Captain among 8 crew of ONGC vessel still untraceable

Eight persons, including the captain of the ill-fated Samudrika-10 offshore supply vessel of the Oil and Natural Gas Corp, remained untraceable more than a day after the vessel sunk off the Mumbai coast.

Chennai-based Sical Logistics Ltd, which was operating the ONGC-owned supply vessel, said Captain Gurubachan Singh is among the eight still missing.

"There were 17 persons on board (when the vessel sunk around 1230 hours Monday). Nine were rescued immediately. Search and rescue operations for the remaining eight are still on," Sical director Karthik Menon told PTI from Chennai.

On the confusion of the number of persons on board the vessel, Menon said 14 of its crew were issued valid ONGC passes for carrying out the operations but since the sea was rough the Captain wanted all the 17 crew members to be present on the voyage to one of the installations of ONGC.

The number of persons registered with DG, Shipping for the voyage were 17.

"The number of crew on-board as filed with DG Shipping was 17 and all their statutory certificates were valid and in-date," he said.

"We have not yet lost hope. There have been instances of persons being rescued alive even after 96 hours and so we are continuing are efforts to trace the missing," he said.

Besides Capt Singh, Sical identified the missing as K Unnikrishnan, Rajendra Singh, Rajveer Singh, Vivek Kumar, Shyam Ji, Shivmohan Tripathi and Sukanta Banerjee. All the 17 were Sical employees.

"At 1230 hours on July 9, amid high swells and battering waters of around four meters and wind velocity of 35 knots, Samudrika-10, which was deployed in Bombay High at about 56 nautical miles from Mumbai, sank," Menon said.

Samudrika-10, a 1986 build OSV (Offshore Supply Vessel), was taken over by Sical on July 4, 2007 from Shipping Corporation of India as part of the 17 vessels under contract to Sical by ONGC.

The vessel was on standby mode due to bad weather waiting for transfer of cargo to ONGC's drilling rig -- Sagar Gaurav -- operating in Bassein and Satellite field of ONGC.

The vessel sailed out of Nhava Supply base of ONGC on July 6, 2007 in full sea worthy condition and complied with all requisite certification as per statutory requirement, Sical said.

The vessel completed its last statutory dry dock in February 2006 and the next statutory dry dock was due in November 2008.

The safety equipment on board consisted of 7 rafts with a total life saving capacity of 120 men as also life jackets for 32 adults. The crew had a combined sea faring time log of over 100 man years of ship going experience but the extent of weather change and the fury of nature overwhelmed the vessel, the company said.

In addition to one ONGC helicopter and three ONGC offshore supply vessels, two vessels of British Gas are also involved in search and rescue operations.

Immediately after the accident, one more ONGC helicopter was pressed into service along with a Coast Guard aircraft.