The Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre Mumbai (MRCC) is responsible for co-ordinating air-sea rescue in Mumbai and an extensive area of the Arabian Sea. Besides the territorial waters of Mumbai. [1] [2] It works under Indian Coast Guard. [3]
On the evening of 12 January 2012, INCG Amrit kaur was on a training mission west of the Suheli Par atoll in the Lakshadweep archipelago. She was alerted by the Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (MRCC), Mumbai about Somali pirate activity in the area to her west. INS Tir tracked the pirate skiffs to a hijacked Thai fishing trawler Prantalay 11 being used as a pirate mother ship. [4]
On receiving distress call from MT Chios, a Greece-flagged crude oil tanker, [5] was being chased by heavily armed pirates about 82 nautical miles west of Suheli Par in the Lakshadweep archipelago. The tanker, on its way from Singapore to Yemen, adopted best management practices and evasive manoeuvres to dodge the skiffs on the prowl. Meanwhile, an armed Dornier maritime reconnaissance aircraft launched from naval air station INS Garuda in the Southern Naval Command spotted the skiffs around 8pm on Saturday and relayed the location co-ordinates to INS Tir (A86), which was operating in close proximity.
There have been many instances of piracy in the Arabian Sea. [3]
INS Viraat was a Centaur-class aircraft carrier of the Indian Navy. INS Viraat was the flagship of the Indian Navy before INS Vikramaditya was commissioned in 2013. The ship was completed and commissioned in 1959 as the Royal Navy's HMS Hermes, and decommissioned in 1984. It was sold to India in 1987. INS Viraat was commissioned into the Indian Navy on 12 May 1987, and served for almost 30 years.
Her Majesty's Coastguard (HMCG) is a section of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency responsible, through the Secretary of State for Transport to Parliament, for the initiation and co-ordination of all maritime search and rescue (SAR) within the UK Maritime Search and Rescue Region. This includes the mobilisation, organisation and tasking of adequate resources to respond to persons either in distress at sea, or to persons at risk of injury or death on the cliffs or shoreline of the United Kingdom. It is also responsible for land based search and rescue helicopter operations from 2015.
The Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Co-ordination Centre (HKMRCC) is responsible for coordinating air-sea rescue in Hong Kong and an extensive area of the South China Sea. Besides the territorial waters of Hong Kong, the area includes international waters lying to the north of latitude 10° north, to the west of longitude 120° east, and bounded by mainland China, Vietnam, the Philippines and Taiwan. The area covered is known as the Hong Kong Maritime Search and Rescue Region.
Lakshadweep, also known as Laccadives, is a union territory of India. It is an archipelago of 36 islands in the Arabian sea, located 200 to 440 km off the Malabar Coast.
Cochin Shipyard Ltd (CSL) is the largest shipbuilding and maintenance facility in India. It is part of a line of maritime-related facilities in the port-city of Kochi, in the state of Kerala, India.
The Car Nicobar class of high-speed offshore patrol vessels are built by Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers (GRSE) for the Indian Navy. The vessels are designed as a cost-effective platform for patrol, anti-piracy and rescue operations in India's exclusive economic zone.
Piracy off the coast of Somalia occurs in the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel and Somali Sea, in Somali territorial waters and other surrounding areas. It was initially a threat to international fishing vessels, expanding to international shipping since the consolidation of states phase of the Somali Civil War around 2000.
The MV Biscaglia was a chemical tanker managed by Ishima Pte. Ltd. of Singapore and held by Industrial Shipping Enterprises Management Company LLC of Stamford, Connecticut, USA.
The Close Range Naval-91 is a naval version of the Medak 30mm automatic gun installed on the Sarath Infantry fighting vehicle, a variant of the Russian BMP-2 manufactured in India under license by the Ordnance Factory Medak. The Medak gun itself is based on the Russian Shipunov 2A42 30 mm automatic cannon.
The action of 30 March 2010 was a naval battle involving a patrol boat of the Seychelles Coast Guard and two groups of Somali pirate vessels. The encounter resulted in the freeing of twenty-seven hostages held by the pirates.
The motor yacht Titanic is a 1,900-tonne yacht that was formerly the Japanese Government's research/fishing vessel Toko Maru and later Kelso. In March 2010, she developed a leak while sailing in the Caribbean. Her rescue by the United States Coast Guard was co-ordinated from the United Kingdom.
INS Tir (A86) is the first dedicated cadet's training ship to be built by Mazagon Dock Limited and commissioned as such by the Indian Navy. She is the senior ship of the 1st Training Squadron of the Southern Naval Command.
INS Talwar (F40) is the lead ship of the Talwar-class frigates of the Indian Navy. Its name means "Sword" in Hindi. She was built in Russia, and commissioned into the Indian Navy on 18 June 2003.
The Battle off Minicoy Island was a single ship action in January 2011 between Indian naval forces and Somali pirates, during Operation Island Watch. Pirates in the former Thai fishing trawler Prantalay 14 resisted and attacked the Indian Navy warship Cankarso and, in a long surface action off Minicoy Island, the Indians sank the hostile ship and rescued twenty captives.
A rescue co-ordination centre (RCC) is a primary search and rescue facility in a country that is staffed by supervisory personnel and equipped for co-ordinating and controlling search and rescue operations.
Operation Ocean Shield was NATO's contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom – Horn of Africa (OEF-HOA), an anti-piracy initiative in the Indian Ocean, Guardafui Channel, Gulf of Aden and Arabian Sea. It follows the earlier Operation Allied Protector. Naval operations began on 17 August 2009 after being approved by the North Atlantic Council, the program was terminated on 15 December 2016 by NATO. Operation Ocean Shield focused on protecting the ships of Operation Allied Provider, which transported relief supplies as part of the World Food Programme's mission in the region. The initiative also helped strengthen the navies and coast guards of regional states to assist in countering pirate attacks. Additionally, China, Japan and South Korea sent warships to participate in these activities.
Operation Dawn 8: Gulf of Aden was a naval operation carried out by the Royal Malaysian Navy against pirates in the Indian Ocean on 20 January 2011. In response to the hijacking of MV Bunga Laurel, the Malaysian Shipborne Protection Team deployed an attack helicopter and 14 members of the naval counter-terrorism group PASKAL in two rigid-hulled inflatable boats to retake the vessel and rescue the crew. After one night of trailing the tanker, the Malaysian forces successfully retook the ship by force on 20 January 2011, resulting in the wounding of three and the capture of four out of 18 pirates, and all 23 vessel crewmembers rescued.
On 18 November 2012, eleven Indonesian pirates hijacked MT Zafirah, a Malaysian tanker, in the South China Sea. The tanker crew was left by the pirates on a lifeboat in the sea two days after the hijacking but were subsequently rescued by Vietnamese fishing vessels on 21 November when their lifeboat was drifting around 118 nautical miles in the waters off Vietnam's southern Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu province. All the pirates managed to be tracked by Vietnam Coast Guard and Vietnam People's Navy with information provided by Malaysian based International Maritime Bureau and Singaporean based RECAAP, which led to their arrest after a brief of standoff near Vũng Tàu port.
Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX) is an inter-service military exercise involving the participation of the Indian Army, Air Force, Navy and the Coast Guard. The exercise generally commences at the beginning of each year and lasts a month. It is generally carried out in three phrases: independent workup phase, joint workup phase and tactical phase.