Having explored the dismantling of US aircraft carriers in a recent post and more detailed page, we thought we would provide a recent comparative example: the scrapping of India’s first aircraft carrier, the former INS Vikrant (R-11). Check out this slideshow for satellite views of the dismantling:
INS Vikrant commissioned into the Indian Navy 4 March, 1961. At 700 feet long and 19,500 tons full displacement, she represented a capable entry for India into the field of naval aviation. She had a crew and air complement of 1,100. The ship had been left unfinished by the British government at the end of Second World War. Visually, the vessel was similar to other updated sister ships in the 1942 Light Fleet Carrier class, such as HMCS Bonaventure, HMAS Melbourne or the Brazilian NAeL Minas Gerais (found under the shipsearcher Royal Navy carriers page). From 1957-1961 the wartime design was given upgrades, such as an angled flight deck, which enabled her to perform missions with a new generation of aircraft. Originally embarking a mixed complement of British Hawker Sea Hawk jet fighter-bombers and French Alizé Anti-Submarine Warfare aircraft (turboprop), she was updated many times and eventually operated Sea Harrier STOVL (Short Take-off and Vertical Landing) jets, and Sea King helicopters. During the late 1980s, in order to operate the Harrier, she was refitted with a prominent “ski jump” at the leading edge of the flight deck.
After a long career, she was retired in 1997 and opened to the public three years later as a museum ship, near the main naval port in Mumbai, meters away from the more modern carrier, INS Viraat. For views of the two carriers together, see the pages for Indian Navy. In 2012, she was assessed to be in a state of ill repair, and closed to the public. Despite a popular outcry, she was sold to a nearby ship breaker’s yard in 2014, and run up on a point of land south of the dockyards.
Some of the US carriers scrapped around the same time had been on donation hold for possible transfer to a museum organization. The disposal of Vikrant represents a different category of scrapping – museum ships that were deemed not worth the effort or money to continue to preserve. It is not all a sad story, though: At the same time as this Vikrant was taken apart, the name and traditions will live on in a new, larger ship. When commissioned, this will also be a first for India – the first domestically built carrier.
The Searchers 