{"id":190584,"date":"2026-07-05T01:07:12","date_gmt":"2026-07-05T01:07:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/190584\/"},"modified":"2026-07-05T01:07:12","modified_gmt":"2026-07-05T01:07:12","slug":"saw-missiles-for-first-time-for-paanch-saab-baptism-by-fire-at-sea-near-hormuz-india-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/190584\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Saw missiles for first time\u2019: For Paanch Saab, baptism by fire at sea near Hormuz | India News"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the early hours of a tense morning outside the Strait of Hormuz, near the Fujairah anchorage, a young marine engineer from Kerala looked at the sky and saw missiles streak past, one after another. It lasted a few seconds but it was a sight, she says, she will never forget.<\/p>\n

Hifa Salim (24) was just months into her dream job, having joined her very first ship in Houston in October 2025, when war broke out in the Persian Gulf, scrapping the ship\u2019s planned cargo run to Kuwait in early March.<\/p>\n

The vessel was instead directed to drift outside the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>, near the Fujairah anchorage, and wait. Salim later learned that arriving in the area just 15 hours earlier would have trapped the vessel inside the strait when the situation really deteriorated.<\/p>\n

It was on one of those drifting mornings, stepping onto the deck for fresh air before her engine room rounds, that she heard a sound from the sky and looked up to see the flashes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the first time I saw missiles in real life. My hands started shivering,\u201d she says. Terrified, she ran below to the mess room and considered asking to sign off. But once there, she found her crewmates eating breakfast, laughing, entirely at ease and something in her perspective shifted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf my seniors could carry their own fear and still show up for work, so could I,\u201d says Salim.<\/p>\n

She heard the main engine starting \u2014 a small kick ahead for position adjustment. \u201cI heard the starting sound. \u2018Tak Tak Tak.\u2019 I hear that sound every time. But that morning it felt different. It felt like the heartbeat of the ship. And that time I realised the ship is alive. We are not alone,\u201d wrote Salim later in an essay published in the\u00a0 magazine of Synergy Marine Group that manages her ship.<\/p>\n

Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n

She went down to have a cup of tea with the Second Engineer, the officer she reported to. \u201cHe took one look at me and could read that something is not right and\u00a0 when I said that I want to stay on board and be part of the team instead of quitting, he smiled and said in Malayalam, \u20185 saab ippo strong aayi, Vaa namuk oru fuel valve overhaul cheyyam, appo ellam sheryavum\u2019 which translated to \u20185 saab had become strong now. Come, let\u2019s overhaul one fuel valve, then everything will be alright.\u2019 In the middle of uncertainty, those simple words gave me comfort, strength and the confidence to carry on with my work.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a fifth engineer everyone on board called her \u201cPaanch Saab\u201d, the traditional title for the ship\u2019s youngest engineer. \u201cI liked the name. It made me feel like I belonged, even though I didn\u2019t have a watch yet,\u201d says Salim who also made the decision to not\u00a0 tell her family at home the full extent of what was happening \u2014 she didn\u2019t want them to panic. It was only after the ship had safely cleared the area that she learned her parents had been doing the very same thing for her: staying composed on their calls, masking their own fear so she wouldn\u2019t carry the weight of theirs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all trying to protect one another in our own way,\u201d she reflects.<\/p>\n

Hailing from Edakkazhiyur, a small town in Thrissur district, her close-knit family had always taught her to dream big while staying grounded, she says. She had once dreamed of the Indian Navy, but the engineering side of the Merchant Navy pulled her in, partly because almost no one at home could tell her what the profession even involved.<\/p>\n

Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody could tell me what the merchant navy actually was,\u201d she recalls. \u201cThis blank space was my spark. I resolved to become the first person from my town to walk that path, so that anyone who came looking for answers afterwards could look at me, and I could show them exactly what\u2019s possible,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

With 3.23 lakh sailors (as of 2024), India ranks among the top three global suppliers of seafarers, alongside the Philippines and China, holding approximately 17% of global crew share. Today, nearly one in five seafarers worldwide is Indian.<\/p>\n

During the Iran war, 13 India-flagged vessels, with close to 550 Indian sailors on board, were stuck in the Strait of Hormuz for more than 100 days. Across the broader Gulf region, more than 18,000 Indian seafarers were caught up in the uncertainty.<\/p>\n

Women however make up just 1% of the total number of seafarers globally. Salim was one of the two women (the other being a deck cadet) amongst the crew of 24\u00a0 on board her vessel as it drifted near the war zone.<\/p>\n

Story continues below this ad<\/p>\n

Salim completed her B.Tech in Marine Engineering at the Indian Maritime University in Chennai<\/a>, and on October 15, 2025, she joined her first vessel in Houston, a moment she describes as a mix of \u201cexcitement, nervousness, and curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

All of it continued until those fleeting moments of fear overtook these emotions in the war zone. But finally as the heartbeats from deep below the ship won over the sounds of the missiles above, Salim responded to the challenges of the sea like a true sailor.<\/p>\n

Three months after the Hormuz crossing, Salim signed off in Japan. \u201cThe first thing I wanted wasn\u2019t rest or celebration, it was just my mother\u2019s home-cooked food,\u201d smiles the girl who is now preparing for her exams for the next level of rank at sea.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the early hours of a tense morning outside the Strait of Hormuz, near the Fujairah anchorage, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":190585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[26],"tags":[2695,56935,56941,3231,229,33017,27594,56939,56944,342,29612,232,223,196,222,65,214,242,240,184,56938,253,1879,39,101,56936,5475,4043,56942,56940,56943,235,224,10514,933,9931,1877,77,73,2235,226,56937,221,4779,480,6242],"class_list":["post-190584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-persian-gulf","tag-attack-on-iran","tag-baptism-by-fire-at-sea-near-hormuz","tag-did-iran-attack-us","tag-iran-and-israel","tag-iran-and-israel-war","tag-iran-attack-israel","tag-iran-attack-news","tag-iran-attack-on-us","tag-iran-attack-today","tag-iran-conflict","tag-iran-israel-war-today","tag-iran-us-news","tag-iran-us-war","tag-iran-war","tag-iran-war-news","tag-iran-us","tag-israel-iran","tag-israel-iran-news","tag-israel-iran-war-news","tag-israel-news","tag-israel-us-attack-iran","tag-israel-us-iran-war","tag-israel-war-news","tag-persian-gulf","tag-strait-of-hormuz","tag-strait-of-hormuz-shut","tag-us-and-iran","tag-us-and-israel","tag-us-and-israel-attack-iran","tag-us-attack-in-iran","tag-us-attack-iran-today","tag-us-iran-news","tag-us-iran-war","tag-us-israel-war","tag-us-news","tag-us-to-attack-iran","tag-us-war","tag-us-israel","tag-us-israel-war-on-iran","tag-us-israel-iran","tag-war-in-iran","tag-war-in-iran-and-israel","tag-war-news","tag-war-on-iran","tag-west-asia-conflict","tag-west-asia-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/190585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}