An AN-32 transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) with 29 people on board went missing over the Bay of Bengal on Friday, Defence Ministry officials said, adding that a full-scale search and rescue mission has been launched.
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The disappearance of an air force transport aircraft with 29 personnel onboard which is presumed to have been lost at sea during a flight to Port Blair has striking similarities with a coast guard Dornier plane that went missing under mysterious circumstances past year.
A total of 12 India Navy ships, 4 Indian Coast Guard ships along with 17 aircraft from Indian Air Force have been mobilized in a massive search operation in the Bay of Bengal.
The 29 people on board the Air Force’s workhorse for a long period included six crew members, two of them pilots and one navigator.
It has also diverted a submarine at sea for locating transmissions from the emergency locator beacon on board the aircraft.
There are more than 100 Russian-made AN-32s in service with the IAF.
As per reports, INS Jalashwa is expected to reach the area today to assist in the search operations.
With concern mounting hours after its disappearance, five surveillance aircraft and 13 navy and coastguard ships began searching on Friday for the plane, which vanished shortly after takeoff from the southern city of Chennai. “Among the missing personnel is one person from Tamil Nadu”, the official said.
The aircraft also had two personnel from Kerala.
Sources say the Navy, Coast Guard and Air Force may expand the area of search operation if needed.
The AN-32, sources said, was “then observed to have carried out a left turn with rapid loss of height from 23,000 feet”.
The last that the anxious relatives heard from Naik I.P.Vimal and Petty Officer Sajeev Kumar, who hail from Kozhikode, was that they are about to board the aircraft bound for Port Blair.
More than 48 hours after the aircraft went missing, there was no trace of it as the search operations continued without any break.
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“It lost contact with the radars approximately 150 nautical miles east of Chennai”, IAF Wing Commander Anupam Banerjee told AFP.
