Explosion at Iranian submarine yard kills three

Fateh Submarine (Image by MojNews)

Citing Iranian broadcaster IRIB, media are reporting that an explosion at an Iran’s Shahid Darvish shipyard killed at least three people April 6.

Radio Farda, an offshoot of Radio Free Europe that broadcasts to Iran, quotes IRIB as saying that “Three Defense Ministry staff were martyred after a submarine battery exploded at the Shahid Darvishi shipyard in Bandar Abbas…, which builds and repairs military ships and submarines.”

Shahid Darvishi Naval Industries is among Iranian companies subject to U.S. sanctions.

Earlier this year, the Shahid Darvishi shipyard hosted a ceremony commissioning the first Iranian domestically designed and produced Fateh class submarine.

Radio Farda cites Davood Abdi head of the Iran defense ministry’s public relations office said that the explosion happened when a “light vessel” was being repaired. If that is so, it would seem to rule out the Fateh class boat as being involved.