Officers in the Indian Navy have visited Faslane on a fact-finding mission about submarine rescue.

Rear Admiral Mohit Gupta, assistant chief of naval staff submarines, and Rear Admiral Sreenivas Ratnam, technical manager, together with staff from the Indian Navy Submarine Rescue Team, viewed the NATO Submarine Rescue System (NSRS).

The rescue system is based at HM Naval Base Clyde but is jointly owned by the UK, France and Norway and is capable of deploying anywhere in the world, diving down to a submarine in distress, ‘mating’ with escape hatches and carrying out an evacuation of the vessel.

The Indian Navy were keen to learn how the system is maintained, operated and deployed by the experienced team based at Faslane, as they themselves are in the process of procuring two new submarine rescue systems which are manufactured in Scotland by JFD,

The Royal Navy says that the ethos shared among submariners is such that the nearest submarine rescue system could be deployed to a submarine in distress, no matter which country it belongs to.

Speed is essential in any submarine rescue scenario so the more deployable rescue systems we have in the world, the more comfort we can take that there is a viable rescue submarine that could get on scene in time to save the crew.

Commander Chris Coles of the Submarine Delivery Agency Emergency Response team said: “This was a great opportunity to meet the head of the Indian Submarine Service and his newly formed rescue team.

“It will be a couple of years before India’s rescue systems are fully operational but NSRS hopes to forge a close working relationship and establish mutual rescue arrangements with the Indian Navy”.