vindhyagiri suffered a collision with a merchant ship while entering Mumbai harbour. The now familiar pattern of catastrophic fire and flooding sent the ship to Davy Jones locker. Though salvaged at great cost and effort, the ship did not return to service and was decommissioned in July 2012. As per a CAG report, the Board of Inquiry (BoI) noted “lack of expertise in fire-fighting, non-availing the services of civil fire brigade and lack of coordination between Headquarters Western Naval Command (HQ WNC), Naval Dockyard and ship staff“, as the major causes for loss of the ship. A year later, night of 13 / 14 August 2013, INS Sindhurakshak, a Kilo-class submarine exploded into a huge fireball while being prepared for an early morning sortie on Independence Day, killing 18 personnel. On Dec 5, 2016, INS Betwa, a 3850-ton guided missile frigate keeled over during undocking with loss of two lives. Thirteen years after Vindhyagiri was refloated and dry-docked, Brahmaputra has keeled over — all this in the same dockyard. What are we missing?

Chapter III of CAG Report 20/2017 noted that “during the period from 2007-08 to 2015-16, a total number of 38 accidents occurred, which led to a loss of 33 lives of service officers/sailors.” There have been major fires and loss of life on surface and subsurface combatants since. The latest accident leaves us with a very disturbing set & dubious distinction.

While a BoI investigates the Brahmaputra accident, I will attempt to highlight a few salients of stability, nuances of warship refit, cadre management of key personnel vested with fire safety, and make some general points to raise awareness.

Stability basics

For the layman, it must be difficult to reconcile how an activity like firefighting meant to fight one calamity (fire) leads to another (flooding/capsize). A few basics of stability will help us understand. A ship floating in water responds to both internal and external moments. The resultant weight of the ship acts vertically downward through the centre of gravity (C of G). The resultant buoyant force acts vertically upward through the centre of buoyancy (C of B, located at the centroid of the underwater volume of the ship). While the C of G does not change unless any mass is added or removed, the centre of buoyancy shifts each time the ship moves or heels. Where the C of B moves with respect to the C of G essentially defines the stability characteristics of the ship. Addition of large amounts of water, free surface effect, or indiscriminate flooding while fighting a fire onboard can set up transverse or longitudinal moments which may ultimately sink the ship or keel it over.

Division of Responsibilities

The brief description of stability above brooks the question — who is responsible for overseeing efforts to control an unfolding disaster (fire) such that it does not lead to another tragedy (capsize). An ongoing fire fighting operation leaves hardly any time for stability calculations. But Vindhyagiri, Betwa and Brahmaputra went down in a dockyard teeming with engineers, vertical specialists and shore support of all kind. Interestingly, two of three tragedies (Vindhyagiri, Brahmaputra) occurred around weekends, a particularly inauspicious time where precious moments could be lost in the ‘golden hour’ equivalent of fire and flooding. Both ‘B class’ accidents happened in refit where lines of responsibility often blur and not everything is under the control of ship’s staff.

Refit risk management

Ships undergoing maintenance refits have to grapple with tall challenges. Such refits may extend from a few weeks to several months, even years, in the operational life cycle of a warship. It is a complex, time and resource intensive activity performed under immense pressure. Large parts of the ship are cut open, systems and subsystems are removed, replaced and re-installed post scheduled maintenance. Widespread welding, cutting and repair work leaves the ship extremely vulnerable to fire and flooding. One would expect a higher level of preparedness against these dangers during refit but often the reverse is true. Fire detection and major firefighting systems may be removed or turned off while fire sentries stand watch even as dockyard workers cut through the ship.

Since refits are mostly dockyard responsibility (on paper at least), the ship is an easy target for communal duties that operational ships cannot fill. Shore-based headquarter officials are squarely responsible for this malaise that exists to this day. Refit ships work under immense stress caused due to poor habitability, extraneous secondary duties, poaching of manpower by higher formations, and finally ‘inherited’ tasks which are actually the responsibility of dockyard and its civilian workforce (who incidentally are unionised and governed by more elaborate and protectionist rules). Add to this the fact that tenure spent on a refit ship does nothing to embellish your ACR or promotion prospects. If all this sounds like a ticking time bomb, you have a fair idea of the situation Brahmaputra found herself in last Sunday.

Cadre management of NBCD personnel

The pecking order of specialisations in the navy is clear to anyone who has served. It excludes the only specialist vested with complete knowledge and training for nuclear, biological and chemical defence, including firefighting and damage control (NBCD). Posted only on major combatants, NBCDOs are practically benched (career wise) the day they walk into NBCD School in INS Shivaji, Lonavla, while coveted specialisations like navigation and direction, gunnery, communication, etc. strut around the bridge. Successive hull losses and international embarrassments have done nothing to improve their lot. A few sailors who undergo key courses in NBCD are almost always spread too thin in a navy with global aspirations. What kind of Threat and Error Management or changes these precious resources can bring about is anyone’s guess. NBCD is practically an orphan since safety has no immediate payoff that can outrun a smart conning order or a missile’s direct hit. And when the unthinkable happens, we throw everything and the kitchen sink at the problem — with little success as revealed by the latest incident.

The daily fire exercise

All warships carry out a daily fire exercise to rehearse the drills for firefighting and damage control. It has a layered, ‘defense in depth’ approach against the two most dangerous threats. One would expect these drills to have evolved to a level of perfection over the years. Yet, per my last recall, (2014), it is often mundane and leaves much to the initiative and imagination of the officer of the day. The pattern i have seen where a smart engine room artificer takes to the general broadcast with a standard patter while the duty watch shuffle around with hoses and jet/spray nozzles is hardly impressive. Here again, the availability and agency of key sailors, NBCD instructors and NBCDOs, especially on refit ships, may need serious examination.

Deep introspection required

A warship or submarine is an amazing sight to behold even to the untrained eye. Years of service and flying off naval decks has not dimmed my sense of awe when I occasionally encounter these majestic steel hulks at sea as an offshore pilot. So when tragedy strikes and shocking images of a floundered vessel flood social media, it leaves me with a deep sense of sadness and anguish. I am sorry but I cannot be a mute spectator on a day like this.

Fire and flooding accidents onboard ships can only be minimised, never eliminated. The rising trend indicates that we are not on the right side of this balance and some major course corrections may be needed. I pray for the safety of the missing sailor and hope the latest tragedy triggers a larger discussion centred around the navy’s approach to fire and flooding safety. It cannot be business as usual. In any other self-respecting nation, the minister of defence or, in the least, secretary defence, would have stepped up and taken the lectern if not the sack. Perhaps this is too much to ask for today in New India.

An old anecdote

Lastly, I leave you with an old air force anecdote. Decades ago, as a young batch of graduating test crew, we staged a play aimed at our cerebral Officer Commanding Test Pilots School (OC TPS) who appeared rather detached from our daily travails (in actuality, he was a thorough professional and ace test pilot). The plot went something like this: It’s lunch break. Test pilots school is on fire. Attendant & defence civilian Kuttappan runs to the OC’s office and screams in his broken ‘Malayali Hindi’:

Kuttappan: “Sir, test pilot school me aag lag gaya!” (Sir, test pilots school is on fire)

OC: “Mainu ki?” (why should I care?)

Kuttappan: Sir, test pilot school aapka hai!” (Sir, test pilot school is yours)

OC: “Tainu ki?” (then why should you care?)

These days where art and drama hardly mirror real life and real life approaches drama, I hope we have not reached the “mainu ki, tainu ki” pass.

This article is written by K P Sanjeev Kumar and has been reproduced here with his permission.

The original article can be found on the author's website by clicking here