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Tag: Singapore Navy

  • Singapore Navy Plans To Boost Manpower, Reaching Out To Mid-Careerists And Females

    Singapore Navy Plans To Boost Manpower, Reaching Out To Mid-Careerists And Females

    The Singapore Navy is not resting on its laurels, even as it celebrates 48 years of keeping Singapore’s waters secure.

    Facing tightening manpower demographics in an increasingly complex maritime climate, it is adopting several changes to strengthen its numbers.

    The Military Domain Experts Scheme started five years ago as a means of retaining servicemen with deep expertise. It is also a possible mid-career entry point, for those mulling a career in uniform. Currently, mid-careerists make up about 10 per cent of those on the scheme.

    Speaking to reporters on Friday (May 8), Navy Chief Rear-Admiral Lai Chung Han said a campaign to target mid-careerists to join the scheme might be in the works.

    He added that the Navy might even consider creating new vocations to better tap the skills of these mid-careerists, depending on the Navy’s needs.

    But not just anyone should apply. “They must bring value, it must make sense, and it must be because there’s an operational need for these vocations – those in engineering, those in the merchant navy, those who work in industry, precision manufacturing, those with backgrounds in safety, lawyers even – because going forward I think a good understanding of law, international law, how that applies in periods of tension and so and so forth,” RADM Lai said.

    Also on the Navy’s radar is the recruitment of more women into the force.

    Just seven per cent of its manpower are female – a figure the Navy plans to double in the next 10 to 15 years, matching other developed navies worldwide. But the Navy Chief said this requires not only family-friendly policies, but mindset changes too.

    He said: “If you look at our numbers, going forward if we don’t recruit more women, we can’t man all our positions. So to the men in the Navy, or in the armed forces who refuse this, the choice is simple – you either have that post not filled, or you have a woman who comes in, serves effectively for 20 to 25 years, but is away for maternity every now and then only.

    “So that’s a choice for us, and it’s a very stark reality. You need to recognise that women also bring great value, especially in an advanced armed forces where technology is key – where there’s less heavy lifting, physical strength, but (more of) mental strength, leadership, character and values.”

    And as the Navy equips itself with the latest technologies, it is also looking at how this can enable NS manpower to be better utilised.

    RADM Lai said: “We don’t see larger ships, newer ships crewed by NSmen because you really need more mature platforms. (We see) NSmen augmenting the crews of these ships, whether the Landing Ship Tanks or the frigates. And as we shift very decisively to using unmanned systems, the units that are operating these systems can be NS units.”

    He said he hopes as much as a quarter of the fleet could use unmanned systems, fully operated by NS units from the word “go”.

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com

  • Malaysian Navy Chief Claims Credit For QZ8501 Fuselage Find By Singapore Navy

    Malaysian Navy Chief Claims Credit For QZ8501 Fuselage Find By Singapore Navy

    The search for Air Asia flight QZ8501 is an ardous and solemn affair which should be treated with respect. Throughout the multinational search for QZ8501, foreign navies worked hand in hand to give some closure to the family of the victims.

    However, it has come to our attention that the Malaysian Navy Chief Abdul Aziz Jaafar  has pulled a cheap stunt out of this tragedy. For reasons unknown, he decided to play up the the Malaysian Navy’s contribution by “stealing” the underwater images uploaded by the Singapore Defence Minister and use it as his own.

    Abdul Aziz Jaafar even has “guts” to attribute the QZ8501 main fuselage find to the Malaysian navy ship MGS GEOSURVEY and its ROV team. No disrespect to the contributions of MGS GEOSURVEY but why is Malaysia’s Chief of Navy so keen to claim credit for this find? This isn’t a competition.

    Worst still, the Malaysian Navy Chief did not even bother to edit out the images and simply appropriated the images wholesale for his own use. Is this an act of disrespect and slight to the efforts of the Singapore Armed Forces?

    To prove this point, the QZ8501 underwater images were uploaded by Ng Eng Heng at 5.51PM (14 January 2015) whereas Abdul Aziz Jaafar sent out his “triumpant” twitter update at 10:45PM (14 January 2015).

    What do you think about this gaffe?

    Source: www.allsingaporestuff.com

     

  • Main Body Of QZ8501 Found By Singapore Navy Ship

    Main Body Of QZ8501 Found By Singapore Navy Ship

    A Singaporean navy ship on Wednesday located the main body of the AirAsia plane that crashed into the Java Sea late last month, raising hopes that bodies of most of the 162 victims will now be found.

    Underwater photos showed the cracked fuselage and part of a wing of Flight QZ8501, that went down on December 28 in stormy weather during a short trip from the Indonesian city of Surabaya to Singapore.

    The discovery of the fuselage is the latest boost in a lengthy search operation in Indonesian waters hampered by bad weather. Just 50 bodies have so far been recovered with most of the victims believed to be trapped inside the Airbus 320-200’s main body

    It followed the retrieval this week of both the plane’s black boxes, which contain vital information to help investigators determine what caused the crash.

    AirAsia boss Tony Fernandes confirmed the fuselage had been found in a tweet, saying: “It is so so sad though seeing our aircraft. I’m gutted and devastated.”

    “We hope all our guests are there,” he added.

    Singapore’s Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said in a Facebook post that the MV Swift Rescue had located the wreckage, which was 26 metres (85 feet) long and about two kilometres from where the plane’s tail was found earlier.

    On the photos accompanying the post, taken by the ship’s remotely operated vehicle, the words “now” and “everyone” are visible, apparently from AirAsia’s motto “Now Everyone Can Fly” painted on the plane’s exterior.

    Indonesia’s national search and rescue chief Bambang Soelistyo said that divers would head to the main body on Thursday.

    “It is already dark so we will carry out the dive tomorrow morning with the target to find the victims which may still be around it or trapped in the body,” he said.

    “If the divers have any difficulty, the next step will then be to lift the body and the wing.”

    He added that two more victims were found Wednesday, meaning 50 bodies have so far been retrieved.

    The Singapore navy ship was part of a huge international hunt for the plane, which also included US and Chinese ships.

    – Vital black boxes –

    The so-called black boxes — which are actually orange in colour — have been flown to Jakarta, where Indonesia’s National Transport Safety Committee is leading a probe into the accident, helped by experts from countries including France and the United States.

    The country’s meteorological agency has said bad weather may have caused the crash but only the black boxes will be able to provide definitive answers.

    Investigators have started retrieving data from the recorders and converting it into a usable format, which will take around a week, before the lengthy analysis process can begin, committee head Tatang Kurniadi told AFP.

    The flight data recorder holds a wealth of information about every major part of the plane, with details such as the jet’s speed and the direction it was heading in, while the cockpit voice recorder stores radio transmissions and sounds in the cockpit.

    The committee has said a preliminary report on the accident will be produced within a month, and a final report after a year.

    At a port near Pangkalan Bun, the search headquarters on Borneo island, Indonesian investigators and their French counterparts also began examining the tail, which was lifted out of the water at the weekend.

    Before take-off, the plane’s pilot had asked for permission to fly at a higher altitude to avoid a major storm but the request was not approved due to other planes above him on the popular route.

    In his last communication, the experienced pilot said he wanted to change course to avoid the storm. Then all contact was lost, about 40 minutes after take-off.

    All but seven of those on board the flight were Indonesian. The foreign nationals were from South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Britain and France.

     

    Source: https://sg.news.yahoo.com