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IAF AN-32 Goes Missing Over Bay of Bengal |
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An Indian Air Force plane AN-32, which was carrying 29 personnel went missing over the Bay of Bengal. On Friday morning, the plane took off from Chennai and was heading to Port Blair. Over 12 Navy and Coast Guard ships have been deployed to search the aircraft in the Bay of Bengal. According to an officer, the aircraft – reportedly carrying six crew members, 11 Air Force personnel, two Army, one Navy personnel, a Coast Guard member and other civilians – may have crashed from an altitude of 23,000 feet.
The plane left Chennai’s Tembaram air base at 8.30 am for the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar chain of Islands, Port Blair. The scheduled arrival of the plane in Port Blair was at 11.45 am. As per sources, at 9.12 am, the plane fell off the radar. The pilot made the last call around 16 minutes after the plane took off, wherein it was reported that everything is normal. Navy spokesperson DK Sharma mentioned in the afternoon that the plane was found missing and as of now it will be termed as overdue.
There is an emergency beacon locator in the plane which gets activated if it meets with any crash. However, no such alert has been received from it till now. The Navy submarine has been sent to catch the underwater transmission from the locator.13 ships – Rajput, Kirch, Sahyadri, Ranvijay, Jyoti, Kamorta, Kora, Ghariyal, Karmuk, Kuthar, Sukanya, Shakti, and five surveillance aircraft including Dornier have been sent by the Navy.
AN-32 is a courier flight which takes usually service personnel to the islands near the Malacca Straits, where there is an Indian military base.
Indian Air Force has over 100 Russian-made AN-32s. This aircraft has the specialty of flying for at least four hours without refueling and operates in all types of weather conditions. This aircraft is also used as supply planes for deserts and mountains.
