Singapore ship on fire towed further out to sea as firefighting continues

Amidst the firefighting operation aboard the Singapore-flagged cargo ship, which caught fire earlier this week off the Kerala coast en route to Mumbai from Colombo, it was towed farther away from the coastline on Saturday morning, defence sources said. The vessel -- MV Wan Hai 503 -- has been towed 40 nautical miles away from land. Earlier, the ship was 27 nautical miles from land, they said. According to a defence statement, the towing operation was initiated with a Seaking helicopter from the Southern Naval Command winching down salvors to shift the tow cables from the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships to the tug vessels. The Naval helicopter successfully inserted the team on the vessel amidst challenging weather/sea conditions and fire onboard. 

In the ongoing salvage operations of MV WAN Hai 503, which is under massive fire, the #IndianNavy augmented the efforts with the aerial insertion of salvage team on 13 Jun 2025, pic.twitter.com/eARqCCauns

— newsinc24 (@newsinc24) June 14, 2025

Presently, Indian Navy's INS Sharda and OSV MV Triton Liberty are actively engaged with the salvage ops in coordination with the Indian Coast Guard and other maritime agencies. This swift insertion & extraction of salvage team by Indian Navy has significantly reinforced the rescue efforts.