Indian Air Force intensifies efforts to find missing AN-32 aircraft, operation to continue through the night
Antonov An-32 transport aircraft
The Indian Air Force (IAF) has intensified efforts to locate the missing AN-32 transport aircraft, which went missing on Monday in Arunachal Pradesh.
"Despite challenges posed by vegetation, inhospitable terrain and poor weather, the search has been expanded. All leads from airborne sensors are being closely assessed and followed-up with search by aircraft and ground teams," the Air Force said on Twitter.
The IAF said that search by helicopters was adversely affected by the weather on Wednesday, the third day of the search operation. But the operation will continue through the night with support from the Indian Army, Navy, police and state administration, the IAF said.
A team of 13 Air Force personnel along with satellites of the ISRO and Naval P-8I spy planes have been pressed into action over parts of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam to locate the missing aircraft. Su-30MKI, C-130J Super Hercules and other assets are also helping in the search operation in cloudy weather conditions.
Arunachal Pradesh’s civil administration set up three ground search parties – first team for Bayor Adi mountain range, second team for the Pari Adi mountain range and the third team for the Sibir Gong mountain range.
“Since the area is completely cut off and is a far-flung area falling near the Indo-China border, we are taking help of the locals who are well versed with the terrain. The place where the aircraft was last spotted does not have any inhabitants, there is no mobile network and there is no motorable road making the operations for the ground search parties extremely difficult,” said a senior officer of Arunachal Pradesh government.
Officials said the wreckage of the AN-32 transport aircraft has not been sighted so far.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh is being apprised of the situation by the Air Force on a regular basis.
The Antonov AN-32 with 13 personnel including seven officers and six air warriors on board went missing in Arunachal Pradesh.
The aircraft took off from Jorhat at 12:25pm on Monday and was headed for Menchuka Advance Landing Ground (ALG) in Arunachal Pradesh near China border. The last contact between the aircraft and ground agencies took place at 1pm.
Watch: Why the search operation is taking this long
The Soviet-era aircraft was inducted in the Air Force in the 1980s and has been undergoing upgrades.
Three years ago, on July 22, 2016, an airborne AN-32 aircraft had gone missing with 29 people on board.
The aircraft was travelling from Chennai to Port Blair in Andaman and Nicobar when it went missing over the Bay of Bengal.
(With inputs from agencies)