The debris of Indian Air Force An-32 aircraft, that went missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016 during an op mission, has been found after eight years, said the Union Ministry of Defence on Friday. An autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) was used by the National Institute of Ocean Technology, which comes under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, to locate the aircraft.
Analysis of search images indicated the presence of debris from the crashed aircraft on the sea bed approximately 140 nautical miles (approximately 310 km) from the Chennai coast. The search images were scrutinised and found to be conforming with an An-32 aircraft, said the Ministry of Defence.
According to the Defence Ministry, the search was conducted at a depth of 3,400 m using multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR, synthetic aperture SONAR and high-resolution photography. The discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft report in the same area, points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF An-32, said the release.
At least 29 personnel were on board the Antonov AN-32 flight that went missing over the Bay of Bengal in 2016. The Russian-origin plane included six crew members while flying from Chennai to Port Blair. Antonov AN-32 is a twin-engined military transport aircraft that can fly for up to four hours without refuelling.
The plane went missing after it took off at 8:30 am from Tambaram in Chennai and the last time it was contacted was 16 minutes later, according to defence sources. A few months after the incident, a Court of Inquiry had concluded that those on board the missing aircraft of the IAF were to be “presumed dead”.
“It is with a feeling of profound sadness that the Court of Inquiry has recommended that your son/daughter be presumed to have been fatally injured,” the letter from IAF, dated August 24, 2016, to the families of those in the aircraft, had read.
The plane did not have an underwater locator system, which had made the search difficult. “No fewer than 201 search and rescue sorties, using all suitable aircraft at our disposal were undertaken. Approximately 2,17,800 square nautical miles (Sq Nm) have been covered multiple times by these aircraft,” the letter had stated.
This is not the only case of mysterious disappearance in AN-32 aircraft's troubled history. An AN-32 transport aircraft with 13 people onboard went missing on June 3, 2019, about 33 minutes after taking off from Assam's Jorhat for Arunachal Pradesh. The plane was found after a week-long search at a village in Arunachal Pradesh, with no survivors.
Parts of the aircraft were located 15-20 km north of the flight path of the An-32 aircraft in Arunachal Pradesh. IAF chopper teams were involved in this mission. In 2009, the IAF lost another AN-32 aircraft which crashed near a village in West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, killing all 13 defence personnel in the mishap.
(with inputs from agencies)
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