About 400 crew members and trainees were aboard the Iranian navy ship Kharg when fire broke out in its engine room on June 1-2, 2021. Roughly 20 hours later the vessel went under off the port of Jask in the Gulf of Oman. Everyone got off alive.
Navy officials told Iranian media the blaze began around 11 a.m. local time on Tuesday and spread through the hull despite the ship’s damage control team, firefighters and military and civilian craft that came alongside. An army official said parts of the ship’s body melted and dropped into the sea. About 20 people suffered minor burns, according to Al Jazeera. Navy officials said the cause was under investigation and promised a statement.
What Kharg was
Built in Britain by Swan Hunter, launched in 1977 and taken into the Iranian navy in 1984, Kharg was a replenishment oiler. It could refuel other warships at sea, carry heavy cargo and operate helicopters from a pad with two hangars. Naval News listed its full-load displacement at 33,500 tons, with a length of 207 meters, a beam of 25 meters and a top speed of 21 knots. Armament was modest: one 76mm gun, four 23mm guns and two 12.7mm machine guns. Crew capacity was 248.
Iran’s army described it as a “training ship,” and Press TV quoted officials calling it “the second largest logistics vessel in the region after Makran.” Makran, a 228-meter forward base ship, had entered service in January 2021, the Atlantic Council noted. Before it arrived, Kharg had been the largest vessel in the fleet. Military officials said much of Kharg’s equipment had recently been overhauled by Iranian engineers.
The ship also had a record outside Iranian waters. The Atlantic Council recalled anti-piracy work near the Horn of Africa and port calls on diplomatic missions to Asian countries.
Cause unknown, questions open
No official explanation came out of Tehran, and the Atlantic Council weighed two possibilities: a maintenance failure or sabotage. It pointed to a run of unexplained fires in Iran in recent years that have been linked to Israel, though it offered no proof for this one. In either case, the analysts wrote, the loss was an embarrassment for the navy.
It was also not the first naval blow in the period. In 2020 a missile fired by accident during an exercise killed 19 sailors and wounded 15, according to Al Jazeera. In 2018 an Iranian navy destroyer sank in the Caspian Sea.
Sources
- Large Iranian navy ship sinks after catching fire (Al Jazeera)
- Iranian Replenishment Vessel 'Kharg' Sinks in the Gulf of Oman (Naval News)
- Iran just lost one of its largest ships. It's a major embarrassment (Atlantic Council, IranSource)
- Iranian naval vessel IRIS Kharg sinks after blaze in Gulf of Oman (Press TV)
