Police probe says naval craft driver lost control leading to deadly collision

Mumbai: The driver of the naval craft, which rammed into a ferry off the Mumbai coast, lost control over the vessel during its engine trials, leading to the fatal crash mid-sea, an injured Navy staffer told the police.

The police, probing the accident, recorded the statement of the injured navy staffer, who was on the speeding craft, which collided with the ferry ‘Neel Kamal’ on way to the Elephanta Island, a popular tourist destination, from the Gateway of India on late Wednesday afternoon.

Two days after the accident, navy chief Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi on Friday visited the Western Naval Command headquarters and held a meeting with top officials over the crash. Tripathi also conducted an aerial inspection of the place where the incident occurred. Fourteen persons, including four on the

naval speedboat, were killed in the collision which caused the ferry carrying more than 100 passengers to sink in the Arabian Sea.

A team from the Colaba Police Station, which is investigating the case, recorded the statement of the injured navy staffer, Karmaveer Yadav, who is undergoing treatment at a hospital, said an official.

According to Yadav, the naval craft was undergoing engine trials in the sea when the driver lost control, leading the vessel to collide with the ferry packed with passengers, he said.

The police team also inspected the craft, said the official.

The navy has instituted a separate ‘board of inquiry’ to probe the collision.

Meanwhile, the panic-stricken parents onboard the ill-fated tourist ferry were thinking of tossing their children into the sea water as a desperate measure after their boat started sinking, but a team of CISF marine commandos stopped them with an assurance that everyone will be saved.

CISF constable Amol Savant (36) and his two colleagues became the “first responders” to the accident. Their patrol boat reached the site off the Mumbai coast around 4 pm, and they decided to utilise the “golden hour” for first saving the most vulnerable, including the children.

“We were on routine patrol at some distance off the shore when our walkie talkie crackled to inform us that a passenger ferry was sinking. I asked the pilot (speed boat driver) to go full throttle and we reached the accident site about 3-4 kms away in no time,” Savant said.

He said he was “astonished to see the accident site. But being a trained soldier, I understood what was to be done and how.”

“We saw people were ready to throw their children in the ocean water thinking that they would be saved from the sinking ship. I asked them not to panic and not attempt this. We took charge of the situation soon,” said the jawan.