The Indian Navy's only nuclear-powered attack submarine the INS Chakra suffered damage to her sonar dome but will be back in service soon, Navy Chief, Admiral Sunil Lanba told media persons in New Delhi today.
"There's been some damage to her sonar dome where some panels have been dislodged, there is a board of inquiry which has been instituted," Admiral Lanba told the media at the navy chief's customary Navy Week press conference. He said that the submarine had been jointly examined by an Indian-Russian team.
"We have already ordered the sonar panels and she will be up and about sooner than later," he said.
The Chakra is laid up in its home port in Visakhapatnam after suffering an accident early this October. One version of the incident, according to one naval source is that the 12,000-tonne Akula-class SSN was doing a high-speed underwater run when it suffered material failure on its sonar dome located in its nose.
Acquired from Russia on a ten-year lease in 2012, the Chakra is powered by a 190-MW nuclear reactor which gives it virtually unlimited underwater endurance but does not carry nuclear weapons-it is designed to attack enemy warships and targets on land using conventional missiles and torpedoes
Significantly, Admiral Lanba said that India had begun development of a series of indigenous SSNs. "It has kicked off," he said, "it is one of the classified projects, the process has started.
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