Washington, 10 June

Two crew members of the US Army’s Apache helicopter, which was downed near the Strait of Hormuz, were rescued by a drone boat developed by a Texas-based company with Indian-American Vibhav Altekar as a co-founder.

The rescue operation by the drone boat Corsair, developed by Saronic Technologies, was the first of its kind mission to be carried out by the US Armed Forces, which have been using aerial unmanned vehicles for quite some time.

It was the first US rescue carried out by an autonomous surface vessel, remotely piloted by a human operator, the Central Command spokesman, Captain Tim Hawkins, said on Tuesday.

The 24-foot-long Corsair runs on diesel fuel and can travel at speeds of up to 35 knots. It can carry a load of up to 1,000 pounds and has a range of more than 1,000 nautical miles.

As per the LinkedIn profile of Saronic Technologies, it has a USD 392 million production contract with the US Navy for autonomous surface vessels.

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company was founded in September 2022 by Dino Mavrookas, who was a member of the Navy SEALs for 11 years, and three others, including Altekar. The other co-founders are Doug Lambert and Rob Lehman.

Altekar, who studied electrical engineering at the University of California, is the Chief Technology Officer with Saronic.

A profile on the company’s website says that Altekar drives the development of the company's autonomous systems and software architecture.

It says that he leads Forward Deployed Engineering, Product, and Special Programs as well as Software, working with cross-disciplinary teams spanning perception, navigation, machine learning, command and control, and systems integration.

Altekar is a highly accomplished perception engineer with expertise in the field of autonomous systems and maritime technology.

He has spent a large part of his career in industry, driving advancements in US Department of Defence technology.

As one of the earliest engineers at Anduril, he led engineering efforts across multiple programs, including the Royal Australian Navy's Ghost Shark drone submarine.