Bhiwani sailor among 2 dead in freak mishap at Navy base

Kochi, December 27

Two Navy personnel were killed when a door of an aircraft hangar collapsed at the naval base here today, the Navy said.

The two, sailors attached to the aviation electrical branch, were “tragically killed when one of the hangar doors of the Indian Naval Air Squadron 322 collapsed at INS Garuda,” a defence statement said.

Naveen (28) and Ajeet Singh (29) were passing by when the door was “dislodged from its supporting rails above” and fell on them, it said. “Both sailors were rushed in a critically injured state to the naval hospital, INHS Sanjivani, where, despite best efforts of the doctors to resuscitate them, they succumbed to their injuries around 9.40 am,” the statement said.

A board of inquiry has been ordered into the cause of the accident. Naveen, from Bhiwani district of Haryana, had joined the Indian Navy in 2008 and is survived by wife and two-year-old daughter. Ajeet Singh, belonging to Bharatpur district of Rajasthan, had joined the Navy a year later and leaves behind wife and five-year-old son, the statement added. — PTI