In a dramatic turn-around, the Ministry of Environment and Forests intervened and gave their approval, granting "Platinum II" permission to be beached at Alang's shipbreaking yard. After much controversy and with demands that the ship be returned to the U.S. for being illegally exported, "Platinum II" was abandoned at Gopnath in a region south of the Alang on the Gujarat coast. Although probably no more toxic than most ships built in the 1950s and 1960s, the vessel was deemed such for the minute amounts of radioactive materials found in the smoke detection systems and for the usual asbestos and PCBs contained in ships of that generation.