It is understood that the crew have safely evacuated after the vessel caught fire under “unclear circumstances”.

The vessel was built by Swan Hunter in the United Kingdom and launched in 1977, she was delivered to Iran in 1984.

The Kharg was a modified Ol-class fleet replenishment oiler.

IRIS Kharg (431) rear by Hossein Zohrevand.jpg
How the vessel looked.

State news agency Fars said:

“The naval training support vessel, which was on a training mission in the high seas a few days ago, caught fire near the port of Jask. There were no casualties in this accident.”

The Kharg served as one of the few vessels in the Iranian navy capable of providing replenishment at sea for its other ships.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
Twitter

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

47 COMMENTS

    • that’s what I thought! Imagine if you had been one of the ship yard workers who built it and were reading this

  7. Following the commissioning of IRINS Makran, I believe the Khrag was the second largest in the Iranian Navy.

    I’ll still mourn the loss of a Swan Hunter ship. I hope the crew managed to evac safely.

    • Very interesting, it seems that they were incapable of sending a vessel to help with the fire fighting; doesn’t say much about their competence.

  10. Down by the stern and the hangar on fire.

    Was she still being used as a tanker, the article says ‘replenishment’ at sea, so I assume she was. So an unexpected place for a tanker to catch fire as the fire appears to be quite high up on the superstructure. So what caused the ship to sink? I’m guessing some sort of explosion below decks which spread to the helicopter hangar?

    Whatever, the cause the damage appears concentrated aft which might explain how the crew got off safely, if the reports are accurate, which I sincerely hope they are.

    CR

    • From the picture it does look like the hull is broken, following the lines along the upperdeck you can see they don’t match up just forward of the hanger area, maybe some sort of explosion (are the engine spaces on these things all back aft?) or maybe the fire was so severe it’s melted the metalwork.

  11. Oh dear, these were looking old when I was still in, so is it either poor preventative maintenance, some sort of system failure, or “something else” happened to it!

  13. The Iranian military have a huge problem with H&S. only the other day it was reported that 2 pilots were killed when their ejector seats activated whilst inside a hanger. Last year we had the incident where a tug was hit by an anti-ship missile. Also last year that fake US aircraft carrier they like to practice on , decided to sink just outside a major port causing a huge shipping hazard, the other year their latest frigate Damavand sank after hitting a breakwater , loads more silly little incidents which have cost lives, but the one that stands out for me is when a  Iranian IL-76 AWAC fell out of the sky and was caught on film:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOnsIGcZS-M

  17. Pity the 30mm on a River class couldn’t inflict that sort of damage if the need arose.

    OK, OK, I know. I’ll get my coat.

  18. Was hoping there would be an article in response to tabloid gossip yesterday regarding ajax. Apparently soldiers haven’t been using it since November or something due to the noise and vibrations. WTF. I hope it was made up nonsense, although I do remember watching a video of one of the ares vehicles that was delivered and was shocked how loud it was just reversing off the back of the loader. I hope the enemy don’t have ears when our scout vehicles are nearby

    • Sadly not made up. According to the defence analysts on social media, Ajax is not ready for service, and nobody knows when it will be, or even if it can be rescued at this point.

  19. Hope all the crew are ok, however it does seem that the Iranian Navy, and military in general are pretty damn incompetent. No matter how great the reverse engineer 80s kit, no matter what the “top trumps” numbers game shows, it’s all about ability, professionalism and investment.

    • Yup….. but just don’t mention the HMS Cornwall thing mate…… so embarrassing truth be known …. 😥 

  20. Actually this is false news….. It’s just the Admiral Kuznetsov testing her new Boilers and Well Deck……..  😕 

    • Just wait for it… they’ll blame it on the ‘Great Satan’ (USA) or the ‘Little Satan’ (UK)…

      • Well I guess that the “Little Satan” would have designed a built in IED at the time……….. Some type of Glue maybe ?  🤔 

  21. Glad there appears to be no fatalities.

    May be a stupid question but will her sinking be a huge loss to the Iranians? After all they operate a predominantly coastal navy so can’t need the sort of logistics away from port that globally deployed vessels do.

    • Funny thing is, they were actually about to send a whole fleet of Ships to Venezuela ….. hmmmn funny that.

      • Good info.

        I hadn’t realised that.

        Given the size, age and condition of most of their fleet a voyage of that kind would appear to be more than a little risky…..?

  22. Remember seeing her up the river from Swan Hunters in 1981 when we were in dry dock. The Ark Royal was still being built and the Illustrious was fitting out so the Kharg has done well to out lasted them both.

  23. She was built at the mighty High Walker yard of Vickers -Armstrong (huge building berths), then owned by Swan Hunter by which time had a huge shipbuilding ability on the Tyne and Tees.

  25. I am an Iranian. Most of our big tanks and warships for 40 years ago.
    Our defense budget is very low.
    Shipwrecks are a big loss for us. 😥 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here