In a joint effort between the Royal Thai Navy (RTN) and the US Navy, a 19-day salvage mission for the sunken HTMS Sukhothai has been successfully concluded, with a poignant outcome as five crew members are still unaccounted for. Initiated on February 22, the mission aimed to unravel the circumstances leading to the sinking of the US-built corvette in the Gulf of Thailand back in December 2022.
RTN Commander-in-Chief Admiral Chatchai Thongsaard disclosed that 58 items of physical evidence, including a crucial CCTV recording device, have been recovered during the salvage operation. These findings are expected to play a pivotal role in determining the cause of the tragic incident.
Despite exhaustive searches conducted throughout the ship, encompassing all accessible rooms and cabins, the bodies of the five missing crew members remain elusive. The search teams, however, successfully decommissioned various armaments on the ship and retrieved 11 sentimental objects, including the ship’s nameplate and portraits of significant figures.
The RTN anticipates making an official announcement regarding the cause of the sinking within a month, leveraging the insights gleaned from the newly collected evidence. The HTMS Sukhothai, which sank off Prachuap Khiri Khan province during a storm on December 18, 2022, carried 105 crew members. Of these, 76 were rescued, 24 were found dead, and five are still missing and presumed dead. It’s noteworthy that the salvage mission was executed without incident, with no reported injuries among the divers and personnel involved.
