KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 21 – The Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN) today stated that it will review all SOPs regarding seawothiness and the assignment of old ships.

According to RMN, 58 percent of RMN ships are much older than the Royal Thai Navy (RTN), HTMS SUKHOTAI which sank on December 18.

“Let us all Malaysians pray that similar things will not happen to our ships,

“Without any drastic action from the government in dealing with the issue of the defence budget as well as the issue of the obsolescence of our assets, this problem will continue to plague RMN for a long period of time,

“At the same time, RMN will review all SOPs regarding “seaworthiness” and the assignment of our ships which are much older than HTMS Sukhotai

“This is to avoid the risk of similar things happening to our ships,” said RMN in a statement issued today.

At the same time, RMN expressed its condolences to the navies of neighboring countries following the sinking of the RTN corvette in the Gulf of Siam.

“The people of RMN hope and pray that the people of HTMS Sukhotai who are still missing can be found safely,

“RMN very much understands the conditions and situations faced by RTN’s top management, not to mention the ship’s crew who had to carry out operations in rough seas and the state of the 35-year-old ship,

“Certainly there are many challenges and constraints that have been overcome to ensure that the ship is ready to be moved in a timely manner,” said the statement.

In an incident at midnight last Monday, a corvette belonging to RTN was reported to have sunk after experiencing an electrical power problem that was affected while sailing in the Gulf of Siam.

The electric power failed to function after water entered the exhaust on the side of the ship. This incident then caused the ship to fail to continue its voyage and began to lose control.

To date, a total of 6 crew members of the HTMS Sukhotai have been confirmed dead and 23 others are still missing.

This 35-year-old corvette is one of the 2 RATANAKOSIN-class vessels active in RTN service.

Based on research on open data, RMN has a number of ships that are much older than HTMS Sukhothai.

This includes the KASTURI class ships that entered service in 1984 and the LAKSAMANA class built in the early 1980s.

Apart from that, RMN operates a large number of ships commissioned in the 1970s namely the PERDANA class, the HANDALAN class and the JERUNG class.

The oldest ships still in operation are KD SRI PERLIS and KD SRI JOHOR which were commissioned in the late 1960s.