Even a submarine has been inducted into Bay of Bengal to search for the missing IAF aircraft.
Advertisement
“Reached Tambaram to monitor operations on IAF AN-32 aircraft”, Parrikar tweeted upon his arrival at the suburban airforce here.
Chennai: Two Kozhikode natives were on board the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) AN 32 transport plane that went missing on Friday – Vimal (30) of Kottooppadam, Kakkodi, and Sajeevkumar (37) of Kakkoor. However, what adds to the concern is the fact that this aircraft can only fly for up to four hours without re-fuelling.
Twelve naval ships were diverted from their missions to be part of the search operation, the Defense Ministry said. The plane was flying at about 23,000 feet when its contact was lost.
A navy spokesman said surveillance planes and ships were searching for the aircraft.
Indian Navy has deployed 13 ships in the search area and is being assisted by six ships of Indian Coast Guard and merchant vessels in the area.
The submarine had been deployed to locate transmissions from an emergency locator beacon on the aircraft.
The plane fell off the radar at 9.12 am, 280 km east of Chennai. “At around 3 PM, one of his friends from Visakhapatnam called us and informed that the plane on which Charan was travelling had gone missing”, said a visibly devastated Sudam Moharana, Charan’s father.
The last crash involving an AN32 was in 2009 in which the aircraft went down soon after taking off from the Machuka advanced landing ground (ALG) in Arunachal Pradesh.
It was carrying service personnel to the strategic islands near the Malacca Straits, where India has a military base.
In 2013, all 20 people on board a military helicopter were killed when it crashed in northern India.
Advertisement
According to IAF, the AN-32 is a twin engine turboprop, medium tactical transport aircraft of Russian origin.
