The mystery surrounding the missing IAF plane has finally been solved after nearly eight years, as some parts of its wreckage were located at a depth of nearly 3.4 km in the Bay of Bengal recently. The ill-fated AN-32 transport plane, with 29 personnel onboard, was en route to the Port of Blair after taking off from Tambaram airbase in Chennai on July 22, 2016, when it went missing.
Providing details on Friday, the Defence Ministry said that a scrutiny of the images captured by an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) deployed by the National Institute of Ocean Technology recently confirmed that the wreckage located 310 km off the Chennai coast is of an AN-32 aircraft.
“The search images were scrutinised and found to be conforming with an AN-32 aircraft. This discovery at the probable crash site, with no other recorded history of any other missing aircraft report in the same area, points to the debris as possibly belonging to the crashed IAF AN-32,” the ministry said in a statement.
The IAF’s AN-32 aircraft with registration number K-2743 went missing over the Bay of Bengal on July 22, 2016, during a mission.
One of the most extensive search and rescue missions in the country, involving aircraft and ships, could not locate any missing personnel or the wreckage of the plane since it disappeared.
The National Institute of Ocean Technology, operating under the Ministry of Earth Sciences, recently deployed an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV) with deep-sea exploration capabilities at the last known location of the missing AN-32 aircraft.
“This search was conducted at a depth of 3,400 metres using multiple payloads, including a multi-beam SONAR (Sound Navigation and Ranging), synthetic aperture SONAR, and high-resolution photography,” the Defence Ministry said.
Analysis of search images indicated the presence of debris from a crashed aircraft on the seabed approximately 140 nautical miles (3.10 km) from the Chennai coast, it added.
The transport aircraft took off from the Tambaram air base in Chennai at 8:30 am on July 22, 2016, and was supposed to land at Port Blair in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands around 11:30 am after covering a distance of 750 nautical miles (1,300 km). When the plane failed to land, the search and rescue mission was launched at 11.45 am. Reports indicated that radars had last seen the plane about 9.15 am, 200 km east of Chennai.
The service personnel on board the missing plane included four officers and 25 others, officials said. While the plane was manned by a crew of six, other passengers included 11 from the IAF, nine Navy men, two from the Army, and one from the Coast Guard. Port Blair is the home to the tri-services command.
Sixteen minutes after take-off, the pilot reportedly made the last call and said, “Everything is normal.”
The aircraft rapidly lost altitude from 23,000 feet and was off the radar around 9:12 am, 280 km off the Chennai coast. Almost eight years after the crash, debris from the crashed aircraft has been located 310 km from the coast in the same area.
The massive search operation launched then included the Navy’s Dornier aircraft and 11 ships: Sahyadri, Rajput, Ranvijay, Kamorta, Kirch, Karmuk, Kora, Kuthar, Shakti, Jyoti, Ghariyal, and Sukanya.
