After almost six decades of service, India's aircraft carrier INS Viraat, has set sail on its final journey. The world's oldest operational aircraft carrier on Friday reached Paradip port in Odisha for the very first time. At Paradip, NCC cadets were hosted on the ship. The ship will now move to Kakinada Port and from there to Chennai and finally reach Mumbai. "The operational cycle of the ship ends in Mumbai," Navy sources said.

It's a 13-storey high warship with 750 personnel. It also has a 16-bed fully functional hospital and even an ATM counter.

It can carry up to 26 fighter aircraft and helicopters, including 16 Sea Harriers and helicopters such as Sea Kings, and Chetaks.

The ship has seen 18 Commanding Officers, of which three went onto become Chiefs of Naval Staff. They are Admiral Madhvendra Singh, Admiral Arun Prakash and Admiral Nirmal Verma.

The ship has done over 40,000 hours of travel and traversed over 5,00,000 nautical miles across the seas. The ship has had over 20,000 hrs of flying recorded from its flight deck.

In the Indian and global naval circuit, the INS Viraat is known as 'Mother'.