There were 17 crew members on the sunken ONGC vessel Samudrika-10 and eight crew members, including the vessel's captain, were untraceable till late Tuesday night and feared dead.
The ONGC had stated on Monday through an official release that 14 crew members were on board  the ill-fated vessel. However, Chennai-based Sical Logistics Ltd, which operates ONGC's offshore supply vessels including the one which sank off Mumbai coast, has now confirmed that 17 crew members were on board the vessel. 
 The vessel was commanded by Captain Gurubachan Singh and the names of others still missing are K Unnikrishnan, Rajendra Singh, Rajveer Singh, Vivek Kumar, Shyam Ji, Shivmohan Tripathi and Sukanta Banerjee. All the 17 were Sical employees.
 Sical company sources here said that 14 crew members possessed valid ONGC passes for boarding the vessel, but the captain had asked three more to board it in view of the rough sea.
Accordingly, 17 persons were registered with the director general, shipping, for the voyage. The rescued crew members  were brought back to Mumbai by an ONGC helicopter after they were administered necessary first aid.
 On Monday, the vessel sank off 56 nautical miles from Mumbai in the rough sea amidst high swells of around four meters. The vessel was on standby mode due to poor weather, waiting for transfer of cargo to ONGC's drilling rig Sagar Gaurav, operating in the company’s Bassein and Satellite field of ONGC, a statement said.
The vessel sailed out of Nhava supply base of ONGC on Monday “in full sea worthy condition” and complied with all requisite certification as per statutory requirements, according to an ONGC statement.