Hunt for missing plane begins in Arunachal
By chennaivision at 10 June, 2009, 11:52 am
Guwahati, Hunt for the missing AN-32 of the Indian Air Force (IAF) began at the crack of dawn today as four choppers took off from all the airport bases of IAF located in upper Assam.
According to IAF spokesman B Sahu, choppers are concentrating in the West Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh, which is mountainous and full of jungles. It would take days to reach there from the nearest motorable point.
The transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force, carrying six IAF personnel and four army men, besides eight civilians, went missing yesterday over the mountains in Arunachal Pradesh near the border with China and was feared to have crashed, according to sources.
The IAF source said the AN-32 cargo aircraft, on a routine food supply sortie, went missing after it left Mechuka, along the China border in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Siang district, at around 1400 hrs yesterday.
The plane went off the radar at 1630 hrs, IAF sources in Jorhat said.
”The focus is now on to find out whether there is any survivor after locating the wreckage and the black box,” Air Vice-Marshal P K Barbora said over telephone from New Delhi.
Although the identity of the crew and other passengers was not disclosed, an IAF spokesman in Shillong said the air crew was led by a wing commander.
The aircraft was returning to the Roroya air base at Jorhat after food sortie supply, said the sources.
The Indian Air Force conducted an air reconnaissance in the mountains of Arunachal Pradesh, looking for either the plane or its wreckage, the IAF spokesman added.
”The six civilians were being ferried as part of the IAF plane’s regular sortie. All these places are very remote where it is quite common practice to take civilians on board,” said the IAF spokesman.
The AN-32 is a Russina-made transport aircraft which was acquired by the Indian Air Force in the 1980s. It is considered to be a safe aircraft, IAF sources said adding the last crash involving an AN-32 was at Delhi in 1999.
The IAF has about 100 AN-32 aircraft that were first inducted in early 1980s.
The IAF was planning to upgrade the engines and avionics for the aircraft, which can carry up to 40 passengers, in order to extend their life. It also plans to eventually replace them with the medium-role transport aircraft that India is jointly developing with Russia, sources further informed.
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